Luc Besson
Enzo and Jacques have known each other for a long time. Their friendship started in their childhood days in the mediterranean. They were not real friends in these days, but there was something they
both loved and used to do the whole day long: diving.
God is at the bottom of the sea and I dive to find him.
He initially offered the role to Christopher Lambert and Mickey Rourke and even considered himself for the role until someone suggested Jean-Marc Barr.
After that incident Enzo and Jacques lost contact. After several years, Enzo and Jacques had grown up, Johanna, a young clerk in a security office, has to go to Peru.
There she meets Jacques who works for a group of scientist.
Le Grand Bleu Luc Besson
Listen, we’re not supposed to piss either, but it doesn’t stop you from carrying “it” on board.
Enzo Jean Reno
…So, between Mamma, Roberto and Alfredo, we yell and scream at each other all day long. Except for Angelica, she just cries. And then finally, we all end up kissing. Can you explain that to me? Because *that’s* what love is all about. It’s a pain in the ass, but it keeps us together.
Le Grand bleu
The underwater shots with the dolphins were filmed in the Virgin Islands in large enclosures, and the dolphins were flown there from the Dolphin Research Center in the Florida Keys.
Le
Grand Bleu
While the film is inspired in the lives of Jacques Mayol and Enzo Maiorca (who were alive at the time of the film's release, unlike the characters presented in it) and many aspects of the story are fictional, one of the real divers' fate was strangely predicted in the movie. In the European version of the movie, Jacques dives all the way to the bottom of the ocean and never returns - to some viewers, it's implied that he committed a suicide. In 2001, the real Jacques Mayol committed suicide by hanging himself, in Italy, at age 74. Enzo is still alive (as of 2015).
The original ending was intentionally ambiguous, though considering the depth Jacques has swum to, it would seem he is unlikely to regain the surface alive, and he dies.
In the US version the ending is extended with an additional scene. After swimming away with the dolphin, Jacques is brought back to the surface.
The film was heavily fictionalized. In real life, the two were indeed champions and contemporaries. However, they did not directly compete, neither reached 400 feet, and neither died while diving.Jacques Mayol was indeed involved in scientific research into human aquatic potential, and was fascinated by dolphins, and was recorded as having a heartbeat that slowed from 60 to 27 beats per minute when diving. He held numerous world records, including dives to below 100 meters. After a bout of depression, he killed himself in 2001, long after the film's release.
Le Grand bleu
Jacques Mayol
Jacques Mayol’s lifelong passion for diving was based on his love for the ocean, his personal philosophy and his desire to explore his own limits. During his lifetime, he helped introduce the, until then, elitist sport of free-diving into the main stream.
Majorca learned to swim at age 4 and soon began to dive, although expressing a great fear of the sea. In 1956 a friend showed him an article about a new depth record of 41 meters set by
spearfishing champions Ennio Falco and Alberto Novelli.
Majorca was led by the article to begin competing in order to achieve the title of "man who reaches the deepest.
He achieved this in 1960, when he reached 45 meters to beat Brazilian Americo Santarelli. However that same year, Santarelli reclaimed the title by reaching 46 meters, which
Majorca soon surpassed at 49 meters.
The Big Blue | Luc Besson
With its extensive underwater scenes and languid score (as with nearly all of Luc Besson's films the soundtrack was composed by Eric Serra), the film has been both praised as beautiful and serene, and in equal measure criticized as being too drawn out, overly reflective and introspective.
Mayol's father
Don't worry. When I'm tired, the mermaids help me out.
Jacques Mayol
"You shouldn't be diving every day, dad."
"Then you shouldn't eat every day, child!
Le Grand bleu
