It features an expansive ensemble cast and follows three different storylines as the French news bureau of the fictional Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun newspaper publishes its final issue. Bill Murray also stars as Arthur Howitzer Jr. That December, the film was officially announced, with Anderson calling it a "love letter to journalists". Filming took place between November and March , with cinematographer Robert D.
In post-production, editing was completed by Andrew Weisblum and the score was composed by Alexandre Desplat. According to the wishes expressed in his will, publication of the magazine is immediately suspended following one final farewell issue, in which four articles are published, along with an obituary.
He compares the past and the present of each place, demonstrating how much and yet how little has changed in Ennui over time. Berensen delivers a lecture at the art gallery of her former employer, Upshur "Maw" Clampette, in which she details the career of Moses Rosenthaler.
Rosenthaler, a mentally disturbed artist serving a sentence in the Ennui prison for murder, paints an abstract nude portrait of Simone, a prison officer with whom he develops a relationship. Julien Cadazio, an art dealer also serving a sentence for tax evasion, is immediately taken by the painting and buys it despite Rosenthaler's protests.
Upon his release, Cadazio convinces his family of art exhibitors to put it on display, and Rosenthaler soon becomes a sensation in the art world. Privately, Rosenthaler struggles with inspiration to the point of near-suicide, and devotes himself to a long-term project at Simone's challenging. Three years later, Cadazio, his uncles, Clampette, Berensen, and a mob of artists inspired by Rosenthaler, all frustrated at the lack of further paintings, bribe their way into the prison to confront him, only to discover that his masterpiece is in fact a series of frescoes in the concrete prison hall.
