The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is an American comedy-drama film directed, written, and co-produced by Wes Anderson.^[2][3] It is Anderson's fourth feature length film, released in the U.S. on December 25, 2004. It was written by Anderson and Noah Baumbach and was filmed in and around Naples, Ponza, and the Italian Riviera.

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 Jacques-Yves Cousteau, to whom the film is dedicated. Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, Michael Gambon, Jeff Goldblum, Anjelica Huston, Owen Wilson and Seu Jorge also are featured in the film.

It was released May 10, 2005 on DVD as part of The Criterion Collection.

Plot[link]

While oceanographer and documentarian Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) is working on his latest documentary at sea, his best friend Esteban du Plantier (Seymour Cassel) is eaten by a 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 research vessel Belafonte includes Pelé dos Santos (Seu Jorge), a safety expert and Brazilian musician who sings David Bowie songs in Portuguese, and Klaus Daimler (Willem Dafoe), the German second-in-command who viewed Zissou and Esteban as father figures.

Minor crew members include Vikram Ray (Waris Ahluwalia), a Sikh cameraman, described in Zissou's film documentary as a man "born on the Ganges"; Bobby Ogata (Niels Koizumi), a frogman who is usually seen eating; Vladimir Wolodarsky (Noah Taylor), original score composer; Renzo Pietro (Pawel Wdowczak), screen editor; and Anne-Marie Sakowitz (Robyn Cohen), script girl, who is often topless. "Team Zissou" also includes a pack of unpaid college interns from the fictional University of North Alaska.

Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson) is a polite Southern gentleman whose mother has recently died. He believes that Zissou is his father. After they meet at a film premiere, Ned takes a break from his job as an airline pilot in Kentucky to join Zissou's crew. As no one else will finance the latest documentary, Ned agrees to support the new film with his inheritance.

A reporter, Jane Winslett-Richardson (Cate Blanchett), comes to chronicle the voyage. She is also pregnant with her married boss's child. A rivalry develops between Ned and Zissou, both infatuated with Jane. Klaus also is envious of the attention Zissou pays to Ned.

On their mission to find the Jaguar shark, the Belafonte crew has to deal with an attack by pirates. Sakowitz, along with all but one of the interns, jumps ship after the raid. The interns who leave receive "incomplete" grades for the course.

The Belafonte crew launches a sneak attack on the pirates to retrieve their money and rescue a "bond company stooge" (Bud Cort) who had been hired by Zissou's producer Oseary Drakoulias (Michael Gambon). They also discover and rescue Zissou's nemesis, Alistair Hennessey (Jeff Goldblum). Hennessey is successful, suave, and rich, and was once married to Zissou's wife Eleanor (Anjelica Huston).

While searching for the shark, the ship's helicopter crashes, injuring Zissou and fatally injuring Ned. A puzzled Eleanor reveals to Jane that Zissou is actually sterile and therefore Ned could not have been his son. Ned soon dies from his injuries.

Zissou finally tracks down the shark but decides not to kill it, both because of its beauty and not having any dynamite. Viewing the shark finally validates an existence that Zissou himself had feared might have become meaningless. Eleanor is moved by this and falls in love with Zissou all over again. The finished documentary is a hit and Zissou wins an award, regaining respect worldwide.

Literary inspiration[link]

Though the characters were inspired by such American novels as The Great Gatsby and The Magnificent Ambersons, the plot has been compared to Moby-Dick.^[4]

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."^[5]

Cast[link]

• Bill Murray as Steve Zissou
• Owen Wilson as Edward "Ned" Plimpton/Kingsley Zissou
• Cate Blanchett as Jane Winslett-Richardson
• Anjelica Huston as Eleanor Zissou
• Willem Dafoe as Klaus Daimler
• Jeff Goldblum as Alistair Hennessey
• Michael Gambon as Oseary Drakoulias
• Noah Taylor as Vladimir Wolodarsky
• Bud Cort as Bill Ubell, "Bond Company Stooge"
• Seu Jorge as Pelé dos Santos
• Robyn Cohen as Anne-Marie Sakowitz
• Waris Ahluwalia as Vikram Ray
• Matthew Gray Gubler as Nico, Intern #1
• Antonio Monda as Himself
• Isabella Blow as Antonia Cook

[edit] Reception

Critical reception was mixed, with a composite 53% score on Rotten Tomatoes.^[6] Bill Murray's performance was praised, and some critics predicted that he would be nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award.

