Documentary or Fiction? Subjectivity vs. Objectivity in The Life

Stephen McNearney
LCC2500
Term Paper Draft
11/17/07
Documentary or Fiction?: The Blurry Line between Subjectivity and Objectivity in
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Documentary and animation are two rather distinct film genres whose
conventions may be even more evident when juxtaposed. While documentary attempts to
achieve total profilmic reality by relying on a cinematographer’s ability to capture real
life experiences (Donato 199), animation almost completely lacks true profilmic reality,
oftentimes created entirely from scratch. Still, it is important to consider the relativity of
animation while attempting to discern fiction and nonfiction in its message. Surely,
animation is capable of mediating truthful ideas, whose accuracy may only be interpreted
specifically by individuals. As a result, it is possible to find more truth, or relative
experience, in animation than in, for instance, an obscure documentary from a far away
time and place. In other words, what we know to be real is a product of what we consider
to be familiar. In Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, the juxtaposition of
the documentary and animation genres combines with the self-consciousness of the film
to blur the boundary between fiction and nonfiction, as well as the boundary between
subjectivity and objectivity.
Beyond reading the actual message that genre conventions assist in disseminating,
one can make meaning of a genre by exploring its demographic appeal. Ever since Walt
Disney developed his studio’s release of Snow White, the first feature-length animation
film ever, into a synergetic production of advertising and merchandising aimed at
children, one could argue that animation has been produced more for children than any
other age group. In reaction to Disney, other studios have included self-conscious
elements in animation, both reflecting and exposing the narcissistic tendencies of its
greater audience. Self-consciousness is something of a staple in Wes Anderson’s films. In
fact, the opening sequence of Life Aquatic begins with a painting on a stage; an emcee
appears, as well as the audience he addresses, and the emcee introduces part one (a short)
of the two-part documentary that Bill Murray’s character Steve Zissou is shooting in Life
Aquatic. As we watch the movie, it is as if we are in the theater in which the short is
premiered, as Anderson chooses to include the red theater curtains in the outer framing of
our picture (figure 1). Shortly after the ‘documentary’ begins, we see an underwater shot
with an animated background (figure 2). Therefore, one must begin to ask questions
almost instantly in order to differentiate between fiction and nonfiction. Moreover, the
documentary in the movie is called The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, so the movie we
are watching takes the title of the film being produced in the movie, and we are not sure
how to tell the difference between them. Interestingly enough, even the two-part release
of Steve Zissou’s film can be viewed as an extradiegetic, self-conscious element: director
Wes Anderson’s latest release came in two parts; first with a short entitled “Hotel
Chevalier,” and then a feature entitled The Darjeeling Limited.
One significant indicator of self-consciousness in the film is the embodiment of
each persona as a type more than a character. Each person in the movie is very flat, and
not just because of the bright front lighting, ectachromatic blues, monochromatic yellows
and saturated oranges. Steve Zissou is the stereotypical captain of a ship, whose traits of
dedication and courage are over exaggerated, filling the holes that general lack of
character leaves in his persona. His ex wife Eleanor is the archetypical lost love he
wishes to regain, and his fight to win her back is an all-too-evident subplot. Twice during
the film, Eleanor is placed in a beautiful scene with Zissou’s boat in the background. One
image looks especially like a painting, and creates the sense that Eleanor is nothing more
than an object of affection to be desired. Jeff Goldblum plays Alistair Hennessy, Zissou’s
nemesis, who marries Eleanor after she and Steve are divorced, and whose seafaring
expeditions “hog all the grant money.” Wes Anderson goes so far as to bring character
types out of unlikely characters: an intern turns into a faithful team member; the “bank
stooge” plays a crucial role in dealing with pirates along the way. Many aspects of the
film help to create such flat character types, which greatly influences the audience’s
tendency to read the film like a graphic novel (Agger 74). One such aspect is costume.
