Life Of Pi (film)

''Life of Pi'' is a 2012 adventure-drama film directed and produced by Ang Lee and written by David Magee. Based on Yann Martel's 2001 novel of the same name, it stars Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Rafe Spall, Tabu and Adil Hussain in lead roles. The storyline revolves around two survivors of a shipwreck. One is a sixteen-year-old Indian boy named Pi Patel (Suraj Sharma) and the other is a ferocious Bengal tiger named Richard Parker that are on a lifeboat stranded in the Pacific Ocean for 227 days.

The film began development shortly after the release of the book and would see directors M. Night Shyamalan, Alfonso Cuarón and Jean-Pierre Jeunet involved at various stages before the hiring of Lee. Filming was split between India, Taiwan and Montreal in 2011, with Rhythm & Hues Studios (R&H) handling the visual effects work.

The film had its worldwide premiere as the opening film of the 50th New York Film Festival at both the Walter Reade Theater and Alice Tully Hall in New York City on September 28, 2012. It was theatrically released in the U.S. that same day by 20th Century Fox. ''Life of Pi'' became a critical and commercial success, having grossed over $609 million. It was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, including Best Picture – Drama and Best Director, and won for 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, including Best Director for Ang Lee.

Plot

In Canada, a young writer meets middle-aged Pi Patel. The writer has been told that Pi's life story would be a good subject for a book. Pi tells the writer the following story about his life:

Pi's father names him Piscine Molitor Patel after Piscine Molitor, a famous swimming pool in France. In secondary school in Pondicherry, he adopts the Greek letter " Pi" as his nickname to avoid bullying. He is raised in a Hindu family, but at 12 years old, he 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 rationalist father tries to secularize 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 due to " The Emergency" 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 struggles to find his family, but a crewman throws him into a lifeboat. A freed zebra jumps onto the boat with him, breaking its leg. The ship sinks into the Mariana Trench, drowning his family. Pi briefly sees what appears to be a survivor, but it turns out to be Richard Parker.

After the storm, Pi awakens in the lifeboat with the zebra and is joined by an orangutan. A spotted hyena emerges from under a tarpaulin, forcing Pi to retreat to the end of the boat. The hyena kills the zebra and later the orangutan. Richard Parker comes out from under the tarpaulin, killing the hyena before retreating back to cover for several days.

Pi fashions a small raft from flotation vests which he tethers to the lifeboat to be safe from Richard Parker. Despite his moral code against killing, he begins fishing, enabling him to sustain the tiger. When the tiger jumps into the sea to hunt for fish and then swims toward Pi, Pi considers letting him drown, but ultimately helps him back into the boat. One night, a humpback whale destroys the raft and its supplies. Pi trains Richard Parker to accept him in the boat, and realizes that caring for the tiger is helping to keep himself alive.

Weeks later, they encounter a floating island. It is a lush jungle of edible plants, freshwater pools and a large population of meerkats, enabling Pi and Richard Parker to eat and drink 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. Pi deduces that the island is carnivorous after finding a human tooth embedded in a flower.

Pi and Richard Parker leave the island, eventually reaching Mexico after over 200 days at sea. Pi is heartbroken that Richard Parker does not acknowledge him before disappearing into the jungle. Pi 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 humans: his mother for the orangutan, an amiable sailor for the zebra, and the ship's brutish cook for the hyena. The cook kills the sailor and feeds on his flesh. He then kills Pi's mother, after which Pi kills him and uses his remains as food and fish bait. The insurance agents are dissatisfied with this story, but leave without questioning Pi further.

When the writer recognizes the parallels between the two stories, Pi says that it does not matter which story is true because his family died either way. He asks which story the author prefers, and the author chooses the first, to which Pi replies, "and so it goes with God". Glancing at a copy of the insurance report, the writer reads that Pi survived his adventure "in the company of an adult Bengal tiger."

Cast

Production

Development

The project had numerous directors and writers attached, and the ''Los Angeles Times'' credited Fox 2000 Pictures executive Elizabeth Gabler with keeping the project active. In February 2003 Gabler acquired the project to adapt ''Life of Pi'' into a film. She hired screenwriter Dean Georgaris to write a screenplay.

The following October, Fox 2000 announced a partnership with M. Night Shyamalan to direct the film. Shyamalan was attracted to the novel particularly because its main character also comes from Pondicherry in India. The partners anticipated for Shyamalan to direct the film adaptation after completing '' The Village''. He also replaced Georgaris as the screenwriter, writing a new screenplay for the film. Ultimately, Shyamalan chose to film ''Lady in the Water'' after ''The Village''; he said later, "I was hesitant o directbecause the book has kind of a twist ending. And I was concerned that as soon as you put my name on it, everybody would have a different experience."

In March 2005, Fox 2000 entered talks with Alfonso Cuarón to direct. Cuarón decided to direct '' Children of Men'' instead, and in October 2005, Fox 2000 hired Jean-Pierre Jeunet to direct the film. Jeunet began writing the screenplay with Guillaume Laurant, and filming was scheduled to begin in mid-2006, partially in India. Jeunet eventually left the project.

