The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

[Stefen]

i guess i hate it also.

[atticus jones]

i nominate you for the most inane 1782 posts of all time...phuck it...i have followed you around all nite and have cum to the con clu shun that its time for ewe to grow up or shut up...

an open challenge....

post something pertinent and original in any thread at any time...

con trary to pop u lar be lief...antagonistic bee have your bores me two tears

cry me a river...rat

[MacGuffin]

I first heard of Wes Anderson when watching the 1996 MTV Movie Awards. They announced that the Best New Filmmaker was going to Wes Anderson for the movie Bottle Rocket. When that tall lanky dude with the coke bottle glasses accepted the award I still had no idea what movie they were talking about. Later that year I rented Bottle Rocket and was blown away by how funny and personal it was. Wes Anderson subsequently went on to reinvent Bill Murray in Rushmore and now he’s cast Murray again as the lead in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou.

Daniel Robert Epstein: Why do you see so much sadness in Bill Murray?

Wes Anderson: Because it’s there. If you look into his eyes you can’t really escape it, like the way he is in Lost in Translation and Rushmore. I met him and when I saw the dailies in Rushmore I felt like there was something tragic in him.

I guess I must have known it was there beforehand. I loved him in movies like Stripes and Ghostbusters but the movies of his that really grabbed me are Mad Dog and Glory, Razor’s Edge and Tootsie. Those movies were really why I wanted him to be in Rushmore. He’s so great in Mad Dog and Glory and he really has that sadness there but also a lot of anger as well. I think he was great in Razor’s Edge but he was slaughtered for it. Maybe it’s not that great a film and it doesn’t gel well but he’s very appealing in it. He was doing this thing where he’s a comic actor taking a dramatic role but he’s still funny in it.

DRE: The Life Aquatic is similar in tone to John Huston’s Beat the Devil [released in 1953]. Was that an influence?

WA: I don’t think so but I know what you mean. That’s a movie I had to watch three times before I quite got it then I really loved it. I think you are right.

DRE: Do you think Steve Zissou would have killed the jaguar shark if he was given permission?

WA: No, I think he’s not really a hunter in the end but he’s not a scientist either. He’s a filmmaker and a storyteller.

DRE: How was it working with Cate Blanchett?

WA: She was pregnant for one thing which was a good thing because about halfway through we were able to get rid of the fake stomach so we could use her real stomach. I cast her because I was a fan and I wanted to work with her. She is easily the most prepared actor I’ve ever worked with. She arrived with questions that one would only have if you had been rehearsing it yourself extensively. She’s got everything worked out which is quite different from someone like Bill [Murray] or Owen [Wilson] who are people who I will see running lines while they are getting wired up for sound. Weren’t they in their trailers for three hours watching pay-per-view? But that’s their approach because everything for them is spontaneity. Even though they didn’t really improvise for this movie they are two of the best guys to improvise in front of a camera. There are no two people better to give an idea of a scene then step back and let them come up with that.

DRE: Did they improvise at all?

WA: There is a scene in the movie where Bill Murray points a gun at the pregnant reporter. That was improvised.

But with someone like Cate, she is so prepared which can be intimidating for guys like that but that’s good because I think their characters are bit intimidated by her character.

DRE: Were you intimidated by her?

WA: A little bit.

DRE: You came up with the story for Life Aquatic in college, has it changed much since then?

WA: The story I wrote in college was only a paragraph long. In the short story there is this guy Steve Cocteau which I later changed to Zissou, his wife Eleanor and then his ship the Belafonte.

DRE: At this point your films are insanely popular with a certain type of audience member while also being highly personal. Were you surprised to find people that connect so much with your work?