Anthony Lane, a film reviewer for The New Yorker, agreed with the usual 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."^[7]

The film won 3 awards and was nominated for 8, including the Golden Berlin Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Box office[link]

The film was a box office flop with a total of $24,020,403 after twelve weeks in release, barely half its production budget. It took in a further $10,788,000 internationally, bringing the total gross to $34,808,403.^[1]

[edit] Soundtrack

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 for the soundtrack as well as 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.^[8]

See also[link]

• SAS Walvisbaai

[edit] Notes

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

• The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou at the Internet Movie Database
• The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou at AllRovi
• The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou at Box Office Mojo
• N.P. Thompson Wednesday, (June 15, 2005). "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. The Criterion Collection, $32.99.". http://www.seattleweekly.com/2005-06-15/film/the-life-aquatic-with-steve-zissou/. 
• "Captain Neato" Christian Lorentzen's review of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou in n+1 (23 April 2010)

Bill Murray
Murray at the premiere of Get Low at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival
Born	William James Murray (1950-09-21) September 21, 1950 (age 61) Wilmette, Illinois, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, comedian, writer, golfer
Years active	1973–present
Spouse	Margaret Kelly (1981–1996) Jennifer Butler (1997–2008)
Children	With Kelly: 2, With Butler: 4
Family	Brothers: John Murray, Joel Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray Nancy Murray (sister)

William James "Bill" Murray (born September 21, 1950) is an American actor, comedian and golfer. He first gained national exposure on Saturday Night Live in which he earned an Emmy Award and later went on to star in a number of critically and commercially successful comedic films, including Caddyshack (1980), Ghostbusters (1984), and Groundhog Day (1993). Murray gained additional critical acclaim later in his career, starring in Lost in Translation (2003), that earned him an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination, and a series of films directed by Wes Anderson, including Rushmore (1998), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) and Moonrise Kingdom (2012).

Early life[link]

Murray was born and raised in Wilmette, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago, the son of Lucille (née Collins), a mail room clerk, and Edward Joseph Murray II, a lumber salesman.^[1][2] Murray's father died in 1967 from complications of diabetes when Bill was 17 years old.^[3][4] Murray, along with his eight siblings, was raised in an Irish American family.^[5] Three of his siblings are actors: John Murray, Joel Murray and Brian Doyle-Murray. A sister, Nancy, is an Adrian Dominican nun in Michigan, who has traveled the United States in a one-woman programme, portraying St. Catherine of Siena.^[6]

As a youth, Murray read children's biographies of American heroes like Kit Carson, Wild Bill Hickok and Davy Crockett.^[7] He attended St. Joseph grade school and Loyola Academy. During his teen years, he worked as a golf caddy to fund his education at the Jesuit high school.^[7][8] One of his sisters had polio and his mother suffered several miscarriages.^[7] During his teen years he was the lead singer of a rock band called the Dutch Masters and took part in high school and community theatre.

After graduating, Murray attended Regis University in Denver, Colorado, taking premedical courses. However, he quickly dropped out, returning to Illinois.^[9] In 2007, however, Regis awarded him an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree.^[10]

Around 1971, police arrested Murray at Chicago's O'Hare Airport for trying to smuggle 9 pounds of marijuana which he had allegedly intended to sell.^[8][9]

Career[link]

Second City[link]

With an invitation from his older brother, Brian, Murray got his start at The Second City in Chicago, an improvisational comedy troupe, studying under Del Close.^[11] In 1974, he moved to New York City and was recruited by John Belushi^[12] as a featured player on The National Lampoon Radio Hour.

[edit] Saturday Night Live

In 1975, an Off Broadway version of a Lampoon show led to his first television role as a cast member of the ABC variety show Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell that featured animal acts and little kids with loud voices.^[11] That same season, another variety show titled NBC's Saturday Night premiered. Cosell's show lasted just one season, canceled in early 1976.

After working in Los Angeles with the "guerrilla video" commune TVTV on a number of projects, Murray rose to prominence in 1976. He joined the cast of NBC's Saturday Night Live for the show's second season, following the departure of Chevy Chase.^[13]

A Rutland Weekend Television sketch Eric Idle brought for his appearance on SNL developed into the 1978 mockumentary All You Need Is Cash with Murray (alongside other SNL cast members) appearing as "Bill Murray the K", a send-up of New York radio host Murray the K, in a segment of the film that is an obvious parody of the Maysles Brothers's documentary The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit.

During the first few seasons of SNL, Murray was in a romantic relationship with fellow cast member Gilda Radner.^[14]

Film career[link]

Murray at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival

Murray landed his first starring role with the film Meatballs in 1979. He followed this up with his portrayal of famed writer Hunter S. Thompson in 1980's Where the Buffalo Roam. In the early 1980s, he starred in a string of box-office hits including Caddyshack, Stripes, and Tootsie.

