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As Fantastic Mr Foxopens in cinemas today, DONALD CLARKEasks why children’s films must have the hippest scriptwriters, the indiest soundtrackers and the coolest directors. Is it because they’re not for children?

THIS WEEK, Jason Schwartzman provides the voice for a young fox in Wes Anderson’s stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox. So, I guess he just turned up at the studio and muttered his lines into a microphone? “We did it with all the cast together in various locations and acted it all out,” he says. “Wes wanted to get the ensemble all together in the right environment. So sometimes we were all outside and when my character kicked something he really kicked it. It was just like acting, but without cameras.”