WA: I was never more confident than when we made Bottle Rocket [released in 1996]. I was like “Wait until they see this. It’s going to be great.” I had people warning me that it was an odd movie but I knew they didn’t understand. After our first test screening my confidence level was brought down to its current state where it’s stayed. We had 85 people walk out of the 250 seat theatre. We started rewriting the movie even though it was all done. We wrote a new opening and shot all sorts of things. Because we had James L. Brooks producing he could get us more money to fix it. From then on I’m always surprised and pleased to have any kind of audience enjoy my film.

DRE: Your budgets keep getting larger, what would a $150 million Wes Anderson film be like?

WA: That would scare me. The $50 million for Life Aquatic scared me enough. It’s really been incredible luck. We wrote the first movie to be made for $25,000 and maybe for the next movie we would have gotten a million. But we couldn’t get the $25,000 so we spent three years searching around then suddenly James L. Brooks appeared and said “We’ll do it but it has to cost six million because my deal doesn’t permit anything less.” Then I got $10 million then $25 million and now $50 million.

DRE: Your fans are so loyal. I’ve even heard of people getting tattoos with names of characters.

WA: It’s really weird but it doesn’t happen everyday. But kids that age right now do tattoos. They are always tattooing something so I’m happy to get a few of those slots.

DRE: Why did Steve Zissou need to be such a failure?

WA: He is somebody who is caught up in his own sense of failure. Everything is unpleasant about him which is a result of his unhappiness. He doesn’t quite express it until two-thirds through the movie. The idea of failure has always been more appealing, sympathetic and interesting to me more than success. He was reaching some kind of redemption with his son who he abandoned even before he was born.

DRE: How difficult was it getting Bill Murray?

WA: It wasn’t difficult. It was easier to get him for Rushmore than for The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. For Rushmore his agent gave him the script and now he doesn’t have an agent anymore. He read Rushmore and I got a call ten days later from him saying he was going to do it.

DRE: Did you have any trouble getting this movie set up at Disney?

WA: It’s just a matter of somebody supporting the movie and wanting to do it. In this case it was Nina Jacobson and Dick Cook at Touchstone Pictures. For them it’s a low budget movie. It’s a third of the cost of a Pirates of the Caribbean and will probably be an eighth of the gross.

DRE: How did you end up casting Bud Cort?

WA: I’m friends with Bud so I wrote it for him. I wanted him in there so we came up with the character of the bond company stooge.

DRE: Are you surprised by Owen’s success in the past eight years?

WA: No, it seemed to make sense as we went along. Owen is very smart, very funny and charismatic. The end result is surprising but incrementally I was never too surprised.

DRE: How is working with Mark Mothersbaugh on the music?

WA: This is my fourth movie with him. We start working a year before shooting so he is involved all the way through. The main theme of the movie we wrote a year before shooting.

DRE: What is the animated movie you are doing?

WA: Noah Baumbach and I are adapting the Roald Dahl story, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, which Henry Selick and I will direct. Noah and I are about halfway through the script.

[brockly]

Finally saw this. incredible! Beautifully shot, wonderful characters, wildly funny, very moving. this was Wes at the top of his form. I loved everything about this film.

minor spoilers

Like all Wes films, there were so many beautifully writing intimate moments. Some great scenes that come to mind: blanchet/murray interview, murray and wilson's conversation after overhearing some guy putting him down in the bar, final scene with Klaus' son, when ned and steve first meet (muray, overwhelmed with emotion, walking off in the middle of the conversation at the climax of life on mars). so many more that i cant recall right now

The relationship between murray and Wilson was excellent (edgier and more involving then any relationship in tennenbaums). I also think Blanchett's character is by far the strongest female character wes has written. The soundtrack was perfect, as usual with wes' films. A very inspired selection of music. The obscure alien-like undersea was a great touch, too. The sets were incredible, and gave the film a real surreal epic feel.

It's a shame to hear so many wes fans were disappointed. Its not my favourite wes film (rushmore still is) but I'd take this over Tennenbaums any day. This is my favourite film of 2004, hands down. Cant wait to see it again. Wes is the fucking man!