In February 2009, Fox 2000 Pictures hired Ang Lee to direct the film. In May 2010, Lee and the producer Gil Netter proposed a reported budget of US$120 million, at which the studio balked, placing the project's development on hold for a short time. David Magee was hired to write the screenplay, as Lee began to spend several months looking for someone to cast as Pi. Lee stated that water was a major inspiration behind making the film in 3-D: "I thought this was a pretty impossible movie to make technically. It's so expensive for what it is. You sort of have to disguise a philosophical book as an adventure story. I thought of 3-D half a year before 'Avatar' was on the screen. I thought water, with its transparency and reflection, the way it comes out to you in 3-D, would create a new theatrical experience and maybe the audience or the studio would open up their minds a little bit to accept something different." Following the premiere of the film, Lee stated that his desire to take risks and chances helped with his direction, saying "In a strange way it did feel like we're the vessels, we have to surrender to movie god. We have to let things happen. I just had this feeling, I'll follow this kid to wherever this movie takes me. I saw the movie start to unravel in front of me."

Pre-production and casting

After 3,000 young men auditioned for the film's lead, in October 2010 Lee cast Suraj Sharma, a 17-year-old student and an acting newcomer. Upon receiving the role, Sharma underwent extensive training in ocean survival, as well as in yoga and meditation practices to prepare for the part. Two months after Sharma was cast, it was announced that Gérard Depardieu would play the role of the Cook, Irrfan Khan would play the adult Pi, and Adil Hussain would play Pi's father, while Tabu was in talks to play the role of Pi's mother.

Canadian actor Rajiv Surendra, who had played a small part in ''Mean Girls'', was one of the auditioners for the role of Pi. In 2016, he published ''The Elephants in My Backyard'', a memoir of his failed campaign to win the part."Memoir by Rajiv Surendra traces actor's parallels with Life of Pi"
. ''The Globe and Mail'', November 18, 2016. In an interview with Deccan Chronicle in 2017, American actor Naren Weiss revealed that he too unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Pi."Shuttling between worlds"
. ''Deccan Chronicle'', June 22, 2017.

In April 2011, it was announced that Tobey Maguire would be joining the film in the role originally referred to as "a reporter." However, in September 2012, it was announced that Lee had cut Maguire from the film. He justified the cut by stating that he did it "to be consistent with the other casting choices made for the film, I decided to go with an entirely international cast." Like Shahrukh Khan, Lee described Maguire's presence also as "too jarringly recognizable." He reshot the scenes with Rafe Spall in the role of the book's actual author.

Filming

Principal photography for the film began on January 18, 2011, in Puducherry at the Holy Rosary Church in Muthialpet. Filming continued in Puducherry until January 31 and moved to other parts of India, including Munnar in Kerala, as well as Taiwan. The crew filmed in Taiwan for five and a half months in Taipei Zoo, an airport in Taichung, and Kenting National Park, located in Pingtung County where Lee was born. The ocean scenes of the film were shot at a giant wave tank built by the crew in an abandoned airport. The tank is known as the world's largest self-generating wave tank, with a capacity of 1.7 million gallons. With production scheduled to last two and a half months at the tank, cinematographer Claudio Miranda assisted in the tank's design in order to get the most out of it for lighting, explaining, "We knew we were going to be inside there shooting for 2.5 months, so it was worth it to be able to do anything we want. On all these kind of scenes, we had an idea of what the weather would be like. In that tank, I can create storm clouds, nightfall. We had curtains that I can block out ight doors to open and let in real sunlight," Miranda says. "So lighting-wise, he moviehad a big ebb and flow." After photography was completed in Taiwan, production moved back to India and concluded in Montreal into early 2012.

Post-production

The lead visual effects company for ''Life of Pi'' was Rhythm & Hues Studios (R&H). 3D effects for the film were created by a team of R&H artists in Los Angeles, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kuala Lumpur, Vancouver and Kaohsiung.

The R&H VFX supervisor Bill Westenhofer said that discussions of the project began with Ang Lee in August 2009. Westenhofer noted that Lee "knew we had done the lion in the first Narnia movie. He asked, 'Does a digital character look more or less real in 3D?' We looked at each other and thought that was a pretty good question." He also stated that during these meetings, Lee said, "'I look forward to making art with you.' This was really for me one of the most rewarding things I've worked on and the first chance to really combine art with VFX. Every shot was artistic exploration, to make the ocean a character and make it interesting we had to strive to make it as visually stunning as possible." Rhythm & Hues spent a year on research and development, " building upon its already vast knowledge of CG animation" to develop the tiger. The British Film Institute's ''Sight & Sound'' magazine suggested that, "''Life of Pi'' can be seen as the film Rhythm & Hues has been building up to all these years, by taking things they learned from each production from ''Cats & Dogs'' to ''Yogi Bear'', integrating their animals in different situations and environments, pushing them to do more, and understanding how all of this can succeed both visually and dramatically."

Artist Abdul Rahman in the Malaysian branch underscored the global nature of the effects process, saying that "the special thing about ''Life of Pi'' is that it was the first time we did something called remote rendering, where we engaged our cloud infrastructure in Taiwan called CAVE (Cloud Animation and Visual Effects)."

Additional visual effects studios that worked on the film include MPC, yU+co, Buf, Crazy Horse Effects, Look Effects, Christov Effects, Lola VFX, Reliance Mediaworks, and Stereo D.

Music

The film's musical score was composed by Mychael Danna, who previously wrote the music to Lee's films ''The Ice Storm

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