The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

[MacGuffin]

I also like the simple pleasure of no LOUD restaurant background noise on my commentary tracks. But that could be just me.

[grand theft sparrow]

I also like the simple pleasure of no LOUD restaurant background noise on my commentary tracks.

But I don't like the loud *BEEP* where Cousteau's name should be.

[Pozer]

I also like the simple pleasure of no LOUD restaurant background noise on my commentary tracks.

But I don't like the loud *BEEP* where Cousteau's name should be.

I HATE THAT TOO! What's the point of it? The revelation was so weak...stoopid Anderson and his would-be clever little devices.

[analogzombie]

I also like the simple pleasure of no LOUD restaurant background noise on my commentary tracks.

But I don't like the loud *BEEP* where Cousteau's name should be.

I HATE THAT TOO! What's the point of it? The revelation was so weak...stoopid Anderson and his would-be clever little devices.

it's mentioned in this thread above i think, but i'll reiterate.

cousteau's name is bleeped due to legal issues concerning the source material for the character of Steve Zissou. these issues revolve around Cousteau's estate, and their limitations on the amount of reference and homage allowable for the film.

[The Perineum Falcon]

cousteau's name is bleeped due to legal issues concerning the source material for the character of Steve Zissou. these issues revolve around Cousteau's estate, and their limitations on the amount of reference and homage allowable for the film.

Which is really weird since the film is basically dedicated to Cousteau, if I'm not mistaken....

[RegularKarate]

analog didn't get it

[modage]

its a digital bleep.

[MacGuffin]

FEATURE - The LIFE Didactic with Jeff Goldblum
It’s the actor’s most prominent role since his days of battling the dinosaurs. And Jeff Goldblum has his own unique way of ensuring he doesn’t himself become one. By Todd Gilchrist, FilmStew.com

“Anything to drink? Would you like anything to eat? A club sandwich? A Monte Cristo? A Reuben sandwich?"

These are the first words I hear from actor Jeff Goldblum, doing precious little to dissuade me that even after all these years, he’s no less nutty than his film roles would suggest.

"Lamb shank? Beef Wellington?" he continues, to which I attempt to respond with a courteous ‘No thanks.’ "A nice Long Island Iced Tea?" Appreciative though I am - and despite an increasing need for something alcoholic - I politely decline, and launch right into questions about his latest project The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which makes its debut on DVD this week in a sterling Criterion Collection two-disc set.

In the film, Goldblum plays Alistair Hennessey, the well funded arch-nemesis to Steve Zissou (Bill Murray), and coincidentally, ex-husband to Steve’s ex-wife Eleanor (Anjelica Huston). Though the actor has certainly enjoyed a spate of roles that trade upon his idiosyncratic line delivery and studied behavior, Goldblum says that the character was never an intentional send-up of his intellectual iconography.

"You know, I’ve played some of those parts,” he begins in that typically staccato speech rhythm of his. “I’ve had a variety of parts and maybe so, but I hadn’t thought of it that way. But you know, there’s something wry about [writer-director] Wes Anderson, who I consider a genius.”

“There’s something droll and wry and ironic about his sensibility,” he continues. “A lot of the jokes and humor in this movie have that color. There might be something kind of. ‘This is who I am and who I’ve been,’ but it wasn’t intentional. We never talked about that- ‘Hey, let’s poke fun at that.’"

Anderson’s developing oeuvre (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums) is in many ways as eccentric and rewarding as Goldblum’s; in the span of just four films, he’s developed an imprint that audiences and actors alike respond to with dogged persistence. But his Life Aquatic collaborator reveals that the director did not in fact write the part for him, despite the outward similarities between Goldblum and Hennessey.

"He wrote it as a British character," Goldblum reveals. "He and Noah Baumbach, the lovely writer-director, had a couple of British actors in mind. Then we had kind of an impromptu reading with a bunch of actors. I read... [and] I didn’t even know what I was reading, but it was so rich and beautiful and my part in the movie is so unexpected. He said, ‘I’d like you to do it’ after that."

Goldblum’s star has fallen from the Hollywood sky in recent years, taking a back seat to the industry’s pretty young things, even though he has long since proved his mettle as a dramatic actor (The Fly), action hero (Jurassic Park) and compelling comedian (The Big Chill). Despite the qualitative consistency of his performances, he says that he takes on each role individually, shaping the character according to the demands of the script and what the director requires of him.

"I’m nothing if not conscientious,” he maintains. “From the time I get the part, I do a lot of stuff. Sometimes you know, you have it, and sometimes you have to go ‘Hmm, will that work in such a way that it dries it up?’ Or, you know, it’s a funny kind of work."

"But there is a kind of work," suggests the now 52-year-old actor. "I’ve discovered for myself what I can do, and keep doing and sculpting at where good things can happen, at least for my taste, that feel right to me. And a lot of it is instinctual; sometimes I can’t tell you, but on this I did a lot of research.”

“I saw some documentaries, there’s a beautiful state-of-the-art undersea series that I saw, which was great and excited me about the whole world, and I read some things about the work going on oceanographically and, you know, I didn’t feel like I needed to do much more than that. I did things that were more instinctive and intuitive."

The Pittsburgh, PA native says that no matter what are his ambitions, the director’s vision always comes first; in the case of Life Aquatic, Goldblum knew how much time and detail Anderson devoted to the conception of his characters, and simply tried to play his role effectively in the context of the picture’s sprawling ensemble.

