Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson didn't set out to create one of the year's most talked about short films when he wrote, directed and produced the 13-minute "Hotel Chevalier." Instead, the quirky, creative force behind such films as "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" intended the short as a kind of prequel or "introduction" to his comedic road drama, "The Darjeeling Limited," which lands in theaters Oct. 5.

Jason Schwartzman limped around his friend's sun-dappled Nichols Canyon retreat looking highly apologetic. Frowning at his heels was his chubby French bulldog, Arrow. Schwartzman had broken his toe the day before, and as he made his way to a secluded outdoor table, he tried explaining. "It was like that scene in 'Karate Kid,' " he said, presumably casting himself in the Ralph Macchio role. Everyone was kicking soccer balls around like a bunch of Pel?s, he said.

New York Mention personal style and Wes Anderson, who was chortling just a moment ago, looks like he suddenly slurped down a bad oyster. "I don't want anyone to think I follow trends and fashion because, well, frankly. . . I just don't," says the director. Never mind the fact that Anderson is kitted out in a handmade khaki suit, marlin blue oxford with starched collar and cocoa-brown suede loafers that bear nary a scuff.

EVER since the French New Wave and the auteur theory arrived simultaneously on our shores in the early 1960s, there have been attempts to promote, as equivalent wavelets, succeeding generations of gifted American directors. The 1970s emergence of Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Bob Rafelson, William Friedkin, Michael Cimino and Hal Ashby is often celebrated as the golden age of the maverick filmmaker, able to make exciting, personal works within the studio system.

Muses are most often thought of as comely, lithe and young. Throughout history, they've usually been depicted as female guides to inner wisdom that spark the imaginations of great men. But for director Wes Anderson, whose loopy reimagining of the filmmaking experience, "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou," opens this week, the muse has recently taken the form of a middle-age man with faintly pockmarked skin, tufts of graying hair and sad, teardrop eyes -- the comedian Bill Murray.