Everyone seems to have a very specific costume, no matter what the reasoning may be
for each one. For instance, the Team Zissou costume comprises a blue jump suit, a red
beanie, a blue speed-o, a navy sweater with a Z stitched into it, and a customized pair of
Zissou adidas shoes. Clearly, Team Zissou makes inter-textual inferences as it follows in
the footsteps of Jacques Cousteau and the Captain Cousteau documentaries (Shaheen 94),
as Wes Anderson has acknowledged the Cousteau documentaries as influential in the
filmmaking process. The team members are always dressed differently from the interns,
who mostly wear the same clothes as each other. In fact, the only time one intern wears a
different costume from the rest is when the rest quit, and the one out of costume has
elected to stay on board. With the exception of Ned and the intern becoming members of
Team Zissou, costume transformation does not seem to play a major parallel role to plot
development.
Another aspect of the film that highlights persona types is the seemingly
insincere, or perhaps all-to-easily sincere behavior of each person. For example, when
Zissou arrives at his island and Eleanor greets him with news that his cat has died, he
asks her how the cat died. She replies, in a very matter-of-fact tone, that a rattlesnake bit
its throat. Zissou acts upset by her unsympathetic tone, but when she leaves, Ned asks
Zissou what kind of cat it was, to which he replies, “Who gives a shit?” Overall, the lack
of emotion in the scene implies the idea that each person is not there for each other, but
for the purpose of producing a story. Another more tangible example occurs after Ned’s
first attempt at scuba diving. Ned nearly drowns, but Zissou and another crewmember are
able to resuscitate him. Just after he begins breathing again, a cameraman puts a light
meter in his face to get a reading for shooting the event. As soon as Zissou is sure Ned
will be all right, he asks the cameraman how he’s shooting the scene (“wide open?”), to
which the cameraman replies “five six” (5.6, an aperture setting). Another life and death
situation occurs in which Zissou remains preoccupied with his movie (figure 3). Though
his ship has been boarded by pirates who blindfold the cameraman and tie him up, Zissou
asks the cameraman what kind of footage he’s getting, to which the cameraman calmly
replies, “I’m not sure, I’ve just been holding the camera this way since they blindfolded
me.” On another occasion, the bank stooge knows the pirates’ language, and he remains
unmoved as he converses with them about how they are going to kidnap him. In a blatant
mockery of objectivity, when the bank stooge is finally rescued, the first thing he says is
“Did you get my message?” Indeed, every character must remain calm and collected no
matter the situation in order to diminish our ability to project into them and become
emotionally attached (Agger 73).
Perhaps the most obvious and appropriate elements of self-consciousness in the
film are the articles of filmic equipment in the mise-en-scene. Throughout team Zissou’s
efforts to produce their documentary, we see the iconography of documentary: boom
mics, cameras, sound equipment, and editing equipment all appear on-screen. So frequent
is the presence of filmic equipment onscreen that it’s hard to determine what is a prop
and what is not, or if any, all, or none of it is actually used to produce what we are seeing
and hearing. We see pictures of Zissou and Pelé, played by musician Seu Jorge, in a
recording booth creating the soundtrack and musical score of their documentary, which in
turn becomes the soundtrack of the movie we are watching. In fact, even when outside of
the booth, most of the music in the film is not only played by Seu Jorge, but is also
diegetic, beginning off-screen and later coming on-screen, even while traversing multiple
scenes or long periods of time (figure 4). Because of these sound bridges in which the
sound stays consistent when the picture is not consistent, we can say the sound lacks
fidelity, and can be synchronous while on-screen but asynchronous while off-screen. Offscreen to on-screen sound is also used to create tension during the scene in which pirates
board Zissou’s boat. In one particular scene, we see a sequence involving multiple
aspects of filmmaking. As the camera pans from right to left, using the mobile frame to
create a metonymic bond between the camera and the audience, we see a shooting
schedule for the film, a recording booth mix-down, a color shoot, more sound production,
and a ‘stunt work’ bulletin board (figure 5). What we do not know, however, is whether
we are seeing a fictitious account of a movie shoot, or part of the actual production that is
on the screen in front of us.
The movie within our film is not the only remediation of the general story told.
