Becoming Cousteau: Legendary Explorer and Environmentalist
The National Geographic documentary Becoming Cousteau explores the life of legendary ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, a man well ahead of his time in bringing climate change and environmental devastation to the world’s attention.
Mridu Chandra, award-winning filmmaker and one of the producers of Becoming Cousteau, joins us to discuss Cousteau's remarkable life and passion for the environment. A scuba diving pioneer, Cousteau also was an accomplished filmmaker and three-time Oscar winner.
Mridu talks about the challenges that she and director Liz Garbus faced in making a film using only archival footage, and how Garbus was keen to bring Cousteau's story to life.
“Throughout his life, he was always ahead, and when it came to his environmentalism, it stemmed from his genuine passion, being an honest witness and decades of experience.” - Mridu Chandra
Time Stamps:
00:00 - The trailer for Becoming Cousteau.
04:10 - What the film is about.
05:01 - Who Jacques Cousteau was and the effect he had on the world of scuba diving.
07:41 - Cousteau’s love for filmmaking.
09:25 - The challenges involved when working on an archival film.
11:49 - How the idea for the film came about.
13:21 - A clip from the film showing how Jacques Cousteau revolutionised diving.
17:04 - How he changed over time while staying true to his moral compass.
21:11 - The work he did to spread awareness of environmental destruction.
24:26 - How he pushed the limits in everything he was involved in.
27:12 - A clip from the film showing Cousteau’s love for his mother.
Resources:
Becoming Cousteau (2021)
The Silent World (1956)
MovieMaker Magazine
Innersound Audio
Alamo Pictures
Connect with Mridu Chandra:
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Transcript for Factual America Episode 78: Becoming Cousteau: Legendary Explorer and Environmentalist
Mridu Chandra 00:00
Hello, I'm Mridu Chandra. I'm a producer based in New York, and I just completed working on a film called Becoming Cousteau.
Speaker 1 00:10
Well, I'd like to ask you, what's it like down there?
Jacques Cousteau 00:13
It's fantastic. Imagine having no weight. Imagine that this would be underwater. You would move like this swimming in space above all your little friends. It's beautiful. When my friends and I started, it was for us the pleasure of discovering. I wanted to show what was in the sea so that people would learn it. In order to go deeper, in order to stay longer, I became an inventor by necessity. People at that time had no idea what was going on under the surface. I had to put a camera in a housing, so I had to invent that, too. That's when I understood the power of images.
Speaker 2 01:07
Action!
Jacques Cousteau 01:09
My films are no more just about beautiful little fish. I try to convince people that they have to do something about this. We are dealing with the fate of Mankind. We began to see that the things that we had admired were beginning to decay. And we said we have to do something. We have to enter the fight. Because, you only really protect what you love.
Speaker 3 01:47
Is he a scientist? Researcher? Philosopher? He really looked like a man looking at the future. His motto was 'We Go See It For Ourselves'.
Speaker 4 02:07
Can you tell me what you think are your greatest accomplishments and your greatest phase?
Jacques Cousteau 02:14
I am not interested in myself. I'm interested in the world outside.
Matthew 02:31
That is a trailer from the National Geographic documentary, Becoming Cousteau. And this is Factual America. We're brought to you by Alamo Pictures, an Austin and London based production company making documentaries about America for international audiences. I'm your host, Matthew Sherwood. Each week, I watch a hit documentary and talk with the filmmakers and their subjects. This week, it is my pleasure to welcome the award winning filmmaker Mridu Chandra, one of the producers of the NatGeo documentary, Becoming Cousteau. The film brings to life the man behind the persona of legendary explorer Jacques Cousteau, and in the process reminds us that he was a man well ahead of his time in bringing climate change and environmental devastation to the world's attention. Mridu, welcome to Factual America. How are things with you?
Mridu Chandra 03:18
Things are great. We just finished a film, Becoming Cousteau. It's coming out in theaters. We're getting a lot of attention for the film, which is all that we could have hoped for.