[picolas]

Some great scenes that come to mind: blanchet/murray interview

i thought that was a flat-out bad scene. the writing was trying to be clever by being childish, but it was sooo childish that it was just childish.

aside from that and the whole love triangle idea i want to see this again right now.

[brockly]

Some great scenes that come to mind: blanchet/murray interview

i thought that was a flat-out bad scene. the writing was trying to be clever by being childish, but it was sooo childish that it was just childish.

aside from that and the whole love triangle idea i want to see this again right now.

cant remember the scene in great detail (dont even recall it being childish). really need to see the film again bad. but i remember there was something about it i reacting strongly to. loved the way murray was caught off gaurd by the questions (it was obviously the first time he had been interviewed by a professional journalist), and how murray gets agressive during the interview, then backs down when he sees her crying and acts all sorry, telling her he was only defending himself. cant remember what cate gets upset over (though that was one of the reasons why i loved the scene), or how the interview ends...

[Pubrick]

cant remember the scene in great detail (dont even recall it being childish).

u listed it as a great scene that came to mind just over an hour and half ago.. and now u can't remember it?

[brockly]

cant remember the scene in great detail (dont even recall it being childish).

u wrote ur review  an hour and a half ago, where u listed that as a great scene that comes to mind.. and now u can't remember it?

why do you have to make me write one of these ghey useless little defensive replies that makes me look like im going through too much effort to rescue my own self esteem. like you even care man.... here goes:

i do remember the scene, just not in great detail, like i said.

i also said:

i remember there was something about it i reacted strongly to

and went on to describe what i remember loving about it:

loved the way murray was caught off gaurd by the questions (it was obviously the first time he had been interviewed by a professional journalist), and how murray gets agressive during the interview, then backs down when he sees her crying and acts all sorry, telling her he was only defending himself.

just couldn't remember every detail, which is why i finished my post with

cant remember what cate gets upset over (though that was one of the reasons why i loved the scene), or how the interview ends...

the reason i noted the scene was because i was thinking about random scenes i remembered loving while watching film and that one popped into my head.... i also thought it was funny how cate would turn the recorder off everytime she said something she wanted kept off the record and then turned it back on again straight away.

[03]

whoa a little whoa aren't whoa

[pete]

that was some p reference.

[Pozer]

why do you have to make me write one of these ghey useless little defensive replies that makes me look like im going through too much effort to rescue my own self esteem. like you even care man....

hahaha. Only these sentences were needed.

[MacGuffin]

No one comedian has had more influence on my life than Bill Murray, both personally and professionally. I have seen many of the movies that Bill Murray starred in the 1980’s, such as Caddyshack, Stripes and Ghostbusters, a minimum of 50 times apiece, probably a lot more. Much of the way I crack jokes, the way I move my face to emphasize something and even the way I walk can be traced back to the genius that is he, the fifth of the Murray children.

The films I mentioned above are known to Murrayphiles as the first wave of his film career. The second wave includes Ed Wood, Quick Change, Breckinridge, Groundhog Day and What About Bob? In fact Bill Murray’s dramatic skills in those films impressed me so much that in 1994 I said to any who would listen, “In five years Bill Murray will be nominated for an Oscar.” When Wes Anderson discovered new facets of Murray for Rushmore I thought my prediction was coming true. But the third wave, Rushmore, Cradle Will Rock and The Royal Tenenbaums bore no fruit until Murray was in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation as Bob Harris, a far past his prime American film actor. Though he lost the award to Sean Penn things may change this Oscar season when Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou is released on December 25th.

Daniel Robert Epstein: I like your Blues Brothers t-shirt.

Bill Murray: I like yours too, Sean John.

DRE: I don’t think we’ve seen you smoke pot onscreen since Caddyshack.

BM: I haven’t been keeping track of it but yeah.

DRE: Is that sense memory?

BM: Well actually they usually give this herbal dust stuff which makes you cough. It’s not really pleasant so you want to make sure you nail it on the first take.

