favourite film
OVIE
Directed by Ang Lee
Produced by Gil Netter
Ang Lee
David Womark
Screenplay by David Magee
Based on Life of Pi
by Yann Martel
Starring Suraj
Sharma
Irrfan Khan
Tabu
Rafe
Spall
Gérard
Depardieu
Music by Mychael Danna
Cinematography Claudio Miranda
Edited by Tim Squyres
Productioncompany
Dune Entertainment
Ingenious Media
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release dates September 28,
2012 (NYFF)
November 21, 2012
(US)
Running time 127 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $120 million
Box office $609 million
ABOUT
Life of Pi is a 2012 American survival drama film based on Yann
Martel's 2001 novel of the same name. Directed by Ang Lee, the film's adapted
screenplay was written by David Magee, and it stars Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan,
Rafe Spall, Gérard Depardieu, Tabu, and Adil Hussain. The storyline revolves
around an Indian man named "Pi" Patel, telling a novelist about his
life story, and how at 16 he survives a shipwreck in which his family dies, and
is stranded in the Pacific Ocean on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger.
The film had its worldwide premiere as the opening film of the
51st New York Film Festival at both the Walter Reade Theater and Alice Tully
Hall in New York City on September 28, 2012.
Life of Pi emerged as a critical and commercial success, earning
over US$609 million worldwide. It was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards
which included the Best Picture – Drama and the Best Director and won the
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score. At the 85th Academy Awards it had
eleven nominations, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, and won
four (the most for the event) including Best Director for Ang Lee.
PLOT
In Canada, novelist Yann Martel meets Pi Patel, whom he has been
told has a life story that would be a good subject for a book. Pi tells his
story to Yann:
Pi's father names him Piscine Molitor after the swimming pool in
France. In secondary school in Pondicherry, he adopts the name "Pi"
(the Greek letter, π) to avoid the sound-alike nickname "Pissing
Patel". He is raised Hindu and vegetarian, but at 12 years old, is
introduced to Christianity and then Islam, and decides to follow all three
religions as he "just wants to love God". His mother supports his
desire to grow, but his father, a rationalist, tries to convert him. Pi's
family owns a zoo, and Pi takes interest in the animals, especially a Bengal
tiger named Richard Parker. After Pi gets dangerously close to Richard Parker,
his father forces him to witness the tiger killing a goat.
When Pi is 16, his father announces that they must move to
Canada, where he intends to settle and sell the animals. The family books
passage with the animals on a Japanese freighter. During a storm, the ship
founders while Pi is on deck. He tries to find his family, but a member of the
crew throws him into a lifeboat. A freed zebra jumps onto the boat with him,
breaking its leg as it lands. The ship sinks, killing the crew and his family.
Pi sees what appears to be a survivor, but it turns out to be Richard Parker,
which evades his efforts to keep him out of the boat.
After the storm, Pi awakens in the lifeboat with the zebra, and
is shortly joined by a surviving orangutan. A spotted hyena emerges from a
tarpaulin covering half of the lifeboat and snaps at Pi, forcing him to retreat
to the end of the boat. It kills the zebra and later the orangutan. Richard
Parker emerges from under the tarpaulin, killing the hyena and attempting to
kill Pi, before retreating back to cover for several days.
Pi fashions a small tethered raft from floatation vests, and he
retreats to it for safety from Richard Parker. Despite his moral code against
killing, he begins fishing, enabling him to sustain the tiger as well. When the
tiger jumps into the sea to hunt for fish, Pi considers letting him drown, but
ultimately helps him back into the boat. One night, a humpback whale breaches
near the boat, destroying the raft and its supplies. Pi trains Richard Parker
to accept him in the boat, and realizes that caring for the tiger is also keeping
himself alive.
Weeks later they encounter a floating island of interconnected
trees. It is a lush jungle of edible plants, fresh water pools and a large
population of meerkats, enabling Pi and Richard Parker to eat and drink freely
and regain strength. At night, the island transforms into a hostile
environment. Richard Parker retreats to the lifeboat while Pi and the meerkats
sleep in the trees; the water pools turn acidic, digesting the fish in them. Pi
deduces that the island is carnivorous after finding a human tooth embedded in
a flower.
