Useless Movie Trivia For
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Memorable Movie Quotes
Steve Zissou: Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go on an overnight drunk, and in 10 days I'm going to set out to find the shark that ate my friend and destroy it. Anyone who wants to tag along is more than welcome.
Steve Zissou: I'm going to find it and I'm going to destroy it. I don't know how yet. Possibly with dynamite.
Steve Zissou: Wolodarsky, go get the keys to that fishing boat, and throw them in the water. No, wait. They might have another set. Just blow it up.
Steve Zissou: Son of a bitch, I'm sick of these dolphins.
Steve Zissou: Oh, shit! Swamp leeches. Everybody, check for swamp leeches, and pull them off... Nobody else got hit? I'm the only one? What's the deal?
Steve Zissou: If we don't handle this right, we're gonna all get murdered... including her unborn British child.
Trivia
Gwyneth Paltrow was originally set to play Jane Winslett-Richardson, but couldn't because of schedule conflicts. Nicole Kidman expressed interest and Wes Anderson hired her. Kidman was forced to bow out due to other commitments, and Julianne Moore requested the role. However, it eventually went to Cate Blanchett. Anderson admitted the character name was inspired by actress Kate Winslet. Blanchett played the part while actually pregnant.
During filming, Bill Murray became a certified diver, logging over 40 hours.
The space suit in the Adventurers' Club is from another Touchstone movie, Mission to Mars.
The film is dedicated to Jacques-Yves Cousteau; Cousteau's ship was The Calypso. Zissou's ship is called the Belafonte; Harry Belafonte became famous singing commercialized calypso songs.
The character of Wolodarsky was named after director Wes Anderson's close friend Wallace Wolodarsky, probably best-known as a writer on "The Simpsons".
Bill Murray couldn't accept his BAFTA Award for his performance in Lost in Translation (2003) personally because he was in Italy filming this movie.
Steve Zissou was written with Bill Murray in mind and according to Wes Anderson, it "could have been no one else."
A 50-year-old minesweeper vessel bought and towed from South Africa served as the Belafonte.
Wes Anderson has stated the walking sequence in the final credits is an homage to The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984), also starring Jeff Goldblum.
The red woolen caps worn by the characters are a reference to Jacques-Yves Cousteau, famed underwater film-maker and co-inventor of the modern aqualung.
In the scene where Steve Zissou stumbles on the kidnappers playing cards, one of the kidnappers can be seen wearing a hat featuring the Longhorn logo of the University of Texas. Wes Anderson graduated from the University of Texas at Austin.
In the scene where Steve discovers the pirates playing cards, Hennessey wears a t-shirt with "I'm a pepper" written on it. This is the same T-shirt worn by the gun seller in the original Bottle Rocket short.
The original script called for the pirates to be Indonesians, but since there wasn't enough of an Indonesian population in Italy where the film was shot, it was changed to Filipinos.
In his letter to Steve, Ned asks if Steve ever wishes if he could breathe underwater. This is most likely a reference to Jacques-Yves Cousteau, co-inventor (with Emile Gagnan) of the self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA).
Seu Jorge's character's name, Pelé Dos Santos, comes from famous footballer (soccer player) Pelé and the only club he played for in his home country of Brazil, Santos.
The jaguar shark is one of the largest stop-motion puppets ever constructed. It measured eight feet in length and required five hand-cranked controls for the swimming action.
Seu Jorge translated the David Bowie songs into Brazilian Portuguese and arranged them for guitar himself.
Cate Blanchett never rehearsed with the crew and hadn't even met most of them before filming the nighttime electric jellyfish scene in which she first appears in the movie to add spontaneity to the scene.
During filming the Chicago Cubs made a deep run into the Major League playoffs, mounting a 3-1 lead in the NLCS. Bill Murray, a native of the Chicago area, had it written in to his contract that he receive a live feed of all the Cubs' games. The Cubs eventually lost the series to the Florida Marlins, prolonging its World Series drought to 95 years.
Wes Anderson watched many films set on the ocean to see how the sea movement was simulated. He found that in The Black Stallion (1979) there was only one scene set in a hallway that had the camera rocking, and so he decided to have just one rocking hallway scene in "The Life Aquatic."
Seymour Cassel has a brief role as Esteban, the friend of Steve Zissou who is eaten by the Jaguar shark. According to Roger Ebert, Cassel once told him in an interview many years previously that he had always wanted to be eaten by a shark in a movie.
Matthew Gray Gubler (Intern #1) sprained his ankle while filming a scene where the interns are exercising (the take where he falls made it into the final cut of the film). Gubler always wears mismatched socks and contributes his bad luck to having worn matching socks that particular day for the first time in several years.
As a pilot, early in the film, Ned Plimpton wears a Rolex GMT Master. This watch is popular with airline pilots for calculating time zones. By the end of the film, he has given up the GMT and plumped for a Rolex Submariner, for obvious reasons.
Goofs
During the deserted island hotel scene, a red vehicle can be seen traveling in the background behind the hotel.
After Hennessey and the Stooge are rescued from the pirates, and Team Zissou are in the midst of a shoot-out behind an old jeep, Hennessey is clearly wearing flip-flops. However, when the team reach the boat, he has gained a pair of brown boots.
Steve peels the tape off Bill Ubell's mouth when he rescues him from the pirates, and several days' growth of beard is plainly visible. Moments later, when they are running toward the beach and they reach the boy cooking lobster over a small fire, Bills beard is noticeably thinner.
When Ned is shining his shoes in his cabin and Steve comes to speak with him, the clock goes backwards between shots from 9:50 to 9:40.
The "Belafonte" model is shown with an observation dome built onto the bow of the ship. It is also mentioned by Zissou. When the ships bow is exposed cresting a wave, there is no evidence of any structure below the waterline at the bow.
When Steve and Ned are in the helicopter, they're supposedly far out in remote "unprotected waters". There's a two-masted sailboat visible over Steve's right shoulder in several shots. In the same sequence, the water beneath the helicopter is shallow and churning with brown sand, indicating this was shot very near a beach.
While on the submarine, Zissou inserts a tape into the player. The clock reads 2:18. The camera immediately cuts to Zissou turning the volume up, but the time now reads 1:45.
The team's Glock automatics frequently turn into Berettas when being fired. This is very noticeable during the rescue of Hennessy during the card game, when Zissou draws a Glock, but in the next shot he is clearly firing a Beretta Model 92.
When Steve dives under water, with his team, he snaps his finger. The sound of snapping is heard underwater as if it were snapped in air.
In The Credits
During the end credits the filmmakers acknowledge that the real Steve Zissou
is a prominent attorney in New York City specializing in complex federal
litigation.
USA Box Office Info
Budget: $50,000,000
Gross: $24,006,726
Filming Dates: September 2003 - December 2003
Filming Locations
Cinecittà Studios, Cinecittà, Rome, Lazio, Italy
(studio)
Florence, Tuscany, Italy
Italy
Marineland, Antibes, Alpes-Maritimes, France
Naples, Campania, Italy
Ponza Island, Ponziane Islands, Latina, Lazio, Italy
Rome, Lazio, Italy