Wes Anderson’s work is both aesthetically and thematically structured around two contradictory notions: scarcity and abundance. By establishing a tension between empty spaces and saturated frames , the American director gives shape to the theme of absence, which is at the heart of his movies. Loss, as the founding element of the plots, causes a sense of void in the characters, who try to fill this emptiness by resorting to different modes of abundance, such as hyperactivity, the accumulation of objects, or the reconstruction of the family unit. Thus, the act of collecting, under various forms, becomes a means for the characters to cope with their sense of loss.
But the only collection capable of solving this void in a substantial manner is the concept of family, restructured in a new form at the end of the majority of Anderson’s films. This article proposes to study this trajectory from scarcity to abundance through an aesthetic analysis of some of the motifs used by Anderson in his mise-en-scène.