For anyone who's seen it... a long post coming...
Okay, let me get a few things straight right here, right now: the following will be a lengthy analysis of THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU. If you want to know how the movie is, I'll just say this: it's good. Real good. Lots of fun, very colorful and funny, and unquestionably one of the year's best. It's also the weakest of Wes Anderson's efforts, but without being an Anderson apologist, Anderson is still at his creative career peak, and only time will turn THE LIFE AQUATIC from a "good movie" into a "good Anderson movie."
I will now go into the story and spoil a large number of plot points.
I'm of the train of thought that the fourth film in a director's filmography is his most important, particularly in this modern age of film where filmmaking is diversified between studio offerings, indie pictures, big, middle and small budget pictures. I believe that most directors today think creatively within a three-act arc, and that after their first couple of films, they are outside their sphere of familiarity and are forced to seek inspiration not as a struggling filmmaker but as a successful journeyman/artist.
Sometimes a filmmaker can follow up early career excursions with a fourth film that allows them to finally find their distinctive voice (Jeunet, AMELIE, Lynch, BLUE VELVET). Other times, they simply grow up (Jackson, HEAVENLY CREATURES, Amenebar, MAR ADENTRO). Sometimes, after their three films they indulge themselves into something they wanted to do all along (Tarantino, KILL BILL). At times a filmmaker will eschew their success in favor of something viewed as a mid-career experiment (O'Russell, I HEART HUCKABEE'S). Occasionally, however, it's the film in which an artist exhibits their limitations as an artist (Lucas, THE PHANTOM MENACE) or just completely sells out (Singer, X-MEN).
So, yes, the fourth film is ALWAYS worth watching.
Wes Anderson has entered rarified air. Disney, that elephant of distribution, has granted him somewhere in excesses of $50 million in budget and advertising for this latest picture. Wes Anderson is a quirky auteur with limited appeal, a one of a kind working today, and surely he must be all alone in a studio system populated by Tim Story's and Wolfgang Petersen's. What other auteur working today with Anderson's fan base is getting this type of major studio support? It puts a lot at stake for Anderson, who nevertheless watched the esoteric family fantasy THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS gross $52 million domestically. Disney, however, essentially gave the quirky indie darling Wes Anderson $50 million to make an autobiography.
This thesis is highly faulty, so it's got holes. Maybe you can fill them.
Anderson is Steve Zissou. Zissou is an ambitious oceanographer who questions his fanbase at every turn, and he has watched his own career shrink in relevance, a fear of the young Anderson as he moves later through life. In scenes that bookend the film, at the theater, it is massive and ornate, although it doesn't appear that anyone is there. Perhaps this is the holy temple that worships Anderson and the lack of an audience represents his actual appeal, conquered by the critical hype.
The spitballing begins here, folks.
Zissou is struggling through an indifferent relationship with his wife Eleanor (Anjelica Huston). Eleanor is also the primary investor in many of Zissou's adventures, suggesting a relationship that plays like nightmare meetings between Anderson and execs. When Zissou returns home, she goes out of her way to coldly tell him his cat has been bitten in the neck by a snake. Naturally, the downtrodden Zissou is taken aback and requests such information be brought to him in a more compassionate manner, and in Hollywood, what's colder truth than failure?
Eleanor is constantly wooed by Alistair Hennessey (Jeff Goldblum) an oily, dishonest oceanographer who roomed with Anderson in college. Hennessey is the more glamourous counterpart with the shinier toys and the bigger, gorgeous, Aryan crew. Is it not a stretch to assume Hennessey is an amalgamation of Anderson's peers? Could we not figure that Hennessey is a hired gun from a studio, geared towards churning out forgettable crap?
Oseary Drakoulias (Michael Gambon) ends up being in charge of distributing Zissou's latest picture, although we later learn that he isn't for real, and Zissou pays a price for it, suggesting the unreliability of distribution wings. Zissou's late film groveling back towards Eleanor is not unlike Anderson's requests for extra financing. It's only when Ned (Owen Wilson) shows up with much enthusiasm and an offering of cash that Zissou's creative spirit is awakened.
And that brings us to Ned. Ned comes to Zissou with the possibility that he is his son. Without much evidence to go on (Ned's mother has passed on), Zissou adopts the 30 year old and assimilates him onto the ship, much to the chagrin of first mate Klaus (Willem Dafoe).
In my kooky thesis, Ned is meant to personify an overeager fan that latches onto Zissou during this latest voyage. Being that Zissou is going on something that he describes as his "most ambitious journey" (like Anderson), he knows that he's going to need all the fans that he can get, even though Ned has only minor knowledge of shiplife (not unlike a mainstream fan going into an Anderson film for the first time, which is bound to happen many times this winter).
Being that Ned is the eager fan desperate to know more about Zissou, for whom he has an irrational respect towards, suggests the blanket support Anderson has probably received over the years from those who aren't aware of their own priorities, as Ned submits an astounding amount of money and time to this voyage, blindly following Zissou wherever he goes, abandoning his previous life.
When Ned blindly follows Zissou even when his plans become more unorthodox and unhinged, he pays for it, and Zissou's risky actions lose him a fan not unlike the way something drastically different in Anderson's filmography would lose him fans, and Ned's death represents the overreaching worship that claims the life of the fan. Not sure where Jane fits in this, btw, wanna give me a hand?
Ned could also be an example of meta casting. This is the first film that Wes Anderson has written without Wilson, his former writing partner. Instead, the credit has gone to Noah Baumbauch, who could be represented as being new to the Anderson world, i.e. Ned. The casting of Wilson as Ned suggests there are no hard feelings, but Klaus could easily be a stand-in for a miffed Wilson when told that Anderson would be working with Baumbach instead, particularly because Baumbach has more of a fanciful, childlike mentality.
In the early scenes, Zissou is bombarded with accusations that his films seem fake, artificial, and people laughed when he states that at a pivotal on-film moment, he "dropped the camera." He does not understand the laughter this elicts, just how he probably doesn't see how the dysfunction in his films can possibly be seen as actual comedy. One autograph seeker pursues Zissou doggedly, only to get Zissou to sign what seems like countless pages, signifying Anderson's desire to resist placating the masses with the same stuff every time.
