AQUA MAN DIRECTOR WES ANDERSON GOT BILL MURRAY TO DIVE INTO `THE LIFE AQUATIC' - SO WHY DOES THE ACTOR WANT TO KILL HIM?

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

Wes Anderson makes movies that burst with so much imagination that it's almost impossible to absorb it all in one sitting. Trust us: That's a good thing - the bursting, that is.

Think of the sequence in ``Rushmore'' where, one by one, all of Max Fisher's clubs and activities go flying by, each one intricately detailed and perfectly framed in shots that last all of five seconds. Or when, in ``The Royal Tenenbaums,'' Bill Murray's cuckolded husband learns of his wife's infidelities through a rapid-fire montage of romantic encounters set to the blitzkrieg beat of the Ramones' ``Judy Is a Punk.'' It's cleverness in service of character, tenaciously oddball, unmistakably Anderson. It's the reason why DVD players were invented.

In his latest, ``The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,'' Anderson has upped the ante considerably. At $50 million, the film costs twice as much as ``Tenenbaums,'' a far cry from the days when Bill Murray offered to write Anderson a check for $25,000 to cover a shot Anderson wanted in ``Rushmore'' that Disney executives were unwilling to pay for.

Thematically, ``Life Aquatic'' covers familiar ground. Like ``Tenenbaums,'' it's about a deeply flawed father figure, in this case legendary underwater explorer Steve Zissou (Bill Murray), a Jacques Cousteau-type figure trying to reconnect with his family and come to grips with the sins of his past (and present, for that matter).

The movie has Anderson's familiar wry sensibility, but it's also a huge departure in many ways. For one thing, it's an action comedy with pirates and explosions and Bill Murray running around with a gun. It's got Owen Wilson playing a straight dramatic role and Willem Dafoe doing comedy. And it has a Brazilian actor singing 1970s Bowie songs in Portuguese with a bossa nova beat.

``It's very different from anything he has ever done,'' says Anjelica Huston, who played the matriarch in ``Tenenbaums'' and is Zissou's wife in ``Aquatic.'' ``It has elements of films that you've seen - Fellini and Jacques Tati and my father's (John) 'Beat the Devil' come to mind. But it's different. I've never seen anything like it.''

Adds Barry Mendel, Anderson's longtime producer: ``He threw out the Wes Anderson rule book on this one.''

We talked to Anderson, friendly, polite and as brainy as you'd expect him to be from watching his films, about the latest turn in his career, the father-son issues coursing through his movies, and whether Murray is really as angry with him as he seems.

Q: Let's start with a quote from your star, Bill Murray. ``God damn it, the movie better be the greatest movie ever made. If it's not, I'm gonna KILL Anderson. He's a dead man. If it's not the greatest movie ever made, or in the top 10, he may as well just move to China and change his name to Chin, and he better get himself a small room in a small town - and even then, I'll hunt him down.'' So are you moving to China or is Bill OK with you?

A: I'm not moving.

Q: Right. But is he OK with you?

A: I'm not moving.

Q: Has he seen the movie yet?

A: He has seen it a couple of times. He compares it to ``Apocalypse Now.''

Q: Are we talking about the process of making the film or the finished product?

A: (Laughs) The finished product. I think he was very overwhelmed by the movie when he saw it because he's up there every second, he's in pain all through it, he's filled with anger and all these emotions, and he's in this giant, surreal setting. I think it had an effect on him.

Q: It seems like it. He talks about surviving ``The Life Aquatic'' the way some veterans talk about coming through the horrors of war.

A: Bill has been milking this to comic effect ever since the Golden Globes. He continually goes back to this was the most painful, difficult experience of his life. From where I was standing, it seemed like he ate a lot of good food and rode around on his Motorino. He was separated from his family. But, you know, it's Rome. It's pretty good.

Q: Yeah, but he says you always manage to find hell-hole locations, even in good locales like Rome or New York.

A: That's totally false. It's the Mediterranean! Bill went with me on a location scout one time before the movie and we got to this island where we were going to film and he just got off the boat and stayed on the island. Everybody else is leaving. ``I'll figure out a way to get back.'' ``But you've got to be at dive training tomorrow morning at 7:15.'' ``I'll figure it out.'' And we left him.

Q: ``Life Aquatic'' has another infantile, imperfect father figure, the kind of guy who, like Royal Tenenbaum, is blind to the emotions of people around him. You've said before that your own dad isn't that kind of guy. I'm wondering where this stuff comes from.

A: I've known people whose fathers are these legendary types of characters - crazy, infantile, larger-than-life. I've had mentors like that, too, eccentrics who tend to be troubled. It's not very similar to what I grew up with, but in a way I think it's kind of exotic to me. I think that's why I'm drawn to them.

Q: What's your father like?

A: The one father in my films that somewhat resembles my father is Seymour Cassel in ``Rushmore.'' Sweet. Supportive.

Q: All your movies take us into these slightly artificial, surreal worlds, but ``Life Aquatic'' goes even further. There were times that I wasn't sure when you were on the level and when you were putting me on.

A: I think it might be even more the kind of movie you have to see twice. You see it the first time, there's a lot to take in and you have to figure how it's intended and what to make of it. I know people have felt that way about my other films, but this one is wilder.

Q: Yeah, that scene at the beginning when we learn - we don't see it - that Zissou's colleague is eaten by the shark ...

A: Right. I don't know if it's clear whether it's supposed to be funny or terribly tragic because we're kind of throwing everything at it. It's a very strange scene. ``He was swallowed whole?'' ``No, chewed!''

Q: Then there's that pirate attack ...

A: ... where we've had a certain kind of tone and all of a sudden it becomes a Friedkin movie. It's shocking and it changes the feeling from that point on. I feel like I've always had things like that in my films. But in this case, it's bigger. It's a bigger kind of hit and challenge. It asks a lot of an audience member.

Q: Just what Disney wants you to do after giving you $50 million to make a movie.

A: When you put it out in front of everybody, you think, ``Gosh, we've really made a crazy, huge movie that doesn't really give in to people easily.''

Q: It almost surprises me Disney gave you the money to make it.

A: It's a fairly strange story for a $50 million movie. Producers probably don't love it, too, when they're reading the script and they turn the page and suddenly it says, ``We're looking at an abandoned hotel that's been destroyed by monsoons.''

Q: Because you have to build the hotel.

A: Yes. It's amazing to have the kind of money to be able to build a hotel on an island or renovate a World War II-era ship.

Q: Or blow stuff up.

A: Or blow stuff up. With Bill Murray. Nobody has ever seen him in a movie do this much running and jumping and shooting. And he's a guy, once you give him a gun, he never really wants to stop pulling the trigger. It's also a rare movie where you get to fight off pirates and have a gun fight dressed in a Speedo and bathrobe.

Q: Maybe that's what's causing those traumatic flashbacks for Murray.

A: Now that would be a legitimate gripe!

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1) ``It's a fairly strange story for a $50 million movie,'' says director Wes Anderson of ``The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,'' which follows the adventures of a Jacques Cousteau-like marine explorer.

(2) Bill Murray, right, with Owen Wilson, plays the title role in ``The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,'' a character similar to the flawed patriarch in Anderson's ``The Royal Tenenbaums.''

(3) ``He's up there every second,'' says Anderson of Murray, with Cate Blanchett. ``He's in pain all through it ... and he's in this giant, surreal setting. I think it had an effect on him.''

(4 -- cover -- color) RAGING WATERS 

Bill Murray dives into Wes Anderson's wild `The Life Aquatic' - and survives