DRE: Is this the hardest movie shoot you’ve ever been on?

BM: Yes it was. This was by far the most physically demanding, the most emotionally demanding both personally and professionally. Also the most ambitious.

DRE: Would you have done a movie like this with anyone but Wes Anderson?

BM: I don’t know. If you read the script and you didn’t know who was in charge you would be much less confident. I sure as hell wouldn’t leave the country and go over there for just anybody. You have to have faith in some people.

DRE: Wes has mentioned that it was harder to get you for this film because you no longer have an agent. How come you left CAA?

BM: It was a lot of things but it was a mutual separation. It was just time. Michael Ovitz was my guy and he became the pariah. The business also changed and I like to cut my own lawn now so I don’t need a landscaper. I really don’t get work from agents and I haven’t for a long time. People call me. I had a long run with CAA but it wasn’t working for me.

DRE: People have called this the serious phase of your career.

BM: My blue period.

I think all phases of one’s career are serious if you take it seriously no matter if you are doing high profile dramatic pieces or not. That’s just a perception. I’ve taken all the work seriously but you can’t take the response and reaction to it too seriously. But you can’t get all bent out of shape if it’s not pleasant. I just love the shooting of the movies when the camera is rolling.

DRE: Did Wes have to hound you do this role?

BM: Wes told me about this thing years ago when we were making Rushmore but I didn’t make anything of it. He didn’t come after me much at all. I have a lot of faith in him so he doesn’t have to explain much to me. If I feel I need something explained then I ask. When we were discussing this movie we were taking a boat trip. I told him I wanted to rehearse and he was like “What?” and I said “Yeah I want you to tell me the story.” So he had a script to him and he read it to me. I just laid back sunbathing while he read it to me. It was like a bedtime story. That was all he did. We didn’t even finish, at one point I just said “Ok that’s enough.”

DRE: As someone with improv background, is it difficult to follow a script to a T?

BM: I don’t mind it. I still get to improvise when there is something there. He did make a script that was really hard to speak. I defy you do some of these tongue twisters with another actor two or three times in a row. But it’s nice to have a script where I don’t have to improvise. I used to have to rewrite whole movies.

DRE: Angelica Huston has called you melancholic. But Steve Zissou is melancholy and lovable at the same time. Is that difficult to accomplish?

BM: To be melancholy and lovable is the trick. You’ve got to be able to show that you have these feelings. In the game of life you get these feelings and it’s all about how you deal with those feelings. A melancholy can be sweet. It’s not a mean thing but it’s something that happens in life like autumn.

DRE: Do you find that you still follow the teachings of Del Close when you improvise?

BM: Well it’s sort of in my blood and bones now. He was a genius that made improvisation a high art. He was one of the brightest men I ever met and a really deep soul. He’s gone now but a lot of people live on that know part of what he knew. I feel like I got some award because I worked with him and now we’re supposed to go on and tell people something he told us.

DRE: Do you ever get back to Chicago?

BM: Yeah I went to a four game series with the Marlins. I went to the new Frank Gehry bandshell and it’s just mind boggling. It has those towers.

DRE: What do you think of finally getting that Oscar nomination for Lost in Translation?

BM: I think it’s going to be a thing where once every 25 years I will get an Oscar nomination.

DRE: Have you kept in touch with Scarlett Johansson?

BM: It’s funny because you just don’t keep in touch with people that often. My wife would feel funny if I spent too much time with this 18 year old girl.

DRE: Did you keep any of the Speedos from Life Aquatic?

BM: I don’t know where all that stuff went. Usually you steal your wardrobe but they held it in case of a reshoot but I haven’t seen any of it. I remember being freezing while wearing them though.

DRE: What do you think hurt Steve Zissou more, that [Cate Blanchett’s character of] Jane Winslett-Richardson told him he was too old for her or that his son got together with her?

