The Music Story in The Grand Budapest Hotel

By Zhaozhen Zou

Volume 18 Analysis

Discussion Questions

Conventional attitudes toward the genre of video essay might argue that the analysis they can offer are less "rigorous" than that of a written essay. It's certainly true that the way one engages with the essay is different; but in what ways does Zou's essay suggest the rigor of both her analysis and research?
This essay essentially functions as a visual analysis, but as argued through a specifically visual means. How does the nature of the visual analysis change when presented in such a visual way? How is the presentation of evidence and analysis differently configured?
In a video essay about music, how does the rhythm of the essay's own editing effect the experience of the argument? On the written page, we often stress the importance of transitions; does the visual editing of Zou's essay do its own transitional work for the viewer? How does it guide and prepare the reader? And what work does it do with regard to pathos?

Author
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Zhaozhen Zou

Zhaozhen "Michelle" Zou is a philosophy and pre-med major from Shanghai, China, currently residing in Pasquerilla East Hall. After graduation, she hopes to pursue a career in the field of medicine. She has great interest in music and art, which most probably stemmed from her 15-year piano experience. It was her love for music that inspired her to explore Wes Anderson's films from a musical perspective. In her video essay "The Music Story in the Grand Budapest Hotel", she investigates Alexandre Desplat's use of music motifs to convey the film's core message to the audience: the nostalgia for a spirit of humanity in the past. She would like to give special thanks to her Writing and Rhetorics professor Nathaniel Myers for his support and guidance through the course of the semester.