Μύ Director Wes Anderson cornered the market in 'quirky' with films like The Royal Tenenbaums and Rushmore, but The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou allowed him to really splash out. It's a tender father-son parable starring Bill Murray and Owen Wilson told against a lavishly stylised backdrop. However, its "brilliant psychedelic surrealism" cost over $25m, which is about a million more than it recouped at the box office and less than half the sum accrued by Tenenbaums.
Out Of The Blue
Boasting two-discs crammed with fascinating extras, this DVD edition of The Life Aquatic will surely buoy up sales figures. Best of all, master documentarian Albert Maysles helms a 50-minute fly-on-the-wall documentary recording the exploits of cast and crew in and around the Mediterranean. It affords a rare chance to see the publicity-shy Murray entertaining his colleagues between takes with spontaneous dancing and silly soliloquies. Just as bemusing is Anderson barking directions at the star as though here were guiding him into a parking space, eg "Quicker!" "Slower!" "Turn to your left!"
In Creating A Scene Murray talks more about the method of collaboration he's developed with Anderson since Rushmore. Apparently this entails a lot of improvisation, extracting something from each of the takes and then rolling it into one. In a cluster of featurettes devoted to the supporting cast, he also offers his thoughts on working with Owen Wilson. "You never know what he's thinking" he says, Or even if he is thinking." Wilson appears to back this up, saying, "I usually play complicated characters," adding that, "Being earnest and kind is a little more tricky for me to play."
A cluster of featurettes on production design, costumes and visual effects reveal how Anderson was able to fully realise his oceanic fantasy world. Especially intriguing is Aquatic Life, which examines the stop-motion animatronics used to portray the wacky marine life conceived by Wes and co-writer Noah Baumbach. The duo talk more about this in an engaging feature commentary recorded in the noisy New York bar where they penned the script. Anderson explains that, "The stop-motion animation is related to the whole concept of a movie being about people who create their own world - it's about self-invention."
Running A Tight Ship
It seems that Anderson too is aiming at "self-invention" with this DVD. As well as the Maysles' documentary, you can tune into the Italian chat show Mondo Monda where he guests with Baumbach. It feels like an elaborately staged 16-minute play, but within the artifice, he offers an honest account of his intentions as a filmmaker. Meanwhile Intern No.1 (Matthew Gray Gubler) directs his own video journal in the downtime between lighting set-ups. He turns the camera on Murray who spontaneously bursts into song and dance to stave off boredom. Apparently the situation got so dire that Wilson bought a foosball table to keep everyone entertained. What's interesting though is that Wilson is never seen hanging out with his fellow actors in any of the behind-the-scenes footage. Apparently he's as reclusive as Murray is only perceived to be.
Located above the Starz On Set featurette - which is a standard look at the 'making of' the film - Murray breaks in his new Adidas trainers with, yes, even more dancing. Two more Easter eggs are hidden on the bonus disc (one by the coral, the other by the watchtower) and include Maysles' demonstrating a near-lethal golf swing. Nine deleted scenes offer more laughs as well as introducing you to the amazing Hydronicus Inverticus - or "Rat-Tailed Envelope Fish".
In a detailed interview, composer Mark Mothersbaugh talks about working with Wes to perfect the synthesized score - apparently the director insisted that he "make it sound more like a Casio". Elsewhere David Bowie fans can enjoy/endure his back catalogue of songs performed by Seu Jorge. Finally, a couple of behind-the-scenes galleries showcase some of the retro concept art. Altogether it's a generous and wonderfully offbeat collection of extras. To put it simply, The Life Aquatic is wet and most definitely wild on DVD.
EXTRA FEATURES
