Re: Moonrise Kingdom, Potential Paper Topics Therein

Wes Anderson’s latest offered a perfect moviegoing experience. And while you have every reason to just sit there and enjoy it for the magic that it is, you could also attempt to break it apart with your cruelly analytical English major mind. Personally, I don’t have the time. But in case you do…

Representations of animals (literal and metaphorical, real and artificial)

Mythologies and storytelling — “real” stories like Noah’s Ark and Ivanhoe vs. ones invented by characters themselves to explain unknown circumstances

Eyewear and associated other visual equipment

Types of vanishing (could be related to eyewear and vision)

Light — lightning, blackouts, lighthouses, faux lighthouses (could be an extension of the previous two)

What does the title mean? (The moon never appears, unless I’m mistaken. Is it a reference to rising tides and the island’s tidal rivers? Or is the moon another eye/source of light?)

Protagonists named Sam and Suzy — intentional reference to “Muskrat Love?” (seems less unlikely when you consider Wes Anderson’s previous movie)

This is all for now. However, if there’s not a band named The Francine Odysseys by the end of the year, I owe you a Coke. It’s the most marketable of all Suzy’s books. The more daring band, of course, would go with The Return of Auntie Lorraine.