Jane, the journalist character, is constantly recording interviews and logging events that
take place during Team Zissou’s journey. She writes for a magazine called
“Oceanographic Explorer,” and the quest for a cover story is all part of the adventure for
Team Zissou. At one specific time in the story, Zissou’s recollection of a past event is
marked by introducing a shot of a logbook, which reads “Entry in the logbook of Steve
Zissou…” As Zissou begins telling the story, the logbook opens and cuts to video footage
of the story. Perhaps the most fantastic remediation of narration in the film is the scene
which begins with Zissou facing the camera directly as he says, “Let me tell you about
my boat.” The scene begins with a close-up, depth of knowledge shot of Zissou standing
in front of a mural, which raises as a backdrop on a stage would, revealing a long shot of
the set which comprises most of the shots on the inside of the boat. In true Wes Anderson
fashion, the camera pans in front of set dividers from room to room as if passing through
walls while Zissou narrates the tour as a proud captain would (figure 6). In what may be
the most visible, self-conscious narration of the film, such camera movement continues,
and we often see people following each other around on the set.
Other examples of self-consciousness have more to do with reflexivity, and
perhaps address the tendency of animation to illustrate the narcissistic aspects of the
human psyche. For example, in one scene, Zissou and another crewmember are editing
their documentary, and using a film projector to view the changes they’ve made. In the
segment they watch, we see them sitting at a table with a projector, which faces us as if
we were being projected. Then, the shot cuts to what they are actually projecting, a map
of the next place they will go to track the honing dart Zissou has on the Jaguar Shark.
What we’re seeing is a projection on a projection on a projection (figure 7). Still, because
we watch passively, we are actually projecting our own intuition into the image, and may
not be aware of the depth of projection that is right before our eyes.
Of course, being fully conscious of exactly what we see throughout the film is just
what Anderson would not like us to be. In the attempt to blur the line between animation
and documentary, one goal must be to accept the fantastic elements as real elements in
the film (Bernardi 45). Many scenes in the film are so blatantly animated that we tend to
accept the diegetic world as a fantastic place, and look past the fantasy while trying to
make meaning of what we are watching. One recurring element of absolute fantasy in the
film is the presence of animals that simply do not exist in the real world. In the
beginning, Zissou receives a “crayon pony fish” as a gift from a child (figure 8). On his
island, Zissou notices some “sugar crabs,” whose mating rituals apparently involving one
tearing a pincher off the other. While Zissou speaks to Eleanor in the house, an animated
lizard suddenly appears on his hand, which he flicks away nonchalantly. Finally, towards
the end, we see such creatures as the “fluorescent snappers” which indicate that the
“jaguar shark” is nearby. In order to lure the jaguar shark close to his submarine, Zissou
ties a “rhinestone blue fin” to the back end. Many more of the animals in the film are
entirely animated, especially the marine life. In fact, the obvious animation of the
disconnected world that Team Zissou hopes to connect with is a joke itself, as it makes
fun of real documentaries’ attempt to familiarize with the unfamiliar. Interestingly, there
are a great number of land animals and birds in the film as well. The overbearing
presence of animals distracts the audience from making a more realistic reading of the
film as a whole.
Other examples of fantasy help throughout the story to distract from making many
typically realistic readings. For example, when Team Zissou makes a dive to explore a
honing beam they weren’t expecting to see on the radar, the absence of gravity is only the
beginning of a dream-like reading; every part of the dive appears to be animated (figure
9). Not only does the marine life continue to fascinate, but the colors, costumes, and
aesthetics of equipment all help to illustrate a fantastic dive. In fact, the aesthetics of most
of the equipment play a large role in distracting the audience from contemporary, familiar
reality. One example would be the echo boxes Team Zissou uses to communicate. Echo
boxes appear to be a combination of a phone and a walkie-talkie, and they look like they
might have been used in the late ‘70’s or early ‘80’s. Most of the telephones and audio
equipment, which can be found just about anywhere on the ship, have a very antique feel
(figure 10); even the tape recorder Jane uses for her interviews seems older than one
might think it should be. Because we are so fascinated by the appearance of these objects,
especially in the orange and yellow lights that predominate many shots, we are alienated
from the film, and not bothered by the flatness of the characters and lack of emotional
attachment we feel for the plot.
