Rushmore is a 1998 American comedy film Like Max Fischer, Wilson was expelled from his preparatory school, St. Mark’s School of Texas, in the tenth grade. Anderson and Wilson began writing the screenplay for Rushmore years before they made Bottle Rocket. Rushmore was originally going to be made for New Line Cinema but when they could not agree on a budget, Anderson, Wilson and producer Barry Mendel held an auction for the film rights in mid-1997 and struck a deal with Joe Roth, then-chair of Walt Disney Studios. He offered them a $10million budget.

Casting

Anderson and Wilson wrote the role of Mr. Blume with Bill Murray in mind but doubted they could get the script to him. Murray's agent was a fan of Anderson's first film, Bottle Rocket, and urged Murray to read the script for Rushmore. Murray liked it so much that he agreed to work for scale, which Anderson estimated to be around $9,000. The actor was drawn to Anderson and Wilson's "precise" writing and felt that a lot of the film was about "the struggle to retain civility and kindness in the face of extraordinary pain. And I've felt a lot of that in my life". Anderson created detailed storyboards for each scene but was open to Murray's knack for improvisation. In October 1997, approximately a month before principal photography was to begin, a casting director for the film met the seventeen-year-old musician-turned-actor at a party thanks to Schwartzman's cousin, film-maker Sofia Coppola. He came to his audition wearing a preparatory-school blazer and a self-made Rushmore patch. When Anderson met Schwartzman, he reminded Anderson much more of Dustin Hoffman and decided to go that way with the character. Alexis Bledel is an extra as a Grover Cleveland High School student.

Principal photography

right|thumb|[[St. John's School (Texas)|St. John's School was used for the picturesque setting of Rushmore Academy.]]

Filming began in November 1997 On the first day of principal photography, Anderson delivered his directions to Murray in a whisper so that he would not be embarrassed if the actor shot him down. However, the actor publicly deferred to Anderson, hauled equipment, and when Disney denied the director a $75,000 shot of Max and Mr. Blume riding in a helicopter, Murray gave Anderson a blank check to cover the cost, although ultimately, the scene was never shot. Instead, the film was shot in and around Houston, Texas where Anderson grew up. His high school alma mater, St. John's School, was used for the picturesque setting of Rushmore Academy. Many scenes were also filmed at North Shore High School. The film's widescreen, slightly theatrical look was influenced by Roman Polanski's Chinatown.

Initially, the character of Margaret Yang was supposed to have a wooden finger, having been blown off in a science experiment. The idea was abandoned, but later on used in Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums, where Margot has a wooden finger.

Cinematography

Rushmore uses the unique style of cinematography that Wes Anderson has become well known for. The film has a singular sense of colour, focusing mainly on blues, greens, and reds in order to create a heightened reality. The montage sequence near the beginning of the film is strongly influenced by the rapid transitions used by French New Wave film-makers. The shot of Max in the go-kart also resembles a photograph by Jacques Henri Lartigue. Disney executives almost cancelled the montage sequence as they did not believe that these short singular shots were necessary due to the film's restrictive budget and time frame. Therefore, the sequence was shot quickly whenever the crew were at a suitable location.

Themes

Anderson confirmed that the protagonist Max is a semi-autobiographical version of himself, including his tendency to write school plays, except that Max is not shy. Anderson has come to be known as an auteur for this distinct style and frequent collaborations with the same actors and production members. Devin Orgeron claims that Anderson's auteurship is interesting in his consistent "cinematic and extracinematic confrontation with the very question of auteurship". In Anderson's films, and especially Rushmore, the protagonist is a "flawed but ultimately redeemable" auteur. However, in both the protagonists' and Anderson's ties to their communities, an idea of "collective auteurship" is proffered.

Mark Olsen writes that Anderson observes his characters chasing "their miniaturist renditions of the American Dream" and that "they embody both sides of William Carlos Williams' famous edict that the pure products of America go crazy".

Deborah J. Thomas argues that Rushmore has a certain level of deliberate artifice. She observes a tension between irony and affect, and the clash "between these aesthetic modes destabilises normative assumptions and expectations in relation to character engagement." For her Anderson uses a "series of strategies in relation to framing, camera angles, shot scales, sound and performance that are designed to unsettle the audience's experience of proximity to, and hence intimacy with, the characters".

In the film, Anderson frequently employs the visual device of a stage, or stage curtains, to present the action. Rachel Joseph speculates that there is a link between these "screened stages" and the theme of mourning, for this "framed theatricality ... parallels the grieving process of reenacting and repeating the traumatic". She also draws a connection between this style of presentation and the "cinema of attractions" that Tom Gunning theorised.

Soundtrack

Wes Anderson originally intended for the film's soundtrack to be entirely made up of songs by the Kinks, feeling the music suited Max's loud and angry nature and because Max was initially envisioned to be a British exchange student. However, while Anderson listened to a compilation of other British Invasion songs on the set, the soundtrack gradually evolved until only one song by the Kinks remained in the film ("Nothin' in the World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'Bout That Girl"). According to Anderson, "Max always wears a blazer and the British Invasion sounds like music made by guys in blazers, but still rock 'n' roll". Anderson also pays homage to the Charles Schulz/Bill Melendez Peanuts television specials, playing "Hark The Herald Angels Sing" from the famous A Charlie Brown Christmas in one of the film's scenes.