Matthew 03:32
Yeah. I believe it was releasing in the UK today: November 12, I believe.
Mridu Chandra 03:41
That's right.
Matthew 03:41
Has it already released in the US?
Mridu Chandra 03:43
It did. We released in the US theatrically on October 22, so just a few short weeks ago.
Matthew 03:50
Okay. Well, well done. Congratulations on that. I mean, it's our usual first question on the program. And for some of us of a certain age, it seems like an odd one. But what is Becoming Cousteau all about? Maybe you can give us a synopsis for our listeners who haven't had a chance to see it.
Mridu Chandra 04:09
Becoming Cousteau is a feature documentary about the life of Jacques Yves Cousteau, who many people may remember, if they grew up watching his television show that aired across the world in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, through the 90s, until he passed away, but it's also for the next generation that don't really remember his life and the legacy. So, that's what we hope to bring out in the film.
Matthew 04:38
Okay. Well, you indeed have achieved that. I mean, maybe you can some of these new generations you were referencing, maybe you can give them a sense of who Cousteau was. I mean, the stardom that he had, I mean, for someone like me, he was... he's almost godlike, but, you know, maybe you can sort of set the stage.
Mridu Chandra 05:00
Sure. Cousteau is... You know, Cousteau, the way many of us remember him, who knew him, was one of the biggest television celebrities of our youth, you know, he had a television show that aired all over the world and showed us the beauty and - of underwater life. He traveled the world on the Calypso with a French crew, and explored the world, and made us fall in love with it through his television show. But what is also equally important in what we discovered in making this film is the life that he had before and his journey before he became this international celebrity. So, even as it will be a discovery for the younger generations, it's also a discovery for all the people who knew him as a television star. And what we found out in making the film is just his importance in the development of scuba. Like, he invented the Aqua Lung, which is the precursor to scuba, that we all use in consumer diving. And he... ah, gosh, what else can I say? There's so many things to say about his life, he was a precursor to scuba; he invented underwater cinematography, because once he had sort of discovered what it looked like under the ocean, he wanted to share that with the rest of the world. So, he had to invent the camera casing to do that. So, through that desire to show all of us he invented underwater cinematography. And then he became this ardent environmentalist. So, he was the very first person to start sounding the alarm on ocean health. And before we even talked about climate change, he was talking about thinking of future generations and protecting the environment for them.
Matthew 07:05
I mean, I completely agree. I mean, you know, I knew him as you knew him. I think in terms of his celebrity and who he was, and certainly there was a period there, where I decided I was definitely going to be a marine biologist. That didn't happen. But, you know, he was an entrepreneur, he's this television phenomenon. He's this environmentalist, I mean, all these things about his background that I did not know. And he's even using terms - in terms of the environmental argument - that weren't even that common then, but we hear all the time now; like biodiversity and these sorts of things. But, I mean, the other thing that struck me - I hadn't realized this - is that he was this gifted filmmaker, too; I mean, he launches Louis Malle's career. I mean, he wins a Palme D'or and a Oscar for his documentary, The Silent World; I mean that would be enough for many people's lifetimes.
Mridu Chandra 07:57
That's right, he went on to win three Oscars. His film was the first documentary in history to win the Palme d'Or, which is usually reserved for fiction feature films. And then many Emmys. I believe he was nominated for over 40 Emmys with his television show. So, his love for filmmaking started at a young age as a teenager, as the advent of film cameras; you know, he was there in history with that, and at the age of 13, he bought his first camera. So, that was 1923. So, we had access to all of his family, his personal archives. So, we saw some of these early films that he made on three minute film reels, you know, made these little gangster movies with his friends and his brother. Usually, they ended up with him, like, getting pushed into the, to the water, which was kind of a funny thing to see as a precursor to his exploring the seas. But there were so many discoveries about who he was. Filmmaking was a big one.