Murray became the first guest on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman on February 1, 1982. He would later appear on the first episode of The Late Show with David Letterman in August 1993, when the show moved to CBS. On January 31, 2012 – 30 years after his first appearance with Letterman, Murray appeared again on his talk show.

Murray began work on a film adaptation of the novel The Razor's Edge. The film, which Murray also co-wrote, was his first starring role in a dramatic film. He later agreed to star in Ghostbusters, in a role originally written for John Belushi. This was a deal Murray made with Columbia Pictures in order to gain financing for his film.^[15] Ghostbusters became the highest-grossing film of 1984. But The Razor's Edge, which was filmed before Ghostbusters but not released until after, was a box-office flop.

Upset over the failure of Razor's Edge, Murray took four years off from acting to study philosophy and history at the Sorbonne, frequent the Cinematheque in Paris, and spend time with his family in their Hudson River Valley home.^[12] During that time, his second son, Luke, was born.^[7] With the exception of a cameo appearance in the 1986 movie Little Shop of Horrors, he did not make any appearances in films, though he did participate in several public readings in Manhattan organized by playwright/director Timothy Mayer and in a production of Bertolt Brecht's A Man's A Man.^[7]

Murray returned to films in 1988 with Scrooged and the sequel Ghostbusters II in 1989. In 1990, Murray made his first and only attempt at directing when he co-directed Quick Change with producer Howard Franklin. His subsequent films What About Bob? (1991) and Groundhog Day (1993) were box-office hits and critically acclaimed.

After a string of films that did not do well with audiences (one of the exceptions being his role in the 1996 comedy Kingpin), he received much critical acclaim for Wes Anderson's Rushmore for which he won Best Supporting Actor awards from the New York Film Critics Circle, National Society of Film Critics, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (tying with Billy Bob Thornton). Murray decided to take a turn towards more dramatic roles. Murray then experienced a resurgence in his career as a dramatic actor, taking on roles in Wild Things, Cradle Will Rock, Hamlet (as Polonius), and The Royal Tenenbaums.

In 2003, he garnered considerable acclaim for Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, and went on to earn a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award, and an Independent Spirit Award, as well as Best Actor awards from a number of film critic organizations.^[16] He was considered a favorite to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, although Sean Penn ultimately won the award for his performance in Mystic River. In an interview included on the Lost in Translation DVD, Murray states that this is his favorite movie in which he has appeared. Also in 2003, he appeared in a short cameo for the movie Coffee and Cigarettes, in which he played himself "hiding out" in a local coffee shop.

During this time, Murray still appeared in comedic roles such as Charlie's Angels and Osmosis Jones. In 2004, he provided the voice of Garfield in Garfield: The Movie, and again in 2006 for Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties. (Later, Murray claimed that he only took part because he was under the misguided impression the screenplay, actually co-written by Joel Cohen, was the work of Joel Coen). In 2004, he made his third collaboration with Wes Anderson in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. His dramatic role in Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers was also well received.

In 2005, Murray announced that he would take a break from acting,^[17] as he had not had the time to relax since his new breakthrough in the late 1990s. He did return to the big screen, however, for brief cameos in Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited and in Get Smart as Agent 13, the agent in the tree. In 2008, he played an important role in the post-apocalyptic film City of Ember, and in 2009, played himself in a cameo role in the zombie comedy Zombieland.

Murray provided the voice for the character Mr. Badger for the 2009 animated film Fantastic Mr. Fox. Though there was speculation that he might return to the Ghostbusters franchise^[18] for the rumored Ghostbusters 3,^[19] he dispelled such speculation in a recent interview with GQ. In March 2010, Bill Murray appeared on Late Show with David Letterman and talked about his return to Ghostbusters III, stating "I'd do it only if my character was killed off in the first reel".^[20] In an interview with GQ, Murray said: "You know, maybe I should just do it. Maybe it'd be fun to do." In the interview, when asked "Is the third Ghostbusters movie happening? What's the story with that?", Bill Murray replied, "It's all a bunch of crock."^[21] Despite this comment, later reports by Dan Aykroyd^[22] and Stefano Paginini^[23] suggest the movie is well underway, and the script has already been approved.

Golf-related work[link]

Bill Murray golfing

Murray is an avid golfer who often plays in celebrity tournaments. His 1999 book Cinderella Story: My Life in Golf, part autobiography and part essay, expounds on his love of the game. In 2002, he and his brothers starred in the Comedy Central series, The Sweet Spot, which chronicled their adventures playing golf. Caddyshack, one of Murray's earliest film roles, has him playing assistant greens-keeper Carl Spackler who lives in the golf course's tool shed. The title of his book is derived from a scene he played in Caddyshack, narrating his own golf fantasy (which was listed as #92 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes list).

