Watch: Video Essay Pays Tribute To The Books In Wes Anderson's Films

Right from the get-go, Wes Anderson’s bookish sensibility has been a huge part of his appeal. His first two films, “Bottle Rocket” and “Rushmore,” are imbued with the kind of dense, rich characterization that you typically find only in good fiction. But it wasn’t until his third and arguably best film, 2001’s family epic “The Royal Tenenbaums,” that Anderson’s literary leanings blossomed into a fully realized stylistic obsession. His inclinations as such have been in place ever since, from the short stories that pop up in “The Darjeeling Limited” (“the characters are all fictional”, as one character is fond of saying), the meticulously illustrated children’s books favored by Suzy Bishop in “Moonrise Kingdom” and the arch, omnipotent narration and storybook structure of his most recent concoction “The Grand Budapest Hotel.”

Save for his delightful stop-motion yarn “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” Anderson has never made an outright adaptation —although 'Grand Budapest' is said to be loosely...