Pi and Richard Parker leave the island, and eventually reach the
coast of Mexico. Pi is saddened that Richard Parker does not acknowledge him
before disappearing into the jungle. He is rescued and brought to a hospital.
Insurance agents for the Japanese freighter company interview him, but do not
believe his story and ask what "really" happened. He tells a
different story, in which the animals are replaced by human survivors of the
shipwreck: his mother for the orangutan, an amiable sailor for the zebra, and
the ship's brutish cook for the hyena. In this story, Pi kills the cook and
feeds on his flesh until he reaches Mexico. The insurance agents are not
satisfied with this story either, but they leave without questioning Pi
further.
Yann recognizes the parallels between the two stories, noting
that in the second one, Pi fills the role of the tiger. Pi asks which story the
writer prefers, and Yann chooses the first, to which Pi replies, "and so
it goes with God". Glancing at a copy of the insurance report, Yann sees
that the agents also chose the first story.
MAKING OF THE FILM
There was nothing easy about the making of the Oscar-award
winning film Life of Pi — a movie that took a book about philosophy and being
lost at sea and turned it into a visually-stunning 3D experience.
"To make an impact with water, you usually need to create a
200-foot wave when shooting in 2D," Lee told members of the press at its
DVD launch event. "I knew that to make it work with 3D, water had to
become a character itself. I've never seen realistic water scenes in movies
because water hits one side of a tank wall and bounces back like it would in a
bathtub, but we needed to make it work."
To do so, Lee and his team decided to create a massive wave tank.
It was built on an actual runway at a Taiwan airport — in fact, it was carved
into the middle of the runway. After spending four months to develop, a
250-foot-long, 100-foot-wide and 9-foot-deep tank was able hold up to 1.7
million gallons of water. One wall was even movable, so they could take
advantage of sunlight.
"I wanted something that could create an elongated wave, and
show one side of it and having it dissolve from the other, so I could at least
control the shape, size, pattern and rhythm," Lee said.
With the help of high-powered wind blowers and strategic camera
work, they were able to make a deep sea swell. Typhoon-strength winds and a
water cannon also were used to blast the actor, and make his reactions more
real.
BOX OFFICE
As of May 8, 2013, Life of Pi has grossed US$124,772,844 in North
America, and US$484,029,542 in other countries, for a worldwide total of
US$609,006,177.During its opening on the extended Thanksgiving weekend, the
film debuted in 2,902 theaters throughout the United States and Canada and
grossed US$30,573,101. On the Chinese mainland, from November 22 to December
24, the film topped the box office for three weeks, and grossed over US$91
million.As of January 24, 2013, it had also topped the box office for three
weeks in Australia,Chile, and four weeks in Mexico and Peru. The film became
the biggest Hollywood hit of the year in India and is also estimated to be the
third-highest grossing Hollywood release of all time in the country behind
Avatar and 2012.Life of Pi has earned HK$45,058,653 (US$5.8 million) at the
Hong Kong box office, making it the highest grossing Ang Lee film in Hong Kong.
Life of Pi was listed on many critics' top ten lists.
1st – Anne Thompson, Indiewire
1st – Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times
2nd – David Germain, Associated Press
2nd – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
3rd – Richard Corliss, Time
3rd – Noel Murray, A.V. Club
4th – Richard Roeper
4th – Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post
4th – Mary Pols, Time
6th – Oliver Lyttelton, Indiewire
6th – Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald
6th – David Edelstein, New York
8th – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
9th – Sean Axmaker, MSN Movies
10th – Mike Scott, The Times-Picayune
Top 10 (ranked alphabetically) – Phillip French, The Observer
Top 10 (ranked alphabetically) – Claudia Puig, USA Today
Top 10 (ranked alphabetically) – Joe Williams, St. Louis
Post-Dispatch
Top 10 (ranked alphabetically) – Stephen Whitty, The Star-Ledger
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