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Big Fish is a 2003 American fantasy comedy-drama film directed by Tim Burton, and based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Daniel Wallace. Starring Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange, Helena Bonham Carter, Alison Lohman, Robert Guillaume, Marion Cotillard, Steve Buscemi and Danny DeVito. The film tells the story of a frustrated son who tries to distinguish fact from fiction in his dying father's life.

Plot[]

At Will Bloom's wedding party in 2000, his father Edward recalls the day Will was born, claiming he caught an enormous catfish using his wedding ring as bait. Will, having heard these stories all his life, believes them to be lies and falls out with his father.

Three years later in 2003, Edward is stricken with cancer, so Will and his pregnant French wife Joséphine return to the town of Ashton, Alabama, to spend time with his father. During the plane ride, Will recalls a story of Edward's childhood encounter with a witch, who shows him his death in her glass eye. Edward, in spite of his illness, continues to tell the story of his life to Will and Joséphine. He claims to have once been bedridden for three years due to his rapid growth spurts. He then became a locally famous sportsman before being driven by his ambition to leave his hometown.

He sets out into the world with a misunderstood giant, Karl, who was terrorizing the town by eating livestock from the surrounding farms. Edward and Karl find a fork in the road and travel down separate paths. Edward follows a path through a swamp and discovers the secret town of Spectre, the cheery locals claiming he was expected. There, he befriends Ashton poet Norther Winslow and the mayor's daughter Jenny. However, Edward leaves Spectre, unwilling to settle down but promising Jenny he will return.

Edward and Karl reunite and visit the Calloway Circus, where Edward falls in love with a beautiful young woman. Karl and Edward get jobs in the circus, where the ringmaster Amos Calloway reveals to Edward one detail about the woman at the end of every month. Three years later, Edward discovers that Amos is secretly a werewolf and is attacked by him, but avoids getting him shot with a silver bullet by playing fetch until he turns back into human in the morning. Amos, upon returning to normal, reveals the woman's name to be Sandra Templeton, and that she attends Auburn University.

Edward goes to Auburn via cannon, and stalks Sandra for many days, even going so far as to plant thousands of daffodils outside of her dorm bedroom. She tells him that she is engaged to Edward's childhood peer, Don. Don brutally beats up Edward, prompting Sandra to break off their engagement and marry Edward. Not long after, Don soon dies of a heart attack as the witch had prophesied.

Shortly after, Edward is drafted into the army and sent to fight in the Korean War. He parachutes into the middle of a North Korean military show, steals important documents, and convinces Siamese twins Ping and Jing to help him go home in exchange for making them celebrities. Upon returning home, Edward becomes a travelling salesman and crosses paths with Winslow. He unwittingly helps Winslow rob a failing bank with no money and later inspires the poet to work on Wall Street. Winslow becomes a wealthy broker and repays Edward with ten thousand dollars, which Edward uses to obtain his dream house.

In the present, Will investigates the truth behind his father's tales and travels to Spectre. He meets an older Jenny, who explains that Edward rescued the town from bankruptcy by buying it in an auction and rebuilt it with help from his friends with the Calloway Circus. Will suggests that Jenny had an affair with his father, but she reveals that although she loved Edward, he remained loyal to Sandra.

Will returns home but learns Edward has had a stroke and stays with him at the hospital. Edward wakes up but, unable to speak much, asks Will to narrate how his life ends. Though struggling, Will tells his father of their imagined daring escape from the hospital to the nearby river, where everyone from Edward's past is there to see him off. Will takes Edward into the river where Edward transforms into the giant catfish and swims away. A satisfied Edward dies, knowing Will finally understands his love for storytelling.

At the funeral, Will and Joséphine are surprised when all the people from Edward's stories come to the service, though each one is a slightly less fantastical version than described.

Will, finally understanding his father's love for life, passes on Edward's stories to his own son.

