Yeoman explains that he was at first dubious about the decision to have the actors address the camera. “It’s always not only a physical but a mental exercise.” “Wes likes to challenge all of us,” Yeoman says. It results in an experience where you can see the team effort of the production in the final result. In certain moments, you see the performers putting on Kasia Walicka Maimone’s costumes, transforming into their characters. The camera, operated by Anderson’s longtime cinematographer, Robert Yeoman, follows the actors walking through production designer Adam Stockhausen’s sets, which themselves are almost alive in the way they are transmutable. “Pretty early on, I had this thought that we would have a small company that would all play more than one role and there would be stagehands assisting them, and that essentially it would be like a kind of peculiar version of a movie presenting a play,” Anderson explains. It’s a Russian nesting doll of a story, made all the more intricate by Anderson’s decision to stage it so the audience is treated to seeing how the sets move and slide from one scene to the next.

From there, the narrative swings back to Henry Sugar, who trains himself to do the same with the initial idea of using the skill to win at cards - but eventually uses it for more altruistic purposes. Eventually, we are treated to Imdad’s account of how he learned this from a great yogi (Richard Ayoade).

From there, the saga travels back in time to India, where a doctor (Dev Patel) recounts the story of a circus performer, Imdad Khan (Ben Kingsley), who claims to be able to see without his eyes. In about 40 minutes, Anderson tells a multilayered tale about the title character (Benedict Cumberbatch), a British gadabout who finds a curious report in a mansion’s grand library. And while Anderson ended up making four shorts out of Dahl’s stories, all of which are out on Netflix, the marquee title, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, is now nominated for an Oscar for best live-action short. That strategy involved having his actors narrate the story in direct address to camera, and hiring his The Grand Budapest Hotel star Ralph Fiennes to play Dahl himself. Nicole Kidman: 'I've Definitely Had an Extreme Life'

Mr sugar story book