Skip to content
Dom Robinson reviews
Touchstone Home Video
- Cert:
- Cat.no: BUA 0002601
- Running time: 114 minutes
- Year: 2004
- Pressing: 2005
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 30 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English, French
- Subtitles: English (and hearing-impaired), French, Dutch
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Anamorphic Panavision)
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: 2*DVD 9
- Price: £22.99
- Extras: Deleted/Extended scenes, ‘Starz on the Set’ featurette, Stills Gallery, Design Gallery, Seu Jorge PerformsDavid Bowie, ‘This is An Adventure’ featurette, 10 smaller featurettes, Easter eggs, Audio commentary
Director:
- Wes Anderson
(Bottle Rocket, The Fantastic Mr Fox, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore)
Producers:
- Wes Anderson, Barry Mendel and Scott Rudin
Screenplay:
- Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach
Music:
- Mark Mothersbaugh
Cast:
- Steve Zissou: Bill Murray
Ned Plimpton: Owen Wilson
Jane Winslett-Richardson: Cate Blanchett
Eleanor Zissou: Anjelica Houston
Klaus Daimler: Willem Dafoe
Alistair Hennessey: Jeff Goldblum
Oseary Drakoulias: Michael Gambon
Vladimir Wolodarsky: Noah Taylor
Bill Udell: Bud Cort
Pele dos Santos: Seu Jorge
Anne-Marie Sakowitz: Robyn Cohen
Vikram Ray: Waris Ahluwalia
Bobby Ogata: Niels Koizumi
Renzo Pietro: Pawel Wdowczak
Intern No.1: Matthew Gray Gubler
Esteban du Plantier: Seymour Cassel
Festival Director: Antonio Monda
Antonia Cook: Isabella Blow
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissouis the title of a series of short films about an internationally-renowned oceanographer, played bycontinual master of the deadpan Bill Murray, who travels about in his ship, The Belafonte,with a large crew that also incorporates a cameraman, sound engineer and cutting room with which toprocess these documentaries.
The first of these that we see introduce us to the crew and the fact that his long-time colleagueEsteban (Seymour Cassel) has been eaten by what Zissou refers to later as a “jaguar shark”. Afterthis, he’s determined to track it down and kill it, but that’s far easier said than done.
The film relies heavily on the interplay of its cast. Bill Murray is perfect as Zissou, while next on thelist is Owen Wilson as Ned Plimpton, a pilot with Air Kentucky who turns out to be Steve’s son.As it happens, Ned’s mother died a month prior to the events in this movie and Steve hadn’t seen herin 30 years with no contact from her after they last met. However, in real life the pair are only 18years apart in age, while in the movie, Steve’s 52 and Ned is 29, so how does 23 years difference equateto 30 years apart? Doesn’t make sense at all. Oh well, that doesn’t detract from the enjoyment.
Cate Blanchett plays a snotty English journalist who’s along for the ride to write an articleabout Zissou’s return to the shark, but it’s a more intensive piece than he’s bargained for. She’snot only pregnant by her married editor (who’s off-camera throughout), but also the object of desirefor both Zissou and Ned.
Financial assistance on the expedition is supplied by Michael Gambon‘s character, the bizarrely-namedOseary Drakoulias, while there’s better support from Willem Dafoe as one of the crew members, KlausDaimler, and there’s a couple of could-have-phoned-their-performances-in from Anjelica Houston(Zissou’s wife, Eleanor) and Jeff Goldblum as her ex-husband and supplier of smarm, Alastair Hennessey.
There are many clever touches throughout the film, such as the way several David Bowie songs are ‘covered’in Portugeuse by Brazillian singer Seu Jorge, playing crew member Pele. Also, there’s the way thelights keep going out, below deck, and then coming back on when the breaker switch is replaced; and whenthey try to make their short documentaries, Zissou is just as concerned about getting the shot justright as he is about ensuring the crew’s safety, possibly more so on the former. Similarly,there’s a couple of nice CGI touches such as a ‘crayon pony fish’ (a multicoloured seahorse) and somemating sugar crabs.
The set is a stroke of genius, with the camera panning around as we see a cut-through version of Zissou’sship, and we go from room to room. It comes across less a film and more like a play, acted out on a massiveset. According to one of the featurettes, it’s 40ft high by 150ft in length.
There are a few obvious jump cuts between scenes that are meant to pan from one to another, be they horizontal onesin the Belafonte ship or from the hot air balloon back down to the ship. That said, there’s a seeminglyobvious continuity error about 44 mins in as Ned takes a smoke of his pipe, according to which hand it shouldbe in. Perhaps Wes Anderson is doing this on purpose?
