Read The Grand Budapest Hotel Online
Authors: Wes Anderson
The Grand Budapest Hotel
screenplay by
WES ANDERSON
story by
WES ANDERSON & HUGO GUINNESS
by Hugo Guinness
I remember in Paris, 2007, Wes and I spent some time in
restaurants
and cafés and on walks in public parks discussing a mutual friend of ours. We talked about the things he said, his life, his
mannerisms
. He was an unusual character – full of anecdotes, charm, and
bon mots
.
He made us laugh.
Wes would write occasional casual notes about him. I then returned to New York and heard nothing from Wes about this character for five or six years. He was forgotten.
In 2012, out of the blue, Wes revived him.
We worked together over a period of several weeks and then multiple telephone calls. The character became M. Gustave H, the bisexual concierge of a hotel in middle Europe. A plot was devised around him, and dialogue was written, inch by inch. I would offer the occasional comment and answer Wes’s hypothetical questions. If an idea or a line of dialogue by me actually got into the script, it was a good day. Mostly I just listened, and my suggestions were ignored. In a few short weeks, the script was finished, and Wes was off to East Germany to shoot
The Grand Budapest Hotel
.
by Wes Anderson
Hugo has either deliberately or involuntarily distorted the above account of our collaboration.
I do not recall him ever being satisfied to see his suggestions ignored. He would, instead, become extremely moody and irritated in those instances, which usually makes him slightly funnier, and it’s when he came up with some of our best bits.
Also, he is not inclined to sit back and listen. His instinct, I find, is to disagree and say something slightly belittling. His critic ism is always insightful and pointed, not to say cruel, which helps it stick in the mind, often permanently. His contribution to this story should not be underestimated by anyone other than himself.
The Grand Budapest Hotel
was first shown at the Berlin Film Festival
in February 2014
Fox Searchlight Pictures in association with
Indian Paintbrush and Studio Babelsberg present
An American Empirical Picture
| PRINCIPAL CAST | ||
| | | |
| M. GUSTAVE | | Ralph Fiennes |
| ZERO MOUSTAFA | | Tony Revolori |
| MR. MOUSTAFA | | Murray Abraham |
| SERGE X. | | Mathieu Amalric |
| DMITRI | | Adrien Brody |
| JOPLING | | Willem Dafoe |
| DEPUTY KOVACS | | Jeff Goldblum |
| LUDWIG | | Harvey Keitel |
| YOUNG WRITER | | Jude Law |
| M. IVAN | | Bill Murray |
| HENCKELS | | Edward Norton |
| AGATHA | | Saoirse Ronan |
| M. JEAN | | Jason Schwartzman |
| CLOTILDE | | Léa Seydoux |
| MADAME D. | | Tilda Swinton |
| AUTHOR | | Tom Wilkinson |
| M. CHUCK | | Owen Wilson |
| PRINCIPAL CREW | ||
| | ||
| Directed by | | Wes Anderson |
| Produced by | | Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales, Jeremy Dawson |
| Director of Photography | | Robert Yeoman A . S . C . |
| Edited by | | Barney Pilling |
| Production Designer | | Adam Stockhausen |
| Costume Designer | | Milena Canonero |
| Music by | | Alexandre Desplat |
| Music Supervisor | | Randall Poster |
| Special Photography Unit | | Roman Coppola |
| Casting Directors | | Douglas Aibel, Jina Jay |
EXT. CEMETERY. DAY
The present. A graveyard in the city center of a great Eastern European capital. Frost covers the ground among the stones and between rows of leafless trees. A teenage girl in a beret and trench-coat with a well-read, dog-eared novel called
The Grand Budapest Hotel
tucked under her arm stands facing a tarnished bust of a slender, balding, spectacled old man. A bronze plaque below reads, in large letters:
AUTHOR
Insert:
The plaque. There is a block of smaller text at the bottom which states simply:
IN MEMORY OF OUR NATIONAL TREASURE
All around the base of the statue there are little metal hooks, from which hang hundreds of hotel-room keys of every age and variety from all over the world. The girl adds a new set to the tribute.
INT. STUDY. DAY
Twenty years ago. A cluttered office with French windows and ornate mouldings. There are books in shelves and stacks, first editions, dictionaries, dime-store paper backs, translations in numerous languages. There is a typewriter on the desk and an extensive collection of literary prizes on a bureau.
The author, seventy-five and identical to his sculpted image, sits with his hands clasped and addresses the camera.