Matthew 09:02
Yeah. I mean, something I was gonna ask you later, but, I think you have a background as a archive producer. And, I mean, it must have been amazing, because this story is told mostly, almost completely, through archive. I mean, what were the main challenges there? I mean, did you have too much to work with? I would imagine.
Mridu Chandra 09:23
Yeah, no, that's a great question. I have worked on a lot of archival films. And that's a little bit of my niche. But usually people bring me in when it's a story that they don't feel they're gonna find enough material about, and then that's then my job is to pull it out of the archives and dig deep. And in this case, the real coup was my director, Liz Garbus, and National Geographic forging a relationship with the Cousteau Society who is maintaining the legacy of Cousteau and keeper of his archive. So, we had unbridled access to his archives, which spans over a century of material because he was shooting when he was 13. And it's quite remarkable. There were over 8500 film reels in Paris alone. And there was only an Excel document with just titles of each film and then a number, of course, because it was very clearly, you know, in a library system organized, but that, you know, could be quite overwhelming, except that I was so excited. We were all so excited to have access to this material. And that excitement, you know, allowed us to - excuse the pun - just dive right in, like, we just had to watch and start finding patterns. You know, we had, you know, an idea, we had a lot of creative conversations early on with our creative team and Liz, and knew like a spine of what we were looking for, but, like anything, going into the unknown, and just remaining open to surprise. So, that's what we wanted to show the world in our film.
Mridu Chandra 09:25
I mean, I think that's really interesting, because even I was, you know, some of those early scenes when he's first learning to dive, when he's first getting into diving with these friends of his, sort of these trailblazers, if you will. I mean, the quality is so good. I mean, you almost think, 'Is this a recreation?', you know, but it's him in the early days of going spearfishing, and things like that. It's absolutely amazing. I mean, how did this project come about? Because what strikes me is why isn't there been a documentary about Cousteau before now? It seems like the obvious subject.
Mridu Chandra 11:48
It's true, I think, for several reasons, you know, his story is incredibly relevant today, as we consider climate change and the consequences and the actions that we need to take to protect the future. But you're right, his legacy has largely been forgotten. And, you know, the project came about from my director, Liz Garbus, who was reading a book to her son, and, you know, it was one of those, like, children's books, or for young adults, basically that, 'Who is Jacques Cousteau?', and it just piqued her memory, but it also speaks to the present of why we don't know about him. And that led her down a rabbit hole, which we came out of with our film. But, you know, it led her to National Geographic who has had a long time history with funding him as an explorer in his life, and now funding this film. So, you know, all of these partners came together to approach the Cousteau Society, and request that access and there were many years of negotiation before, you know, we were given that.
Factual America midroll 12:58
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Jacques Cousteau 13:21
It's always the same. Necessity. In order to go deeper. In order to stay longer, I became an inventor by necessity.
Speaker 1 13:39
[Speaks in French]
Speaker 2 15:18
I took normal breaths in a slow rhythm, bowed my head, and swam smoothly down to 30 feet. I felt no increase in water pressure. It was a new and promising device, the result of years of struggling dreams. Diving could be revolutionized.
Speaker 3 15:45
[Speaks in French]
Speaker 2 15:59
We had been years in the sea as goggle divers. Our new key to the hidden world promised wonders. But unfortunately, our Utopia was doomed to disappear.
Matthew 16:18
I've seen about some of the challenges of making this film. I mean, it must have been pressure to live up to his standards, if you will, because, as we've already noted, this is someone who won three Oscars. Was there a - I mean, in trying to tell the story, and also trying to capture the moment, you know, the zeitgeist of the era, you know, and I think it's done well; the music's very evocative of a period. I mean, maybe you could tell us a little something about that, in terms of your inspirations when you were putting this film together, and getting further along in the production process?
