Alternate Best Actor 2004: Bill Murray in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

Bill Murray did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying the titular character of the Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. 

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou follows an underwater documentarian as he goes about an expedition to avenge his friend who was killed by a giant shark. 

The career of Bill Murray is distinctly marked between box office star sarcastic Murray and the switch to Indie leading man/character actor sad Murray. The mark of the switch was seemingly brought on about Wes Anderson who first cast him in Rushmore where we got the first taste of sad Murray, followed by his Oscar nominated turn of sad Murray in the much lauded Lost in Translation, however I don’t mind going against the grain and saying his best work as sad Murray is in fact here in the then much derided Anderson follow-up to The Royal Tenenbaums. Although I’d say in general the perspective on Zissou has since evened out to a more than respectable entry into the Anderson oeuvre, with its critical reaction standing out as a random blip of the critics briefly rebelling against Anderson. A film I’ve always found so much to enjoy within it, a standout element being Murray himself, in the only time he’s led an Anderson film despite the frequency of their collaborations. Murray is delivering in a way two performances throughout the film, the first in a way respecting the notion of the silliness of Bill Murray as an underwater documentarian on some sort of revenge mission, the second being the real truth of the character that is essentially the depth of the work. 

On the overtly comedic side of things we don’t really get sarcastic Murray exactly, but the specific comedic sensibilities of the old Murray are present here more so than a lot of his work post the millennium. As there is the comedic notions of the bungling Jacques Cousteau that Murray plays into with a natural ease, though a bit more dead in the dead pan than you’d find in prime blockbuster Murray of Ghostbusters, Groundhog’s Day and Scrooged. Nonetheless quite capable of being hilarious in the purposefully limited amount of energy he gives to the comedy. Such moments as when he notes to someone that his map is less inches for his path than her non-pirate infested water path so casually, and with proper lack of expertise in his delivery. Or his use of self-censoring “f” rather than the full expletive in as he places himself on a pedestal of unearned self-righteousness when confronting someone simply over their success with something he was interested in. Or even on the facilitation of a hilarious moment of Willem Dafoe’s Klaus’s sensitivity for not being on “A-squad” on a mission, and Murray’s paternalistic energy, closer to a kindergarten teacher than a boss, or even a high school boss, as he soothes over Klaus’s hurt feelings over not being chosen. I especially love the random bit of warmth Murray brings as he assures Klaus he’s “B-squad leader”. 

Murray’s performance very much successfully accentuates the haplessness of Steve as any kind of leader, or certainly any kind of pioneering documentarian. Murray’s comedy very much works by just putting in the bare minimum effort whenever we see Steve speaking on the subject one should assume that he is expert on. That is of course expected when we see him specifically shooting footage for the documentary and Murray delivery puts on slight effort. Not great effort still but there is a phony pseudo attempted knowing intelligence Murray places on these explanations. It still isn’t as a man who truly knows beyond a basic level, but rather just a man who is presenting himself as he thinks he knows just for the moment of the documentary delivery. The humor of Murray’s performance comes from a man who seemingly has fallen backwards into the extremely specific life he’s chosen, but still treats that life as a man who has just fallen into it. And while this wholly works in a funny way, where Murray is very funny here, albeit in a lower key way than his initial work, it is more exact work than a lot of his later performances where Murray seems bent on only the most Jarmuschian style deadpan, here we get more of a blend, however even this actually plays into the part of the real performance that is realizing what is going with Steve throughout the film. 

The other performance being something that is a constant technically in the comedy but is an underlying nagging quality of Murray’s entire performance. That being a man going through a deep depressive crisis started by the death of his friend Esteban who was killed by a shark before the film begins. There’s a notable contrast even in the opening scene between the deadpan Steve describing his documentary, and his intention of avenging his friend, to the Steve we see surfaces after the death of his friend. Murray very much gives us more than raw emotion as a man genuinely grieving and freaking out over the death of his friend, even if it is just a blip in the “documentary” we quickly cut away from. As we see Steve as a man who seems to “not to care” the rest of the time, what we see in the comedy is more so a reflection of the state of this man dealing with the death of his friend and by extension his own mortality. An element that Murray artfully intertwines as pivotal even if it is a man trying desperately to cover it up through pushing his energies elsewhere even towards indifference. A particularly early moment I love is when Steve sees footage of Esteban defending Steve, Murray portrays only the purest love mixed with heartbreak looking at his old friend, and we see the revenge is only to cover up that very real pain Steve hides most of the time. Something we see carry over to his blasé attitude, as even the scene where he introduces his mistress casually to the wife is of a man who has lost much interest in the common expectations. 

This fuels him all the more in his relationship with his possible illegitimate son Ned (Owen Wilson) who comes to see Steve. Murray’s depiction of Steve’s relationship with Ned is one of the most low key depictions of an extreme desperation you’ll see, however a wholly convincing one suitable to a man in a near depressive daze. Murray on the surface brings the most eagerness you get out of Steve throughout the film and his reactions to Ned early on are with this glint of temptation essentially to to create some kind of wind. Murray plays it with a degree of self-delusion mixed in with his general cynicism, making himself a bit of a mess. There are moments where he plays it overly so as the “dad” who is taking his kid out camping or something, and wants his son to have the best time. Murray putting on a false energy at times, not in his own performance but rather Steve’s performance. Steve is living out this attempted fantasy where suddenly Ned is the most important thing in his life, even giving him the name “Kingsley” as what Steve would’ve given him if he had been there. What’s so remarkable though is how Murray undercuts all of this with the nagging heartbreak that is fully this enthusiasm. One particular moment when he reads an old letter he sent to Ned that in no way showed any real concern or connection. Murray allowing out just a moment of the real desperation as he modestly notes that the response was pretty boilerplate, is marvelous in revealing the truth of the relationship. 

The relationship leads Steve on the questionable expedition, leading even to being attacked by pirates where we even get the rare Bill Murray action hero scene as he battles the pirates. Even that moment where Steve builds up towards his action is funny as he’s so nonchalant about it but even this reveals a man a little fed up with most of life with the pirates being a bit of a tipping point for him. After his heroics, caused more than in part by his own failings, with the pirates still leads to tragedy once again as Ned unexpectedly dies after the engine failure of Steve’s helicopter. Leading to Steve and his crew trying to find the legendary Jaguar shark with the sub with about all the cast onboard. This scene for me is my favorite Anderson scene in any of his films, which in part it is the realization of the setup with the beauty of Jaguar shark realized in only the way Anderson could, with an ideal song choice emphasizing that but most pivotally Murray’s performance as the man who is facing his theoretical tormentor with awe rather than anger. Murray’s amazing in the scene because you see him appreciating the wonder of the discovery with everyone else, but there’s so much more in his eyes than that. His delivery of “I wonder if it remembers me” is filled with so much pathos and the need of someone trying to find meaning in this moment, before Murray so powerfully fully breaks down in the scene to reveal all the emotion that has been within Steve this whole time. I love it because Murray is heartbreaking in revealing the tragedy within Steve, yet there’s this glint of hope trying to hold onto the meaning of the discovery and even more so trying to give himself any purpose after so much loss. Murray delivers a covertly powerful performance where he finds the very real tragedy in Bill Murray as an incompetent Jacques Cousteau.