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is a fascinating and engaging comedy/drama, often with moreemphasis on the drama and the comedy appearing only as light undertones but it all comes togetherbrilliantly. I get the feeling this is one of those films that’s appreciated most by those who’llenjoy the spectacle as it has a great visual nature to it, while occasional movie watchers willlet their brains bypass that and, thus, will just think there’s really not a lot going on.
If I could make any cast changes, it wouldn’t be Goldblum as he’s like that in a lot of things, butI don’t see what makes Anjelica Houston a big star. Similarly, Cate Blanchett just drifts throughanything she’s ever starred in, despite having a main role here; and Owen Wilson’s the same. Where’shis star quality?
Team Zissou search the deep ocean for the
Jaguar Shark that ate their fellow crew member.
The picture is presented in an anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen ratio and there’s fantastic framingwith the anamorphic Panavision lens, all of which will get completely destroyed when shown on TVin the future if cropped to 16:9 or 4:3. The image looks superb almost all the time except forsome bright scenes that feature movement, causing a slight jerky effect that’s offputting.
Soundwise, there’s little to complain about. However, there was a DTS soundtrack made for this movie,but Buena Vista chose not to share it with us, despite there being plenty of room on the first disc for it.
There aren’t a massive amount of extras on disc 1, which is why we have a second disc for those, andaccording to the BBFC’s site, the extras run for a total of 2 hours and 35 minutes. All film footagewithin is in 2.35:1 letterbox as it’s often part of a 4:3 featurette. On disc 1, in addition to a feature-lengthAudio commentary, the first featurette, Starz on the Set (14½ mins), mixes clips fromthe movie with interview soundbites from key cast and crew members, plus a look at the outstanding set.However, it does rush everything by too quickly which is a shame. There are also 9 Deleted Scenes(4½ mins), most of which are extended ones and could all fit back easily into the film with nodetriment, but I can see how cutting them out can make some scenes a little tighter.
Disc 2 has a page with several undersea ‘creatures’ pointing to supplementary offerings, starting witha Stills Gallery containing 170 pictures, individually chaptered, and so does the shorter Designsection with 15 pieces of concept art. Next up, the obviously-titled, Seu Jorge Performs David Bowiehas 10 songs from the genius played here by the Brazillian singer, all tastefully done on acoustic guitarand translated into Portuguese.
I was hoping for This is an Adventure (51½ mins) to be more the kind of featuretteI wanted after seeing the brief one on disc 1. It’s a documentary made in Italy during the 2003 film shoot,but is really just a series of B-roll footage of scenes being filmed and the director being observed doing so,with no commentary over the top or pieces to camera. It’s like being a fly on the wall during filming.A nice addition, but some direction during it would’ve been better.
On to the shorter pieces:
- The Look Aquatic (5½ mins) goes into a bit more detail about howWes Anderson’s vision was meant to pan out, although only other crew members do the talking.
- Creating A Scene (4½ mins) shows various cast members giving soundbites abouttheir feelings on Anderson’s filmmaking.
- Life Aquatic (8 mins) is a piece about the large number of undersea creatures that appearand run past the camera. These feature regularly throughout the movie so it’s only right that they gettheir own featurette. It’s stated here that they’re not CGI-only as I first thought, but made as realobjects and then imported into a computer to be drafted into the scene.
- Ned (3 mins): Owen Wilson talks about his character, with occasional additions from others.
- Jane (3½ mins): Cate Blancett on her character, similar to the above.
- Esteban (7 mins): Something different to the above. We see the actor, Seymour Cassell, on-set.This piece is similar in style to the longer featurette.
- Mark Mothersbaugh (19 mins): An interview with the composer and member of Devo, recorded in autumn 2004.This is the one piece of additional material that was filmed in anamorphic 16:9.
- Costumes (4½ mins): All the main cast members talk about the items of clothing they’ve had towear for the movie.
- Intern Video Journal (15½ mins): A behind-the-scenes documentary shot and edited by Intern #1,Matthew Gray Gubler. As it turns out, Gubler was one of Anderson’s unpaid interns two years previouslywhile trying to get a university course credit. It captures well the enjoyment the cast and crew had workingwith each other.
- Mondo Monda (16½ mins): Wes Anderson and co-writer Noah Baumbach are interviewed onan Italian TV film talk show by its host, Antonio Monda. It’s a spoof TV show that actually gets a bittedious after a few minutes.
- Easter eggs: I found two on this disc. After ‘Mondo Monda’, press left to get a short clip ofdocumentarian filmmaker Albert Maysles take a crap golf shot. For the other, go to ‘Seu Jorge PerformsDavid Bowie’, press up and see Antonio Monda introduce the DVD.
There are 30 chapters to the film which is most welcome, subtitles in English (with a hard-of-hearingoption), French and Dutch – all for the movie only. The menu features subtle animation and techno-likemusic from the soundtrack as Team Zissou head down to investigate the phantom signal underwater thatthey hope is of the jaguar shark which killed Esteban.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.