BM: I think they are both sides of the same coin. His son is the representation of his youth is the killer. A girl telling you that you’re too old is a bull dyke, that’s the game, but your son hitting on the girl you have a crush on is tough because you can’t claw over him.

DRE: You’ve spent a lot of time in France. Do they treat you differently over there?

BM: People in Europe only know me from the movies so they see me as a film character. People here have seen me on television playing wacky characters on sketch comedy. When you do David Letterman it shows people a different side. I’m just a citizen here but in Europe they see me in a more artistic sense.

I like it over there. Their film culture permeates the culture a little more there than here. When I lived in France I went to the Cinematheque everyday. There is a paper telling you exactly what film is playing and every detail. They don’t have that here.

DRE: Were you surprised when Lost in Translation became such a phenomenon?

BM: That’s a good question. Why did that film get so much attention? The film is so interesting because it shows a personal decision we all have to make sometime. It’s when you bump into someone that’s not your mate, husband or wife and something happens between you. How do you behave in that situation? I read a definition this year that a hero is someone that does something they don’t want to do. The thing is that Bob Harris really wanted someone to make him feel. Nothing happened between him and that girl which made him a hero, a different kind of hero. It’s the kind that everyone can be. Not everyone can be Indiana Jones or a Ghostbuster but everyone can make the decision to do that thing they want to do.

DRE: Both Steve Zissou and Bob Harris spend a lot of time looking back over their career. Do you do much of that?

BM: It’s not that they are looking back so much but that they had success and now they are concerned about having success in the future. Where their next meal ticket and the thing that makes them feel good will come from. Zissou goes back to the ocean because he loves the ocean and how to make a life out of it. But to be able to keep going back to the ocean he’s got to make a documentary. For Bob Harris, he likes being an actor but to stay known he’s got to make a commercial so that he makes some money to live his lifestyle.

For me I’ve had lots of things to do and a few years I thought about whether I should be a big movie star. But I didn’t want to be a big movie star so I decided I want to live my life and see what happens. At the same time I took these jobs where I don’t make a lot of money but I work with good people and I do what I want to do. I thought that maybe one of them will be a hit one day and I will get what I need in terms of being noticed and damn, Lost in Translation did that. But between that I made seven movies that were good but didn’t have it all work at once like that. I like working to not be the biggest star in the world. I’m trying to help Life Aquatic but I don’t want to feel desperate. I don’t want to be that guy mumbling into his drink at a bar. I’ve had a great run and if I change careers that would be an adventure too.

DRE: What would you do if you changed careers?

BM: I’m not sure but I’ve been thinking about it. It would be bold to say that I did that and had some success. I would like to write a play. I always felt that’s what I should do.

[AntiDumbFrogQuestion]

Some great scenes that come to mind: blanchet/murray interview

i thought that was a flat-out bad scene. the writing was trying to be clever by being childish, but it was sooo childish that it was just childish.

aside from that and the whole love triangle idea i want to see this again right now.

I think it's funny when people say stuff like this.  Wes was "trying" to do this, "trying" to do that...when's the last time we bitched about this especially in a "Wes" movie?  Maybe he wasn't even trying to be clever. Did ya ever think of that? And to think people complained about the "awkward" action scene in this movie but gave no mention to the Chas versus Eli  fighting at the end of Tenenbaums which was constricted and kind of flat.  I don't complain that much.  "Wes was going for upbeat and swift but gave it a constricted edge so the scene just came out constricted."
I think we sometimes think our favorite artists try too hard.

[03]

[The Perineum Falcon]

Why do people often think that Wes directed I (Heart) Huckabees? Has anyone else heard this?

First it was one of my friends, who I corrected, then, just yesterday as I was going to see this again, I overheard two guys talking:

"Yeah, I haven't seen this one, but I just watched the one he did before... I heart Huckabees - one for The Life Aquatic - it was pretty crazy."

So, okay, sure, only one was confused. But I'm confused as to how people are getting confused.
Does David O. Russell spell his name like Wes Anderson now?