AUTHOR
It is an extremely common mistake: people think the writer’s imagination is always at work, that he is constantly inventing an endless supply of incidents and episodes, that
he simply dreams up his stories out of thin air. In point of fact, the opposite is true. Once the public knows you are a writer, they bring the characters and events to
you
– and as long as you maintain your ability to look and carefully listen, these stories will continue to seek you out –
A six-year-old boy dressed in a grey military uniform with short trousers appears next to the desk and points a miniature Luger pistol at the author. The author warns him, icy:
AUTHOR
Don’t do it. Don’t!
The boy hesitates, then fires. A yellow, plastic pellet ricochets off the author’s chest and rings against a whiskey glass as the author makes a violent lunge for the boy – who evades him and dashes off. The author looks at a note card and rambles a bit, searching for his place.
AUTHOR
Over your lifetime. I can’t tell you how many times. Somebody comes up to me. (
Back on track
.) To him who has often told the tales of others, many tales will be told.
The boy returns, the gun now tucked under his belt, and sits, immediately comfortable, on the author’s lap with the old man’s arms wrapped around his shoulders. The conflict seems never to have existed. They both look into the camera as the author concludes:
AUTHOR
The incidents that follow were described to me exactly as I present them here, and in a wholly unexpected way.
EXT. MOUNTAIN RANGE. DAY
The late sixties. A stunning view from a rusty, iron-lattice terrace suspended over a deep crevasse, green and lush, alongside a high cascade. The author continues in voice-over as the camera glides along a cracked path through a plot of untamed edelweiss and buttercups.
AUTHOR
(
voice-over
)
A number of years ago, while suffering from a mild case of ‘Scribe’s Fever’ (a form of neurasthenia common among
the intelligentsia of that time), I had decided to spend the month of August in the spa town of Nebelsbad below the Alpine Sudetenwaltz – and had taken up rooms in the Grand Budapest –
The camera comes to a stop as it reveals a sprawling
nineteenth-century
hotel and baths situated on a wide plateau. There is a deep, formidable staircase up to a regal entrance. There is a promenade above and a glass-panelled conservatory below. A rickety funicular groans as it slowly climbs its hillside tracks. The grass needs cutting, the roof needs patching, and more or less every surface of the building needs a coat of paint.
– a picturesque, elaborate, and once widely celebrated establishment. I expect some of you will know it. It was
off-season
and, by that time, decidedly out-of-fashion; and it had already begun its descent into shabbiness and eventual demolition.
Montage:
The nine other guests of the hotel each observed from a respectful distance: a frail student; a fat businessman; a burly hiker with a St. Bernard; a schoolteacher with her hair in a bun; a doctor; a lawyer; an actor; and so on.
AUTHOR
(
voice-over
)
What few guests we were had quickly come to recognize one another by sight as the only living souls residing in the vast establishment – although I do not believe any acquaintance among our number had proceeded beyond the polite nods we exchanged as we passed in the Palm Court and the Arabian Baths and on board the Colonnade Funicular. We were a very reserved group, it seemed – and, without exception, solitary.
Cut to:
An enormous, half-abandoned dining room. There are two hundred tables and fifty chandeliers. The ten guests sit, each on his or her own, at their separate tables, widely spaced across the giant restaurant.
A waiter carries a tray a great distance to the schoolteacher and serves her a plate of peas.
INT. LOBBY. EVENING
There are faded couches, fraying armchairs, and coffee tables with new, plastic tops. The carpets are threadbare, and the lighting in each area is either too dim or too bright. A concierge with a crooked nose smokes a cigarette as he lingers behind his desk. He is M. Jean.
(
Note: the staff of the hotel in both the relevant time periods wear similar versions of the same purple uniform – while the public spaces reflect a cycle of ‘regime changes’.
)
On the wall behind M. Jean, there is a beautiful Flemish painting of a pale, young boy holding a piece of golden fruit. This is ‘Boy with Apple’. A patch of water damage above seeps dangerously close to the picture-frame.
The author
(
a fictionalized version of himself
)
wanders into the room with his hands in his pockets. He has dark circles under his eyes.
AUTHOR
(
voice-over
)
Perhaps as a result of this general silence, I had established a casual and bantering familiarity with the hotel’s concierge, a west-continental known only as M. Jean, who struck one as being, at once, both lazy and, really, quite accommodating.
M. Jean quickly stubs out his cigarette as the author approaches – and tucks the butt into his coat pocket.
AUTHOR
(
voice-over
)
I expect he was not well-paid.
The author and M. Jean chat amicably as they study a pamphlet of Alpine tourist sites.
In any case, one evening, as I stood conferring
elbow-to-elbow
with M. Jean, as had become my habit, I noticed a new presence in our company.
