Wes Anderson cites Akira Kurosawa as an influence for Isle of Dogs

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

You don’t have to wait for the credits to know when you’re watching a Wes Anderson movie.  The cinematography, dialogue and pacing are so uniquely his own that his style has gone virtually unreplicated. But even the most original of voices get their inspiration from somewhere, and recently Anderson shared what influences his work – particularly his upcoming movie, ISLE OF DOGS.

Anderson sat down for a lengthy chat about his career up to this point that was recorded by ARTE Cinema, and when talking about ISLE he cited an important influence that no one was expecting to hear, but was obviously met with a positive response:

The new film is really less influenced by stop-motion movies than it is by Akira Kurosawa.

The audience of film nerds wanted to hear more, but Anderson was a bit hesitant when the moderator tried to follow-up:

The reason to hide your [inspirations] is because you’re trying to steal them, and if you can sneak them in then you’ve gained something without having to lose something.

This would seem like an odd inspiration for a stop-motion children’s movie about a boy searching for his dog, but being based on a Roald Dahl book means it inherently won’t be like most other children’s movies anyway. However, he also cited Rankin-Bass Christmas specials like RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER as inspirations, if you’d prefer him to have more appropriate influences:

I really liked these TV Christmas specials in America. I always liked the creatures in the Harryhausen-type films, but really these American Christmas specials were probably the thing that really made me first want to do it.

One of the factors that make Anderson such a great director is that he’s always looking outside of the box when it comes to making his movies. I can’t think of any better way for him to approach this children’s movie than to draw from one of the greatest directors of all time. Sure it won’t be like SEVEN SAMURAI or RASHOMAN, but Anderson was likely influenced in terms of storytelling scope and depth than depth. I could go for a movie with samurai dog, though. Just sayin.

ISLE OF DOGS will star Edward Norton Bryan Cranston, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson, Bill Murray, F. Murray Abraham, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Bob Balaban and Liev Schrieber.