The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
Finally, Wes Anderson Gets it right.
Moving away from the sophomoric smugness of "Rushmore"
and the over-written notion of "The
Royal Tannenbaums," Anderson creates a more relaxed,
more focused and utterly more human version of his
"group" dynamic social study. Here' riffing off the
life of Jacques Cousteau, Anderson creates Steve Zissou,
a selfish and self-important oceanographer and filmmaker
who finds his the pressures of his unexamined life
crashing in on him after the death of his friend.
There's an awful lot going on in
"The Life Aquatic" but Anderson juggles all the elements
with the skill of an acrobat. His enormous entourage
of characters all work perfectly within the construct
of the story. There are so many stars here that this
film sometimes because the equivalent of "Tannenbaums"
in that "spot the celeb" sense but here this game
is usually brushed aside immediately because the story
is so interesting that we are consistently involved.
Still, it's fun to see such wonderful performances
from Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Angelica Huston, Cate
Blanchett, Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe, and Jeff
Goldblum. Only Noah Taylor seem underutilized here.
Then there's the surprise of seeing Bud Cort again
(looking like hell but having the time of his life
and giving his best performance in years). The magic
of discovering Seu Jorge, who sings Ziggy-era David
Bowie songs in Portuguese while accompanying himself
of the acoustic guitar. And there's a plethora of
cutie boys as "interns" just in case there isn't enough
visually to feast on in Anderson's magical sets and
magnificent locales.
Yes, "The Life Aquatic" is a cinematic
wonderland in the hands of Anderson. There is so much
going on visually here that to discuss much of it
would spoil the film's delights. Certainly of merit
is the homage to Cousteau's films which mixed travelogue
and underwater photography with "faked" establishing
shots and artistic narration. These films have all
but faded from the American cinematic landscape and
one imagines the interest in the will be resurrected
thanks to this film. But Anderson does much more than
just pay homage to those films, he also provides his
own wonderful cinematic eye in his own established
visual style, using the entire anamorphic lensed frame
to paint each image in the film perfectly. And his
use of the set of the ship, the Belafonte, a huge
half-cut, three story facade to be both part of the
film and part of a film- within-the-film is something
that simply has to be seen to be appreciated. Cinematically,
Anderson is at the top of his game here.
There is only one place where Anderson
does fail here and that is with the inclusion of CGI
created creatures which pop up intermittently in the
film. These are obviously fake computer animated creatures
and their inclusion here sticks out like a sore thumb.
Perhaps Anderson was hoping to make his monstrosity
of a final CGI creature, one incredibly important
to the plot, not seem so obviously fake. After all,
if your going to end a film with a 300 pound pink
elephant, shouldn't some smaller elephants be shown
first to soften the blow? Well, it doesn't work. And
Anderson could have proven his salt as a scriptwriter
had he just never shown the audience the creature
in his finale. All we need to know about the climax
of the story is on the faces of his actors anyway.
But... back to the good stuff...
The music here is also a treat. At first the idea
of using foreign language versions of Bowie's tunes
seems contrived and doesn't seem to fit within the
film. But Anderson is working on his own loves here,
paying homage to them. Part of the film's theme is
that magical time when you are 11 and I bet the Ziggy-era
music of Bowie was something Anderson fell in love
with in his early teen years. Plus he uses Bowie's
original recordings of "Queen Bitch" and "Life on
Mars" in wonderful ways in the film. Add a couple
of knockout sequences using Iggy's "Raw Power" and
Devo's "Gut Feeling" and you've got a film with a
powerful use of musical imagery on the screen. Add
to this the fact that Mark Mothersbaugh, a founding
member of Devo again writes a quirky and perfect score
for the film and you've got nothing to complain about
here. Anderson wins us over with all these perfect
tributes to fantastic music and notable oddball music
makers, and eventually the foreign acoustic renditions
of The Thin White Duke become as relevant and as important
to the film as the script.
And what a script! Anderson, working
with Noah Baumbach (who plays a small role here) creates
more than just his stock of oddball characters. There
is a theme and an idea at play here and the script
builds towards it's theme with urgency and determination.
The climax of this film is amazing. And what makes
it work even more than the script is the amazing performance
of Bill Murray. As Zissou, Murray evolves on so many
levels here that it is simply incredible to witness.
Anderson's script is both overt and subtle and Murray
hits on all cylinders, working the piece at every
level. It's another award worthy performance from
a man who is fast becoming America's greatest living
actor. There is comedy here as well as romance, drama,
action and intrigue and only an actor as talented
as Murray could make every nuance of this incredible
script and character come to such fruition.
"The Life Aquatic" is an amazing
film. Wes Anderson has matured as a filmmaker and
one can only daydream happily about where his cinematic
journey will take us next.
Bon Voyage, Mr, Anderson!
Note:
Also with Seymour Cassel.
Scott Rudin is a producer.
Gwyneth Paltron, Julianne Moore
and Nicole Kidman were all considered for Blanchett's
role.
Jacques Cousteau's ship was called
the Calypso. Harry Belafonte, after who Zissou's ship
is named, became famous for singing in a musical style
called Calypso. (He sang the song that went "Day-o,
Day-o, Daylight come and me want to go home.")
Viewed in Austin in December 2004.
