May the Steve Zissou be with You!

And the Steve is no other than Steve Zissou of The Life Aquatic fame.
There is an unusual interleaving of life with all things Steve:
(1) Stephen Wolfram (a variant spelling); scientist, mathematician, and author of A New Kind of Science,
(2) Stevia, the universal sweetener.

Furthermore, there is the film itself, and it is a glorious mish-mosh of themes that are somehow how rolled together into one big pistachio baklava of Steve Zissou:
(1) his partner was killed by a mythic, possibly non-existent, shark - Moby Dick theme,
(2) his wife may be becoming close with her ex - must have been done with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne at some time,
(3) a young man comes on the scene claiming Steve is his father - Family Guy's My Black Son episode,
(4) Steve's recent films have not been well received and he is in an artisitic crisis - Fellini's 8 1/2 ,
and so on.

To be absolutely honest, this film is totally constellated around Bill Murray. If someone else had played Steve Zissou, this film would have gone down in flames. Consider the sitch (i.e., situation) where Nicholas Cage had played Zissou - ghastly. Or Brad Pitt - uni-dimensional. Denzel? No, but seriously... Bill Murray informs this film in the same way that the eternal ideals of Plato were to inform and cause the representations of the physical world. It is Murray. There is no other protean actor who acts on the quantum level where everything is possible.

In this many-faced, many-possible-outcome world, symbolized by the multi-national make-up of the crew, Steve Zissou is Everyman faced with an infinite universe whose complexity is tangible and mind-boggling.

The Steve be with you.


ps. For future historians, chronologically Steve Zissou and the Life Aquatic must predate Broken Flowers, because in Life, his friend Esteban has been shark-eaten, while in Flowers, the film starts with him talking to Esteban in a diner. Just sayin'.