Life of Pi
Short description
Life of Pi centres on Piscine Molitor Patel, an Indian boy known as Pi, whose father runs a zoo in Pondicherry. When political and financial pressures push the family to leave for Canada, most of the animals are sold and the rest are taken aboard a freighter. A storm sinks the ship, and Pi ends up in a lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Stranded on the open Pacific, he must draw on his ingenuity to keep his distance from the tiger and stay alive.
Ang Lee directed and produced the film, working from a screenplay by David Magee. It was the twelfth of the fourteen features Lee has directed, following Taking Woodstock and preceding Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. Suraj Sharma plays the young Pi, with Irrfan Khan as the adult Pi, Ayush Tandon and Gautam Belur as younger versions of the boy, and Adil Hussain and Tabu as his parents. The production cost about 120 million dollars and returned roughly 609 million dollars worldwide.
Audience response has been strong but not unanimous: on IMDb the film holds 7.9 out of 10 from some 698,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 7.4 from about 14,000. A critics' rating of 7.9 from 253 reviews places it level with the IMDb figure and slightly above the TMDB one.
What's left behind the scenes
- At some point, M. Night Shyamalan was attached to the project as a screenwriter and director. Alfonso Cuarón and Jean-Pierre Jeunet could also have become the film's directors.
- Andrew Garfield was considered for the role that went to Tobey Maguire. But although all scenes with him were filmed, Maguire was replaced by Rafe Spall because the director felt Maguire was too well-known for such a small role.
- The character Pi, played by actor Suraj Sharma, was never actually in a boat with a live tiger. In most scenes, the tiger was created using computer graphics technology, and only some scenes, such as those where the tiger swims in the water, were filmed for real.
- Initially, actor Suraj Sharma wasn't even supposed to audition; he was simply accompanying his brother to the casting call. Ultimately, Ang Lee's team chose him from over 3,000 applicants for the lead role.
- Pi named his son after his brother, Ravi.
- As the camera pulls away, after the flying fish has gone, the raft is nowhere to be seen. However, in the next scene it is still attached to the boat.
- In the trailer, during the storm scene, a modern 30,000-ton ocean freighter is visible. The ship's four cargo cranes are in working position. No ship ever goes to sea with cranes in the raised position, as this would be extremely dangerous. The cranes could break, compromising the seaworthiness of the vessel, and even lead to the death of the entire crew.
- When the tiger jumps back into the lifeboat, leaving the island, the sail does not change position in response to the load from its weight. A moment later, the boy steps on the same spot, and the sail sags.
- As soon as the lifeboat reaches the Mexican shore, the tiger jumps into the nearest thicket, but the sand it jumps onto does not scatter from its paws.
- When the boat reaches the Mexican shore and Pi is lying unconscious, the boat gently rocks on the waves, even as the tiger walks around on it, climbs to the edge, and jumps off pushing with its paws. The boat continues to rock gently on the waves, not reacting to its weight.
- The film is based on Yann Martel's novel 'Life of Pi' (2001).
- As in the original novel, the name of the Japanese ship is 'Tsimtsum'. This is actually a Hebrew word that was used by the Kabbalist Isaac Luria in the 16th century to denote the process of compressing the infinite God, resulting in empty space. In the novel, adult Pi mentions a dissertation on Luria's ideas about creation. In the film, he simply mentions teaching a course on Kabbalah, without specifically referencing Luria.
- The character Piscine Molitor Patel (Pi) was named after the Piscine Molitor swimming pool in France. It is located near the Bois de Boulogne park, between the Roland Garros and Parc des Princes stadiums. This pool was classified as a French historical monument on March 27, 1990, after it was closed in 1989.
- Yann Martel, the author of the book, stated that the inspiration for writing the novel came to him, allegedly, after reading the book by Brazilian author Moacyr Scliar, “Max and the Cat Family” (1981), which tells the story of a Jewish-German refugee who crossed the Atlantic Ocean on the same ship as a jaguar.
- When adult Pi and the writer are talking while sitting in front of the Montreal harbor, one can notice a ship called Mignonette. This is the name of the yacht involved in the events of “R v Dudley and Stephens” (a famous English criminal case). Yann Martel took the name Richard Parker from this case.
- On the set, Stephen Callahan, a yachtsman known for surviving a shipwreck and drifting in the ocean on a small raft for 76 days in 1982, worked as a survival consultant. Stephen described his ordeal in his book “Adrift: 76 Days Lost At Sea.”
- There are a number of strange coincidences with the name Richard Parker: in Edgar Allan Poe's book “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket,” published in 1838, Parker was a sailor who survived the shipwreck with three other crew members, but they ate him to avoid starvation. In 1884, a ship called Mignorette sank in the ocean, and only four people were saved, including a cabin boy named Richard Parker, who was later killed and eaten by the other three survivors. Yann Martel, the author of “Life of Pi,” named the Bengal tiger “Richard Parker” based on these events.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