Murray's love for golf is also displayed in Space Jam, Lost in Translation, and Zombieland.

On February 13, 2011, Murray, playing with tournament champion D. A. Points, won the Pro-Am championship at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

Outside of show business[link]

He is a partner with his brothers in Murray Bros. Caddy Shack, a restaurant located near St. Augustine.^[24]

He is a part-owner of the St. Paul Saints independent minor-league baseball team and occasionally travels to Saint Paul, Minnesota to watch the team's games.^[25] He also owns part of the Charleston RiverDogs, Hudson Valley Renegades, and the Brockton Rox. He invested in a number of other minor league teams in the past, including the Utica Blue Sox, Fort Myers Miracle, Salt Lake Sting (APSL) and Salt Lake City Trappers. He was also a part-owner of the Auburn Astros (now the Auburn Doubledays) in Auburn, New York.^{[citation needed]}

Being very detached from the Hollywood scene, Murray does not have an agent or manager and reportedly only fields offers for scripts and roles using a personal telephone number with a voice mailbox that he checks infrequently.^[26] This practice has the downside of sometimes preventing him from taking parts that he had auditioned for and was interested in, such as that of Sulley in Monsters, Inc., Bernard Berkman in The Squid and the Whale, Frank Ginsburg in Little Miss Sunshine and Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.^[27] He also regretted losing the chance to play Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit when he heard that he was considered for the role, which he says he would have definitely accepted.^[28]

Personal life[link]

Eric Clapton and Murray kicking off the Crossroads Guitar Festival in 2007

During the filming of Stripes, Murray married Margaret Kelly on Super Bowl Sunday in Las Vegas on January 25, 1981.^[7][11] Later, they re-married in Chicago for their families.^[11] Margaret gave birth to two sons, Homer (born 1982) and Luke (born 1985). Luke is an assistant basketball coach at Towson University, located outside of Baltimore, MD. Following Murray's affair with Jennifer Butler, the couple divorced in 1996. In 1997, he married Butler. Together, they have four sons: Caleb (born January 11, 1993), Jackson (born October 6, 1995), Cooper (born January 27, 1997), and Lincoln (born May 30, 2001). Butler filed for divorce on May 12, 2008, accusing Murray of domestic violence, infidelity, and sex, drug and alcohol addiction.^[29] Their divorce was finalized on June 13, 2008.

Murray has homes in Los Angeles, California; Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts;^[30] Charleston, South Carolina; and Rockland County, New York, just outside of New York City.^[31]

During the 2000 presidential campaign, Murray supported Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.^[32]

Murray is a fan of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Chicago pro sports teams, especially the Chicago Cubs, Chicago Bears and the Chicago Bulls. (He was once a guest color commentator for a Cubs game during the 1980s.)^[33] Murray is an avid Quinnipiac University basketball fan, where his son served as head of basketball operations. Murray is a regular fixture at home games. He cheered courtside for the Illinois Fighting Illini's game against the University of North Carolina in the NCAA Basketball Tournament's championship game in 2005. He is a fixture at home games of those teams when in his native Chicago. After traveling to Florida during the Cubs playoff run to help "inspire" the team (Murray told Cubs slugger Aramis Ramírez he was very ill and needed two home runs to give him the hope to live),^[34] he was invited to the champagne party in the Cubs' clubhouse when the team clinched the NL Central in late September 2007, along with fellow actors John Cusack, Bernie Mac, James Belushi, and former Cubs legend Ron Santo. Murray appeared in Santo's documentary, This Old Cub.

As a Chicago native, Murray appeared at the 50th annual Chicago Air & Water Show in August 2008. He performed a tandem jump with the U.S. Army Parachute Team Golden Knights.^[35] He was the M.C. for Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival on July 28, 2007, where he dressed in various guises of Clapton as he appeared through the years. He was MC again in 2010. Also because of his roots in the Chicago area, the founders of Housing Opportunities and Maintenance for the Elderly (H.O.M.E.) Michael and Lilo Salmon, were able to contact him through his former sister-in-law for support. In 1987 he made a sizeable donation to assist in the development and building of the Nathalie Salmon House. This home has been able to provide affordable housing for low-income seniors. Michael and Lilo Salmon credited him as performing "miracles" for them.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

This article uses bare URLs for citations. Please consider adding full citations so that the article remains verifiable. Several templates and the Reflinks tool are available to assist in formatting. (Reflinks documentation) (March 2012)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bill Murray

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Bill Murray

• Bill Murray at the Internet Movie Database
• Bill Murray at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Bill Murray at AllRovi
• Streaming audio interview from 1988 (18 minutes)