Becoming Cousteau

[broxton coalition]

Who's seen this one? released last fall, a National Geographic Film. an inside look on his amazing life. Yep, that was me as a kid glued to the box watching the Odyssey series.

[surflung]

I watched it several months ago. I missed a few bits between Thanksgiving interruptions and falling asleep, but I came away with some good impressions.

1. A lot of the photography was WAY better than the versions I've seen in books and videos. There's some footage from the Silent World movie that is absolutely beautiful in content, clarity, and brilliance of color. No wonder he got an Academy Award.
2. I think the film did a fair presentation of the difficulties of being a "good" father and husband in the midst of all of the travel, separation, and fame.
3. I think it also did a fair presentation of some of the hypocrisies of being financed by the oil companies for most of his great early Calypso and Conshelf adventures. It bothers me that the oil business connection was never made much of... I always thought that Calypso survived on funding from altruistic research institutes.
4. On the other hand another point made in the film is that massive oil reserves were discovered in the middle east thanks to Cousteau. So... Oil paid for all of the great advances we saw on the Calypso.
5. A lot of the film has actual audio from Cousteau and others that is in the french language. And so, they had to have subtitles. I think that takes away from any film because instead of listening to and seeing the movie, you're straining to read the bottom of the screen before it scrolls away.

I'm going to watch it one or two more times. I enjoyed the film and will highly recommend it.