Cast[]

Uncredited[]

  • Connie Bean as '50s Woman/Circus Vendor
  • Tim Burton as Clown
  • Hélène Cardona as Secretary (voice)
  • Chris Cate as Spectre Citizen
  • John Collier as Parade Spectator
  • Ransom Gates as Big Butt Clown
  • Michael Griffiths as Spontaneous Dancer
  • Lindsey Harden as Sandra's Friend
  • Charles Hegji as Funeral Minister
  • Haley Hill as Little Girl
  • L.C. Holt as Spectre Citizen
  • James Russell Lingerfelt as Spectre Citizen
  • Shannon McCrory as Spectre Dancer
  • Mark T. McGuire as Circus Patron
  • Mark McWhorter as Army Officer
  • Matthew D. Miller as '50s Farmer
  • Priscilla Monnier as Spectre's Dancing Girl
  • Darlene Moore as County Fair Patron
  • Gary Newton as Circus Announcer/Contortionist/Korean Fighter (voice)
  • Jack Terry Parker as '70s Texas Man
  • Sarah Elizabeth Parker as '50s Sorority Girl
  • Amanda Pickard as College Student
  • Benjamin Plaut as Circus Patron
  • Adam Ragsdale as Misshaped Shadow in Circus Crowd
  • Cade Saint as Mourner
  • Michael Shunnarah as Circus Worker John
  • Bruce Snowdon as Fat Man in Circus
  • Robin Steele as College Student
  • Austin Thomas as '70s Dude
  • Will Thomas as Spectre Citizen
  • John Thornhill as '70s Carnival Worker
  • Shayne Tingle as Paratrooper
  • Diona Walters as Dancer/Spectre Citizen
  • Daniel Keith Warren as Don Price's College Crew
  • Nicholas Warren as Don Price's College Crew
  • Frankie Wilemon as Circus Patron/Sports Spectator
  • Jacob Williams as Townsperson with Bat
  • Phil Wright as Circus Strongman

Production[]

Development[]

About six months before it was published, screenwriter John August read a manuscript of Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions (1998) by author Daniel Wallace. August read the unpublished novel following the death of his father. In September 1998, August convinced Columbia Pictures to acquire the film rights on his behalf. August worked hard to make the episodic book into a cohesive screenplay, deciding on several narrators for the script. In August 2000, producers Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks began discussions for Steven Spielberg to direct. Spielberg planned to have DreamWorks co-finance and distribute Big Fish with Columbia, and planned to have filming start in late 2001, after completing Minority Report (2002).

Spielberg courted Jack Nicholson for the role of Edward Bloom Sr. and towards this end, had August compose two additional drafts for Nicholson's part. August recalls: "There was this thought that there wasn't enough for Jack Nicholson to do in the movie so we built new sequences. Pieces got moved around, but it wasn't a lot of new stuff being created. It ended up being a really good intellectual exercise in my explaining and defending and reanalyzing pieces of the story." Spielberg eventually left Big Fish when he became distracted with Catch Me If You Can (2002), and DreamWorks also backed out of the film.

With Spielberg no closer to committing, August, working with Jinks and Cohen, considered Stephen Daldry as a potential director. "Once Steven decided he wasn't going to do it, we put the script back to the way it was," recalls Jinks. "Steven even said, 'I think I made a mistake with a couple of things I asked you guys to try.'" August took his favorite elements from the previous drafts, coming up with what he called "a best-of Big Fish script". "By the time we approached Tim Burton, the script was in the best shape it had ever been."

Burton had never been particularly close to his parents, but his father's death in October 2000 and his mother's in March 2002 affected him deeply. Following the production of Planet of the Apes (2001), the director wanted to get back to making a smaller film. Burton enjoyed the script, feeling that it was the first unique story he was offered since Beetlejuice (1988). Burton also found appeal in the story's combination of an emotional drama with exaggerated tall tales, which allowed him to tell various stories of different genres. He signed to direct in April 2002, which prompted Richard D. Zanuck, who worked with Burton on Planet of the Apes, to join Big Fish as a producer. Zanuck also had a difficult relationship with his own father, Darryl F. Zanuck, who once fired him as head of production at 20th Century Fox.

Filming[]

Burton planned to start filming in October 2002, but principal photography in Alabama did not begin until January 13, 2003. Apart from filming in Paris for one week in May, Big Fish was entirely shot in Alabama, mostly in Wetumpka and Montgomery (such as the Cloverdale neighborhood). Brief filming also took place in Tallassee and on the campus of Huntingdon College. Scenes for the town of Spectre were filmed on a custom set located on Jackson Lake Island between Montgomery and Millbrook, Alabama, adjacent to the Alabama River. Principal photography for Big Fish in Alabama continued until the first week of April. and is estimated to have generated as much as $25 million for the local economy.