Track listing

  1. "Hardest Geometry Problem in the World" – Mark Mothersbaugh
  2. "Making Time" – The Creation
  3. "Concrete and Clay" – Unit 4 + 2
  4. "Nothin' in the World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'Bout That Girl" – The Kinks
  5. "Sharp Little Guy" – Mark Mothersbaugh
  6. "The Lad With the Silver Button" – Mark Mothersbaugh
  7. "A Summer Song" – Chad & Jeremy
  8. "Edward Appleby (In Memoriam)" – Mark Mothersbaugh
  9. "Here Comes My Baby" – Cat Stevens
  10. "A Quick One, While He's Away" – The Who
  11. "Snowflake Music" (from Bottle Rocket) – Mark Mothersbaugh
  12. "Piranhas Are a Very Tricky Species" – Mark Mothersbaugh
  13. "Blinuet" – Zoot Sims
  14. "Friends Like You, Who Needs Friends" – Mark Mothersbaugh
  15. "Rue St. Vincent" – Yves Montand
  16. "Kite Flying Society" – Mark Mothersbaugh
  17. "The Wind" – Cat Stevens
  18. "Oh Yoko!" – John Lennon
  19. ""Ooh La La"" – Faces
  20. "Margaret Yang's Theme" – Mark Mothersbaugh

Release

Rushmore had its world premiere at the 1998 Toronto International Film Festival on September 17, and also screened at the 25th Telluride Film Festival where it was one of the few studio films to be screened and be well received by both critics and audiences. The film was also screened at the 1998 New York Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival where it was a hit with critics. The film opened in New York City and Los Angeles for one week in December in order to be eligible for the Academy Awards.

A Criterion Collection Blu-ray was released on November 22, 2011. It was released on Ultra HD Blu-ray by Criterion on September 30, 2025, as part of the ten film collection The Wes Anderson Archive: Ten Films, Twenty-Five Years.

Reception

Box office

Rushmore opened for a week at single theaters in New York City and Los Angeles on December 11, 1998. In one weekend, it earned a combined , selling out 18 of 31 showings. Its domestic total gross was $17,105,219, On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 86 out of 100 based on 32 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.

In his review for the Daily News, film critic Dave Kehr praised Rushmore as "a magnificent work" and picked it as the best movie of the year. USA Today gave the film three out of four stars and wrote that Bill Murray was "at his off-kilter best". Todd McCarthy, in his review for Variety, admired the film's deep-focus widescreen compositions, and felt that it gave the story "exceptional vividness". In his review for Time, Richard Schickel praised Rushmore as a "delightfully droll comedy", but felt it indulges in itself a little too much. He observed the film brought up "many dark and weighty emotional objects", and tried to conclude them in a "satisfying way".

In her review for the New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote that Anderson is smart enough to avoid turning sentimental, observing how Max "starts off on top of the Rushmore world and experiences a wonderfully welcome comeuppance". In his review for The Independent, Anthony Quinn thought Rushmore was different than all the many "high-school flicks every week", describing it as an "adolescent tragi-comedy, neurotic-romantic triangle" and a "study in loss and loneliness". He praised Schwartzman for playing a character who has not emotionally matured yet, and thought Murray gave an "emotional turnaround" performance. In her review for the Washington Post, Rita Kempley praised Schwartzman's performance for winning "sympathy and a great deal of affection for Max, never mind that he could grow into Sidney Blumenthal". Entertainment Weekly gave Rushmore an "A" rating and opined that Anderson used the 1960s British Invasion hits to "further define Max's adolescent dislocation". Jonathan Rosenbaum, in his review for the Chicago Reader, wrote that Anderson and Wilson do not "share the class snobbery" in much of Salinger's work, but still thought that they "harbor a protective gallantry toward their characters" which is, at the same time, the film's greatest strength and weakness.

In Time Out New York, Andrew Johnston called it one of the year's finest films and thought it reminds him of Harold and Maude but also added that the "complexity of Max and the audacity of the film's set pieces place it in a league of its own." Film critic David Ansen ranked Rushmore the 10th best film of 1998.

Some critics did not review the film as positively. In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan criticized Max's overtly "snooty" personality as "too off-putting to tolerate", which could potentially discourage audiences when identifying with the film. Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four citing an issue with the film's shift in tone in the final act, stating "the air goes out of the movie" in regards to "stage-setting and character development". He further wrote that the film is torn between being structured like a comedy and having "undertones of darker themes", remarking that he wished the film had "allowed the plot to lead them into those shadows".

A lifelong fan of film critic Pauline Kael, Anderson arranged a private screening of Rushmore for the retired writer. Afterwards, she told him, "I genuinely don't know what to make of this movie". It was a nerve-wracking experience for Anderson but Kael did like the film and told others to see it. Murray was also nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category for the Golden Globes. The National Society of Film Critics also named Murray as Best Supporting Actor of the year as did the New York Film Critics.

Rushmore is on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies". The film was also ranked on Entertainment Weekly magazine's "The Cult 25: The Essential Left-Field Movie Hits Since '83" list and ranked it on their Top 25 Modern Romances list. Spin hailed the film as "the best comedy of the year". and it was ranked the decade's ninth best film in two polls – one for The A.V. Club and the other for Paste. Time Out included it among the 50 best movies of the 1990s, calling it Anderson's "most perfectly imagined film".

ShortList included the film on their list of "The 30 Coolest Films Ever". Ryan Gilbey of The Guardian listed it as the eighth best comedy film ever made. In November 2015, the film was ranked the 39th funniest screenplay by the Writers Guild of America in its list of 101 Funniest Screenplays.

Murray's career experienced a renaissance after the film, and he established himself as an actor in independent film.

In 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

See also

  • List of cult films

References

  • Rushmore an essay by Dave Kehr at the Criterion Collection