The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is a 2004 American comedy-drama film directed, co-written, and co-produced by Wes Anderson. It is Anderson's fourth feature-length film and was released in the United States on December 25, 2004. It was written by Anderson and Noah Baumbach and was filmed in and around Naples, Ponza, and the Italian Riviera. The film stars Bill Murray as the eponymous Steve Zissou, an eccentric oceanographer who sets out to exact revenge on the "jaguar shark" that ate his partner Esteban. Zissou is both a parody of and homage to French
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou submersible but he decides not to kill it, both because of its beauty and not having any more dynamite. At the premiere of the finished documentary (which is dedicated to Ned), Zissou receives a standing ovation while waiting outside the theater for the premiere to finish. The crew returns triumphantly to the ship the next day. Though the characters were inspired by such American novels as "The Great Gatsby" and "The Magnificent Ambersons", the plot has been compared to "Moby-Dick". Writing about the metaphorical aspects of the film's setting—somewhere in the Mediterranean—film critic Elena Past says that the underwater scenes,