LOS ANGELES: Explorer, inventor, filmmaker, environmentalist and once even an oil prospector: the complicated journey of Jacques Cousteau is laid bare in a new film about one of the world's most famous Frenchmen. 'Becoming Cousteau,' which hits theaters in the United States this Friday, traces the extraordinary life of the man through archive footage and interviews, and was compiled by double-Oscar nominee Liz Garbus. 'I grew up on Cousteau and I grew up watching his shows... And my feeling was as I revisited this childhood hero of mine, that there were aspects in his life that I certainly did not know,' Garbus told Agence France-Presse in Los Angeles.