Still, though we may not become engulfed in the plot, there are elements of the
plot that advance our distraction from reality. For instance, during their voyage, Team
Zissou is taken captive when pirates board their ship in unprotected waters. Everyone is
tied up, Ned is kidnapped, and Zissou believes that if the situation is not handled
correctly, everyone may end up dead. All of a sudden, Zissou decides that he cannot let
anything bad happen because he is determined to finish the movie. We see a flash of the
scene from part one of his documentary in which he emerges from the water after
witnessing his best friend Esteban die. Immediately after the flash, Zissou begins
gnawing at the ropes around his hands and gets free. He then grabs a gun from one of the
pirates and single-handedly manages to force all the pirates to flee (figure 11). Ironically,
the action scene makes no use of jump cuts, slow motion, fast motion, or freeze frame.
Instead, it uses long takes to give us the impression that we witness the entire event as it
happens. This approach to filming an action sequence defies our conventions and further
alienates us from the film. Furthermore, this scene is not the only time we see Zissou
single-handedly win a gunfight with ten or so pirates. While rescuing the bank stooge
from the pirates’ deserted island, Zissou finds that the pirates have also captured his
‘nemesis’ Alistair Hennessy. In the end of the scene, which reads more like a gag,
Hennessy survives being shot in the chest, Zissou wins another gunfight, and the whole
team escapes the island. Such aspects of action help a great deal to provide some of the
adventure that we normally see in both documentary and animation, and its extremity
speaks well to animation.
The main point of The Life Aquatic is to blur the boundaries between
documentary and animation and fiction and nonfiction. By baiting us into accepting the
fantastic as real in order to look for something else in the film, Wes Anderson is actually
trying to show how readily we can accept fiction in establishing the paradigms of the
film, and further, the paradigms of life. It is possible for animation to have a lesser, equal,
or better influence than documentary on the way people choose to live, and vice versa.
By making a juxtaposition of two very contradictory genres, Anderson makes us more
aware of the difference between subjectivity and objectivity in life and storytelling. In
fact, The Life Aquatic makes a strong argument against any possibility for objectivity,
and allows us to focus (through its own projections) on our projected relativity.
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Works Cited
Agger, Michael. “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.” Film
Comment. New York: Jan/Feb 2005. Vol. 41, Iss. 1; pp 7374.
Bernardi, Daniel. “Traversing Cinematic Borders: An Interview
with Paul Espinosa. Journal of Film & Video. University
Film & Video Association: Summer 2007. Vol. 59, Iss. 2;
Pp 41-54.
Donato, Raffaele. “Docufictions: an interview with Martin
Scorsese on documentary film.” Film History. Indiana
University Press: 2007. Vol. 19, Iss. 2; pp 199-207.
Shaheen, Jack G. “The Documentary of Art: The Undersea World
of Jacques Cousteau.” Journal of Popular Culture. Bowling
Green State University Press: Jul 1987. Vol. 21, Iss. 1; pp.
93-95.
FIGURE 1. theater curtains
QuickTimeª and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
FIGURE 2. immediate animation in documentary
QuickTimeª and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
FIGURE 3. mocking commitment to the documentary
CARING MOSTLY ABOUT THE FILM IN LIFE AND DEATH SITUATIONS
FIGURE 4. diegetic soundtrack
FIGURE 5. diegetic movie shoot preparation
SHOOTING SCHEDULE
COLOR
SOUND
STUNT WORK
FIGURE 6. camera panning through set dividers
CROSS-SECTIONALS OF SETS – VISIBLE SET DIVIDERS
FIGURE 7. projector projecting on a projection on a projection
PROJECTIOR ON PROJECTION ON PROJECTION
FIGURE 8. completely fictional animals
SUGAR CRABS
CRAYON PONY FISH
RHINESTONE BLUE FIN
JAGUAR SHARK
FIGURE 9. fiction or nonfiction?
HONING DART INSPECTION SCENE – wonderful/fictional colors, animals, plant life
FIGURE 10. telephony equipment
AESTHETICS OF TELEPHONY EQUIPMENT
FIGURE 11. ridiculous pirate scenes/UNREALISTIC GUNFIGHTS