Burton filmed all the dramatic hospital scenes and most of those involving Finney first, before moving on to the McGregor section of Bloom's life. Although McGregor was on set from the beginning of filming, Burton chose to shoot all Finney's scenes first. Location filming in Alabama was delayed by inclement weather; during the Calloway circus scenes filming, a tornado watch was issued and flooding on the set interrupted filming for several weeks. Despite the delays, Burton delivered the film on budget and on schedule.

The director attempted to limit the use of digital effects. However, because he wanted to evoke a Southern Gothic fantasy tone for Big Fish, color grading techniques were applied by Sony Pictures Imageworks. Stan Winston Studios, with whom Burton worked with on Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Batman Returns (1992), designed Helena Bonham Carter's prosthetic makeup and created the animatronics. Scenes with Karl the Giant were commissioned using forced perspective filmmaking.

Music[]

Main article: Big Fish (soundtrack)

The soundtrack was composed by regular Burton collaborator Danny Elfman. Burton approached Pearl Jam during post-production to request an original song for the soundtrack and closing credits. After screening an early print of the film, Pearl Jam vocalist Eddie Vedder wrote "Man of the Hour", completing the demo by the next day. It was recorded by the band four days later.[1] Guitarist Mike McCready stated, "We were so blown away by the movie ... Eddie and I were standing around talking about it afterwards and were teary-eyed. We were so emotionally charged and moved by the imagination and humanity that we felt because of the movie."[1]

Reception[]

Big Fish received positive reviews from film critics. Based on 219 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, 75% of critics positively reviewed Big Fish, with an average score of 7.13/10. The site's consensus states: "A charming father-and-son tale filled with typical Tim Burton flourishes." Metacritic calculated an average score of 58/100, based on 43 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Observations modeled the film after Forrest Gump (1994). "Big Fish turns into a wide-eyed Southern Gothic picaresque in which each lunatic twist of a development is more enchanting than the last," Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly wrote. "It's like Forrest Gump without the bogus theme-park politics." Peter Travers from Rolling Stone magazine praised Burton's direction, feeling it was a celebration of the art of storytelling and a touching father–son drama.

Mike Clark of USA Today commented that he was most fascinated by the casting choices. "Equally delightful is the Alison Lohman character's evolution into an older woman (Jessica Lange). It's a metamorphosis to equal any in screen history." Internet reviewer James Berardinelli found the fairy tale approach reminiscent of The Princess Bride (1987) and the films of Terry Gilliam. "Big Fish is a clever, smart fantasy that targets the child inside every adult," Berardinelli said, "without insulting the intelligence of either." Roger Ebert, in a mixed review, wrote "there is no denying that Will has a point: The old man is a blowhard. There is a point at which his stories stop working as entertainment and segue into sadism." Richard Corliss of Time magazine was disappointed, finding the father-son reconciliation storyline to be over-dramatically cliché. "You recall The Boy Who Cried Wolf? Edward Bloom is the man who cried fish." Big Fish was #85 on Slant Magazine's best films of the 2000s.

Videos[]

External Links[]

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Pee-wee's Big Adventure ·' Beetlejuice · Batman · Edward Scissorhands · Batman Returns · The Nightmare Before Christmas (film) · Ed Wood · Mars Attacks! · Sleepy Hollow · Planet of the Apes · Big Fish · Charlie and the Chocolate Factory · Corpse Bride · Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street · Alice in Wonderland · Dark Shadows · · Frankenweenie · Big Eyes · Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children · Dumbo ·

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The Island of Doctor Agor · Doctor of Doom · Stalk of the Celery Monster · Luau · Vincent · Hansel and Gretel · Frankenweenie · Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp · James and the Giant Peach ·Batman Forever · Batman & Robin · The Jar · Conversations with Vincent · The World of Stainboy · Kung Fu · Mannequin · Bones · Here With Me · 9 · Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter · Alice Through the Looking Glass


  1. 1.0 1.1 Lammers, Tim. ""Man Of The Hour" Up For BFCA, Golden Globe Awards", WDIV-TV, 2004-01-08. 
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