At the far end of the lobby, beyond Reception, a dark-skinned,
white-haired
seventy-year-old man in a three-piece-suit sits alone smoking a pipe. He is Mr. Moustafa.
AUTHOR
(
voice-over
)
A small, elderly man, smartly dressed, with an exceptionally lively, intelligent face – and an immediately perceptible air of sadness. He was, like the rest of us, alone – but also, I must say, he was the first that struck one as being, deeply and truly, lonely (a symptom of my own medical condition, as well).
Mr. Moustafa takes a sip of sherry. The author lowers his voice and asks discreetly:
AUTHOR
(
voice-over
)
‘Who’s this interesting, old fellow?’ I inquired of M. Jean. To my surprise, he was distinctly taken aback. ‘Don’t you
know
?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you
recognize
him?’ He did look familiar. ‘That’s Mr. Moustafa himself! He arrived early this morning.’
The author looks to Mr. Moustafa again. Mr. Moustafa is now staring directly back at the author. The author quickly looks away and examines a detail in the woodwork on the ceiling.
This name will, no doubt, be familiar to the more seasoned persons among you. Mr. Zero Moustafa was, at one time, the richest man in Zubrowka; and was still, indeed, the owner of the Grand Budapest. ‘He often comes and stays a week or more, three times a year, at least – but never in the season.’ M. Jean signaled to me, and I leaned closer. ‘I’ll tell you a secret. He takes only a single-bed sleeping-room without a bath in the rear corner of the top floor – and it’s smaller than the service elevator!’
The author seems genuinely intrigued by this information. He nods thoughtfully.
It was well-known: Moustafa had purchased and famously inhabited some of the most lavish castles and palazzos on the continent – yet, here, in his own, nearly empty hotel, he occupied a servant’s quarters?
M. Jean frowns. The fat businessman, sitting at a table in the middle of the lobby drinking hot chocolate and eating biscotti, appears to be choking to death.
At that moment the curtain rose on a parenthetical, domestic drama which required the immediate and complete attention of M. Jean –
M. Jean dashes out from behind his desk. As he performs an improvised version of the Heimlich maneuver on the fat businessman, the German hiker enters the lobby with his St. Bernard. The rescue dog, sensing a human in distress, charges avidly, hurdling three tables and jostling the dessert cart, and arrives at the fat businessman’s side just as a significant hunk of biscotti rockets out of his mouth, into the air, and lands on a saucer at the next table. M. Jean immediately detaches a cask hanging from the dog’s neck, pours a generous shot of brandy into a water glass, and forces it down the fat businessman’s throat.
– but, frankly, did not hold mine for long.
The other guests of the hotel begin to gather around the gasping victim as the author makes his way into the elevator. He presses a button, and the doors close.
Montage:
The author appears pensive as he: lies in bed that night staring up at the ceiling; sits in the dining room at breakfast eating toast and gazing into space; and floats through the conservatory ignoring flora at noon. He nods to the schoolteacher sketching an orchid. She smiles and nods back.
AUTHOR
(
voice-over
)
However, this premature intermission in the story of the curious old man had left me, as the expression goes,
gespannt wie ein Flitzebogen
, that is, on the edge of my seat – where I remained throughout the next morning until, in what I have found to be its mysterious and utterly reliable fashion, fate, once again, intervened on my behalf.
INT. SPA. DAY
A steamy, underground mineral baths. Miniature tiles of various shapes and intricate patterns cover every inch of the walls, floors, and ceiling. Distant voices echo faintly through succeeding chambers.
A long row of identical, adjacent cubicles, each containing a blue tub and tiled in a more recent, utilitarian style. The author soaks. He shakes salts from a carton into the water and stirs it.
A voice interrupts from off-screen:
MR. MOUSTAFA
(
out of shot
)
I admire your work.
The author hesitates. He looks around. He is not sure which general direction the voice came from.
AUTHOR
I beg your pardon?
MR. MOUSTAFA
(
out of shot
)
I said, I know and admire your wonderful work.
There is a small splash, and Mr. Moustafa leans into view from behind a partition where he himself is soaking in a cubicle three tubs over. He wears a bathing cap. The author sits up straight and says formally:
AUTHOR
Thank you most kindly, sir.
MR. MOUSTAFA
(
teasing slightly
)
Did M. Jean have a word or two to share with you about the aged proprietor of this establishment?
AUTHOR
(
reluctantly
)
I must confess, sir, I did, myself, inquire about you.
MR. MOUSTAFA
(
resigned
)
He’s perfectly capable, of course, M. Jean – but we can’t claim he’s a first- or, in earnest, even second-rate concierge. (
Sadly
.) But there it is. Times have changed.