The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is a 2004 American adventurecomedy-drama film written by Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach and directed by Anderson.[1][2] It is Anderson's fourth feature-length film and was released in the United States on December 25, 2004.
The film stars Bill Murray as Steve Zissou, an eccentric oceanographer who sets out to exact revenge on the "jaguar shark" that ate his partner Esteban. Zissou is both a parody of and homage to French diving pioneer Jacques Cousteau, to whom the film is dedicated.
The film was released to mixed reviews and was a box office flop.[3] In the decade following its release it has garnered a cult following, and is now viewed more positively by both critics and fans.[4][5][6][7] It was also since remastered and re-released by The Criterion Collection in 2014.[8]
Plot
While oceanographer Steve Zissou is working on his latest documentary at sea, his best friend and chief diver, Esteban du Plantier, is devoured by a 10-meter-long, luminescently spotted creature Zissou describes as a "jaguar shark". For his next project, Zissou is determined to document the shark's destruction.
The crew aboard Zissou's aging research vesselBelafonte includes his estranged wife Eleanor, chief strategist and financial backer; Pelé dos Santos, a safety expert and Brazilian guitarist who sings David Bowie songs in Portuguese; and Klaus Daimler, the German first mate who views Zissou and Esteban as father figures. Minor crew members include Vikram Ray, cameraman; Bobby Ogata, frogman; Vladimir Wolodarsky, physicist and soundtrack composer; Renzo Pietro, sound man; and Anne-Marie Sakowitz, a script girl. Also included is a recent group of unpaid interns from the University of North Alaska. However, the "Team Zissou" venture has hit a decline, having not released a successful documentary in nine years.
Ned Plimpton, a longtime Zissou fan whose mother has recently died, believes that Zissou is his father. After they meet at Zissou's latest premiere, Ned takes annual leave from his job as an airline pilot in Kentucky to join his crew. As Oseary Drakoulias, Zissou's producer, cannot find a financier for their latest documentary, Ned offers his inheritance. Eleanor feels her husband is exploiting Ned and leaves.
Pregnant reporter Jane Winslett-Richardson comes to chronicle the voyage. Both Ned and Zissou are attracted to Jane and a competition develops between them. Klaus becomes jealous of the attention Zissou pays to Ned.
On their mission to find the jaguar shark, the Belafonte steals tracking equipment from a remote station owned by currently more successful oceanographer (also Eleanor's ex-husband and Zissou's nemesis), Alistair Hennessey. They then sail into unprotected waters and are attacked by Filipino pirates, who steal Ned's money and kidnap Bill Ubell, "a bond company stooge" assigned to the project. They are then rescued by Hennessey and towed to Port-au-Patois.[Note 1] Sakowitz, along with all but one of the interns, jumps ship once they reach port.
Zissou persuades Eleanor to rejoin the Belafonte and then leads the crew on a rescue mission. They track Bill to an abandoned hotel on a remote island, saving him along with Hennessey, whom the pirates have also kidnapped. Ned and Zissou make one last search for the shark in the ship's helicopter, but the aircraft malfunctions and they crash. Ned dies from his injuries and is buried at sea. Prior to Ned's death, Eleanor revealed to Jane that Zissou is sterile and therefore Ned could not have been his son.
Zissou finally tracks down the shark in a submersible but decides not to kill it, both because of its beauty and being out of dynamite. At the premiere of the finished documentary (which is dedicated to Ned, who is acknowledged as Zissou's son), Zissou receives a standing ovation while waiting outside the theater for the premiere to finish. The crew returns triumphantly to the ship the next day.
Writing about the metaphorical aspects of the film's setting—somewhere in the Mediterranean—film critic Elena Past says that the underwater scenes, because they are central to the storyline, make The Life Aquatic similar in some ways to Respiro. Both films set out a "Mediterranean state of being" where "having left the security of land, the characters in both films are suddenly confronted with the precarious nature of human existence, as the films that depict them tackle the challenges of representing the submarine world."[10]
Casting
James Gray originally signed on to play Wolodarsky but he left when he learned that he was going to spend five months in Italy.[11]
Exotic lifeforms
In addition to the luminescent-spotted jaguar shark, other fictional lifeforms (some stop-motion-animated) are cited and appear throughout the film, such as the rhinestone bluefin, crayon ponyfish, wild snow-mongoose, electric jellyfish, and sugar crabs. The animation work was done by Henry Selick.
The soundtrack to The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou contains a style typical of other Wes Anderson films. Mark Mothersbaugh, a member of Devo, composed the score, as he has for many of Anderson's other films. The film also features many rock songs from the 1960s-1980s, and several instrumental pieces composed by Sven Libaek for the underwater documentary television series Inner Space. Additionally, the film and soundtrack feature Seu Jorge performing David Bowie songs in Portuguese on the acoustic guitar. Jorge, who also plays the character of Pelé dos Santos, performs some of these cover songs live, in character during the film, mostly with modified lyrics reflecting Jorge's own experiences working on the film.[12] The ending scene depicting the beauty of the shark features the song "Starálfur" by Sigur Rós.
The Life Aquatic is Anderson's first film not to feature a Rolling Stones song.
Reception
Box office
The film grossed a total of $24,020,403 domestically after twelve weeks in release, less than half its $50 million production budget. It took in a further $10,788,000 internationally, bringing the total gross to $34,808,403.[13]
Critical response
Initial reviews of the film were mixed. The film has a 57% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 226 reviews, with an average rating of 6.10/10; the website's consensus states: "Much like the titular oceanographer, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou's overt irony may come off as smug and artificial – but for fans of Wes Anderson's unique brand of whimsy, it might be worth the dive."[14] The film has a 62/100 weighted average score on Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews."[15] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D" on an A+ to F scale.[16]
Anthony Lane, a film reviewer for The New Yorker, agreed with the conventional criticism of Anderson's deadpan style: that the underreaction of Anderson's characters used to be "hip" but has now become "frozen into a mannerism." He said that "some stretches of action" in the film are being "lightly held within quotation marks," with an "unmistakable air of playacting" in even the most violent scenes. He also criticized the film's deliberately "weird" set ups, which leave the viewer with "the impression of having nearly drowned in some secret and melancholy game."[17]
In the years since its initial release it has developed a cult following,[7][3] and it underwent a critical reevaluation. Many critics view it more favorably, and some, such as Mike D'Angelo of The A.V. Club, consider the film to still be "undervalued" when compared to the rest of Anderson's filmography.[4][5][6]
The DVD of the film was released by the Criterion Collection on May 10, 2005 as its 300th title, in both 1-disc version and a 2-disc versions. This is Anderson's third film to be released in the collection, after Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums.[18] The Criterion Blu-ray was released on May 27, 2014.[19]
Austin Tofte, of American electronica band Swimming With Dolphins, has listed The Life Aquatic as his favorite film.[21]
Epic Rap Battles of History released a rap battle between Jacques Cousteau and Steve Irwin. In one of Cousteau's flex bars, he references The Life Aquatic saying, "I'm so cool, Bill Murray played me in the movie."
The song "Alan Forever" on Lupe Fiasco’s album DROGAS WAVE imagines an alternate reality for Alan Kurdi, in which he survived his emigration from Syria and “might be the next Steve Zissou or maybe Jacques Cousteau.”
The ocean-themed 13th major update released for the video game Minecraft was titled "Update Aquatic" in reference to the film.[22][23]
^Govender, Dyalan. "Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and Melville's Moby Dick: A Comparative Study". Literature/Film Quarterly. 36 (1): 61–67.
