Skip to main content

The Medicine Chest

Items

Site The Medicine Chest
keywords is exactly Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Advanced search
  • Simone

    A year after Simone's death from cancer, Cousteau announced that he had been having an affair with a woman, Francine Triplet, for over a decade. He also had two children with her, Diane and Pierre-Yves.
  • Echolocation (Part two)

    "In Steinbeck’s 'Of Mice and Men', Crooks consoles the simple, unaffected and kindly Lennie when his friend, George, doesn’t return from town. He tells him he should be glad that he at least has someone. 'S’pose you didn’t have nobody. S’pose you couldn’t get into the bunk-house and play rummy ‘cause you was black. How’d you like that? (…) A guy sits alone out here at night, maybe readin’ books or thinkin’ or stuff like that. Sometimes he gets thinkin’ an’ he got nothing to tell him what’s so an’ what ain’t so. Maybe if he sees somethin’, he don’t know whether it’s right or not. He can’t turn to some other guy and ast him if he sees it too. He can’t tell. He got nothing to measure by. I seen things out here. I wasn’t drunk. I don’t know if I was asleep. If some guy was with me, he could tell me I was asleep, an’ then it would be alright. But I jus’ don’t know' "(Steinbeck 1973:62 in Liebenberg 2011: 102).
  • Melchior & Cousteau

    In 1963 Simone Melchior became the world's first female aquanaut by living in Starfish House, an underwater habitat, for the final four days of the Conshelf II project. Although never visible in the 'Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau' series, Cousteau's wife and business partner played a key role in the operation at sea. She was the acting mother, healer, nurse and psychiatrist to the all-male crew for 40 years. Cousteau describes her as being "happiest out of camera range, in the crow’s nest of the Calypso (...), scanning the sea for whales". ​Her father, Henri Melchior, was director of Air Liquide (France’s main producer of industrial gases at the time) and funded the invention of the aqua lung and the scuba diving apparatus we know today.
  • The Memory of Water

    "Of the cases used during Stanley's famous travels, the "Rear Guard" 'Tabloid' Medicine Chest is worthy of special mention. The chest remained in the swamp regions of the Aruwhimi for nearly four years, and more than once was actually submerged in the river. Notwithstanding these mishaps, when the chest was brought back to London and the remaining contents tested by the Official Analyst of the Lancet, they were found to have retained their efficacy "(BWC 1934: 5).
  • The Sea Birds of Isabella

    Aired between 1968 and 1976, 'The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau' was a documentary television series about underwater marine life. It was directed by Alan Landsburg and hosted by French filmmaker, researcher, and marine explorer Jacques Cousteau. In the 33rd episode of the series, titled 'The Sea Birds of Isabella', the crew journeys off the coast of Mexico to an island to study its tropical birds. ​Three years after it was shown, Cousteau's son, Phillipe (then aged 38) died trying to land his seaplane, called the Flying Calypso, on the Taos River in Portugal.
  • The Memory of Water

    Of the cases used during Stanley's famous travels, the Rear Guard 'Tabloid' Medicine Chest is worthy of special mention. The chest remained in the swamp regions of the Aruwhimi for nearly four years, and more than once was actually submerged in the river. Notwithstanding these mishaps, when the chest was brought back to London and the remaining contents tested by the Official Analyst of the Lancet, they were found to have retained their efficacy (BWC 1934: 5).
  • "I wonder if it remembers me..."

    In Wes Anderson’s 2004 film, 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou', Bill Murray plays the part of eccentric oceanographer, Steve Zissou. Zissou is both a parody of and homage to Jacques-Yves Cousteau, to whom the film is dedicated. The characters were inspired by The Great Gatsby and The Magnificent Ambersons, whilst the plot has been compared to Moby Dick. While filming a documentary, Steve’s partner Esteban du Plantier is eaten by a creature Zissou describes as a “Jaguar shark.” For his next project, Zissou orchestrates documenting the shark’s destruction.
  • The Jaguar Shark

    In Wes Anderson’s 2004 film, 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou', Bill Murray plays the part of eccentric oceanographer, Steve Zissou. Zissou is both a parody of and homage to Jacques-Yves Cousteau, to whom the film is dedicated. The characters were inspired by The Great Gatsby and The Magnificent Ambersons, whilst the plot has been compared to Moby Dick. While filming a documentary, Steve’s partner and close friend, Esteban du Plantier, is eaten by a creature Zissou describes as a “Jaguar shark.” For his next project, Zissou orchestrates documenting the shark’s destruction.
Powered by Omeka S