Mridu Chandra 17:00
Yeah. That's a great question. For sure, we were, you know, we could say intimidated, but I think more just excited, like the same way I was excited about the archive. I think, you know, Liz, my director, is Oscar nominated twice. She's won many awards. And is extremely confident, but in terms of storytelling, and so I had the privilege of working with her. So, that gave me confidence because of all of our creative conversations. But we did have a lot to live up to, you know, Cousteau was always striving as a filmmaker and a cinematographer, specifically. And we just sort of entered that conversation and wanted to highlight his work in the story of his life. And I think that has a lot to do with how we crafted the film entirely from archival materials. There's very, there's no other visual material that we filmed, we did record a few audio interviews, but we stayed within the visual world that Cousteau himself created. And I think that's our testament to him and his work. And in terms of, like, art, you know, what we wanted to do was to also highlight the growth of his character, you know, of him as a television star and the ardent environmentalist and protector of oceans that he became in his life, and to show that he wasn't always that way. He wasn't born, you know, with this conviction to protect the ocean. And he grew into that. So, I think that's something we felt would resonate. You know, it resonated with us as we were working. But it also, we would hope, resonate with lots of people who don't necessarily feel that intention from the beginning. But through careful observation and his adventures, his explorations. He wasn't always a protector of the oceans. He did, you know, some of the scenes in his early films, show them dynamite fishing, where they would throw in the dynamite and then pull up all the dead fish so they could study them. And they genuinely thought that was the right, you know, that's what they were - they were excited by the scientific inquiry. But the great thing about him as we observe in the film, and the great thing about his life is that as he grew and learned the effects of what he was doing, he was completely happy to change course. And he followed this moral compass. And, you know, at the top of his game, sometimes, like he was at the top of his game doing ocean research funded by oil companies, funded by British Petroleum, and he had a staff of 50 people, but he left, and he left, you know, for television, but he left because of that moral compass, and he realised that, so, we were hoping that would speak to us today.
Matthew 20:04
Yes. Well, talking about speaking to us today, I mean, I think it is - whether you planned this or not - but the launching of this at the time of COP26 seems very, very fortunate. I mean, and that's the other thing. We remember him as the explorer, the, you know, proponent, the spokesperson for our oceans, basically. But he was there, what's essentially COP1. He was there at the Rio Earth Summit, he was behind the scenes with the Antarctic treaties. So, it is amazing that this is - it does seem very appropriate that this has come out now to highlight these issues that I mean, I guess another way of putting it is, we've had Greta Thunberg, we obviously had David Attenborough. We've had David Attenborough's people who've worked with him on this podcast few times, but, you know, there he was, even 50 years earlier, you know, he's this Cassandra, this almost John the Baptist in the wilderness, telling, shouting at us that this was happening. And maybe we're finally starting to listen.
Mridu Chandra 21:12
I think that's the question that his life story and our film leaves us with is are we starting to listen? And just to remind people that he did sound the alarm early on in our history. Fifty years ago. He reached a stage where he was experiencing what we kind of call today, climate grief. That's, like, a new terminology that we use. But he was genuinely horrified by what was happening in the Mediterranean, and sought to protect it. And he activated a massive public information campaign in the late 60s, early 70s, to stop nuclear dumping of - of dumping of nuclear waste into the Mediterranean. And then with his foundation, the Cousteau Society, which he started in 1974, he was heartened by the growing environmental movement of the 1970s. And he started these things called Involvement Days, which was a continuation of this public information campaign. And 10s and 1000s of people would go to these events in Houston and Seattle, and Boston, and essentially used his celebrity, and his reputation, to inform people and excite them about actions that needed to be taken to protect our environment. So, you could see that as a positive, you could also see it as a, you know, why hasn't so much changed in these last 50 years? You mentioned the Earth Summit 1992, he was the only non Head of State to attend and make a speech and to be included in the official portrait with all world leaders, because world leaders also recognized his contribution to this conversation. But coming back to today, with what activists and people are talking about is how little has changed, but they're not necessarily attributing that to, or associating that with, Cousteau. And maybe, you know, to some extent, maybe our film can bridge that connection and make us more fervent today.
