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The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.

Bill Murray as Captain Steve Zissou

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

Directed by	Wes Anderson
Written by	Wes Anderson Noah Baumbach
Starring	Bill Murray Owen Wilson Cate Blanchett Anjelica Huston Willem Dafoe Jeff Goldblum
Produced by	Wes Anderson
Distributed by	Touchstone Pictures
Release date	December 25, 2004 (USA)
Runtime	119 minutes
Language	English
Budget	$25 million
*IMDb page (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362270/)*

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is Wes Anderson's fourth feature length film and was released in the U.S. on December 25, 2004. It was written by Anderson and Noah Baumbach. The film, which was created by Touchstone Pictures, stars Bill Murray as eccentric oceanographer Steve Zissou, who seeks to exact revenge on a shark that ate his partner. Zissou's character is both a parody of and homage to Jacques-Yves Cousteau, to whom the film is dedicated.

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

The film details the adventures of the once famed documentarian Steve Zissou as he creates the last film near the end of his career. His recent film about his best friend Estaban's death from a "Jaguar shark" is a flop, and for his next project he is determined to find the creature and destroy it. Steve's crew includes Pelé dos Santos (Seu Jorge), a Brazilian musician who sings translated David Bowie songs, and Klaus Daimler (Willem Dafoe) who is a lovable German second-in-command who views Steve and Estaban as father figures and feels threatened by Ned.

On a boat party Steve meets his presumed son, Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson), who also becomes his financer when Steve's financier bails. He is a polite, innocent and childlike southern gentleman whose mother had recently died. Steve is also followed by a reporter Jane Winslett-Richardson, who is a fan of his, and is pregnant with her married boss's child. She eventually falls in love with Ned. The crew sets off on one last mission, facing pirates, financial problems, rescuing a bond company stooge (who is present to make sure Ned's money is spent appropriately) and his successful, suave, rich, and part-gay nemesis Alistair Hennessey (Jeff Goldblum), and reuniting with his wife Eleanor who was once married to Hennessey. But while on look for The Jaguar Shark, the Zissou helicopter crashes injuring Steve and killing Ned. Although it is revealed that Steve is sterile, Steve and Ned are as close as genuine father and son. Steve finally tracks down the shark but decides not to kill it, both because of its beauty and his lack of dynamite. Eleanor is moved by this and falls for Steve again. The finished "film-within-a-film" is a hit, and Steve wins an award and respect.

The shark that Steve hunts (which he has dubbed a "Jaguar shark") is actually a fictitious animal created using stop motion animation.

Cate Blanchett's role as a pregnant reporter was originally sought after by Gwyneth Paltrow, Nicole Kidman, and Julianne Moore. Blanchett was, in real life, actually pregnant with her second child at the time.

The movie was filmed in and around Rome, Italy. The sea creatures and underwater scenes in the film have been created using stop-motion animation under the direction of Henry Selick, the man behind The Nightmare Before Christmas and the film version of James and the Giant Peach.

The film's soundtrack features a number of songs by David Bowie (from early in his career), most of which are sung in Portuguese by Seu Jorge.

The film was released on DVD in May 10, 2005 in the Criterion Collection, and has spine number 300.

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