"No matter how much work you do or what you do, it is so collaborative and you have to count on the director," he explains. "It feels like to me at this point that you can do a lot of good stuff, but the director’s got to use you well."

"[Wes] is so meticulously designed and visionary about everything and so interesting," Goldblum gushes. "He pre-designed it so even the tip of the iceberg of something that you say and wear makes something interesting that refers to a whole world of who you must be. The work is done for you because it’s so interestingly conceived and it’s so surprising and it’s so interesting on its own."

The director’s meticulous approach notwithstanding, Goldblum says he found the filmmaker to be surprisingly flexible once shooting began. "He reminds me of Robert Altman in some ways and some directors I’ve worked with who are very improvisational. Kind of, ‘Whatever happens, I’ll include it’."

Goldblum says he was mildly overwhelmed by the illustrious history of Rome’s Cinecitta studios, where the film was shot, but ultimately regained enough focus to provide the right brush strokes to complete - and hopefully perfect - Anderson’s singular universe. "It’s hard when you have been in Rome for a few months, which is delightful,” he recalls. “It’s an enchanted kind of place, like this movie, and with this group of people it’s an enchanting experience, but then you come in just here and there to do a little thing."

"It’s one little moment in a painting that is big, so you want to just get it right,” he continues. “You have to just do something sort of right, and you don’t have too many chances. That’s challenging."

As a longtime leading man, Goldblum has shared the screen with countless actors of merit, but he insists that the process is the same whether you’re anchoring the experience or simply helping push it out of the proverbial harbor. "Even when you’re the lead in the movie, no matter who shows up, no matter how much they have to say or do, it still feels like a game played between you and them," he observes cryptically. "The better they are, the better you are, and what you do is determined by them.”

“I enjoy that part of it, that listening to and relating to and being connected to people whom you’re playing,” he says. “It’s determined in some part at least by what happens. So I like the ensemble aspect of anything, whether it’s very few things or just you by yourself."

In spite of his minor resuscitation, which is poised to continue with Mini’s First Time, co-starring Alec Baldwin and Luke Wilson, and his current run on Broadway in Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman, Goldblum insists he has no false expectations. "It’s a tough game," he concedes nonchalantly. "But to me, I stay focused on the sheer act of enjoying what I’m doing; it’s true now more than ever that’s what I’m doing."

“My desire to act was a matter of crazed passion," he concludes. "By the time I was in high school, I was baying at the moon about needing to do this, and so I was never particularly strategic about it, or a career animal of one kind or another. Having said that, I have very nice kind of good people around me, trying to make the most of things."

[grand theft sparrow]

I was looking through the memorable quotes section on IMDB and I came across this:

Steve Zissou: [bursts onto the surface from an underwater dive, shouting hysterically. Written text of what Steve is shouting rolls onto the screen as he speaks] Shark-like fish... ten meters in length... irregular markings... I tagged it with a homing dart...
[camera zooms in on Steve]
Steve Zissou: [shouts] Esteban was eaten!
Klaus Daimler: Is he dead?
Steve Zissou: He was eaten!
Klaus Daimler: A shark bit him?
Steve Zissou: A shark *ate* him!
Klaus Daimler: [shocked] It swallowed him whole?
Steve Zissou: No!... *Chewed*!
Klaus Daimler: [to the camera] He's got hydrogen psychosis, the crazy-eye!
[camera zooms in on Steve's face - his eyes are dilated ridiculously large, actor is wearing fake contacts]
Klaus Daimler: Steve! They say you've got crazy-eye!

And it got me thinking about what Jane said to Steve in that one interview attempt, when she says that it seemed to her like some aspects of the latest film were fake.  Add to that the clip of them swimming in the Arctic and, very obviously staged, Steve hearing the animal distress call and rescuing the otter (or whatever it was, I forget at the moment) and its babies.  

Was Wes trying to get it across that the exchange right after Esteban's death was dramatized after the incident and that Steve was acting in what we see in The Jaguar Shark Part 1?  Is that what everyone found fake?

Because I never got that from the clip.  I thought it was just Wes' usual quirkiness in directing his film showing through as opposed to Steve Zissou's ego in directing his film.

Does any of this make sense?

[RegularKarate]

but he IS wearing fake contacts... the crazy-eye is that spiralled red-eye... they had to use contacts.

I think that theory is shared by others anyway.

[modage]

yeah i dont think that was intended.  theres no mention of it on the commentary or on the making of doc when they're filming that scene.

[Ultrahip]

Question: Are these criterion interviews staged? by 'these' i mean the mondo monda interview on life aquatic and the peter bradley one on royal tenenbaums. these interviews are some of the funniest things i've ever seen. i seriously almost fell off my chair during mondo monda. were they intended to be serious interviews that wound up in another direction, or they intentionally this way? i'm leaning towards intentional because they're too funny not to be, but if someone could confirm this for my piece of mind, that'd be cool. thanks.

[cowboykurtis]

yes its staged - the italian interviewer is an actor in the film - the announcer at at the film fest

[modage]

who is really a guy who interviews people, just like he did bill murray in the film, which is why wes used him in the part.  he was a friend.

[cowboykurtis]

who is really a guy who interviews people, just like he did bill murray in the film, which is why wes used him in the part.  he was a friend.

does that mean you think its fake or real?

- its fake