Matthew 23:26
Okay, I think so. I know that we are coming to the end of our time, and almost tempted to leave it at that point about these very important issues. But, I guess, I mean, you know, as we'd say, in this country, he was a polymath, or you can say a renaissance man, maybe bring it back one last question, if I may, to himself as being ahead of his time, and even ahead of his time as a filmmaker. I think the one thing I drew - there's one scene where he basically talked about how he hated the word documentary. And he said he made adventure films, not documentaries. And I think he was definitely - had this eye for storytelling. And that puts him right in line with the sort of golden age of documentary we find ourselves in now, doesn't it, in terms of how to tell a story in a, let's be frank, entertaining way that gets a message across, would you agree with that?
Mridu Chandra 24:26
Absolutely. So, I mean, one of the things that's so exciting about Cousteau and looking at his life in the long tail, you know, almost like a - as an arc, is just the way he lived everything and did everything with such passion. And that always kept him at the top of his game, and, you know, when he discovered diving, he wanted to go further and so he invented equipment that freed us from being attached to ships and so now we can -, you know, he invented the Aqua Lung, which is a precursor to scuba. In his cinematography and his filmmaking, he pushed the limits of what was considered a documentary. At that time, documentaries were, or factual programming, were educational films with this Voice of God narrator, you know, telling you what to do and what you should know. But he didn't want to do that. He wanted to just genuinely take us underwater, so that we could witness what he witnessed. And he had to change the style of documentary in order to do that. And moving forward, he started creating underwater habitats, which the US and French navy was trying to do. But he had his own underwater research group of engineers and divers and cine - always cinematographers because he recorded everything. And he did that. So, I think that throughout his life, he was always ahead. And then, when he came to his environmentalism, you know, again, it stemmed from his genuine passion and his honest witness of decades of experience diving, and just being horrified by what was happening in the ocean. But it's his passion that we responded to, and that made thousands of people come out for his Involvement Days. And I think that has a lot to say to us today is like, how can we turn our passion and our love into action?
Matthew 26:28
Okay, well, I think that is a fitting moment to stop. I know you've got to run, but thank you so much, Mridu, and give our thanks to Liz Garbus, and all your colleagues for making this jewel of a film. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And thank you for your time this morning on Factual America. It's been a pleasure having you on and hopefully, if we haven't scared you off, we can have you on again, sometime. So, thank you, again. Just to remind our listeners we've been talking about Becoming Cousteau, which releases today, November 12, in the UK, and is already in theaters in the US. Thank you so much.
Mridu Chandra 27:09
Thank you, thanks.
Speaker 1 27:11
Cousteau said to me many times that an explorer has no right to be a family man. He's off following his nose to the future and to the universe. And that's how it needs to be.
Speaker 2 27:35
The children they were not cared for. They went to boarding school. And Simone, she was more interested in a life on the sea. She had only one passion: Calypso.
Speaker 3 28:00
What most people don't realize is that my mother spent more time on the ship than my father, my brother, and myself, together. She doesn't like to be on film, and that's why she has avoided it. She stays away from the cameras. She's the strong person behind the scenes. People confide in her and she makes a lot of decisions which most people don't even know about. They don't even know if she exists.
Speakers 28:36
[Speaking French].
Matthew 28:57
A big thanks again to Mridu Chandra, one of the producers of Becoming Cousteau. Its theatrical release in the UK is today, November 12. It's already released in the US in late October. A big shout out to Sam and Joe at Innersound Audio in Escrick, England. And a big thanks to Nevena Paunovic, our podcast manager at Alamo Pictures who ensures we continue getting such great guests like Mridu on to the show. Finally, a big thanks to our listeners. As always, we love to hear from you, so please keep sending us feedback and episode ideas, whether it is on YouTube, social media, or directly by email. And please remember to like us and share us with your friends and family wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. This is Factual America, signing off.
Factual America Outro 29:43
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