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This article is about the 2003 film. For other uses, see Big Fish (disambiguation).

Big Fish
Theatrical release poster
Directed byTim Burton
Screenplay byJohn August
Based onBig Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions
by Daniel Wallace
Produced byRichard D. Zanuck
Bruce Cohen
Dan Jinks
Starring
CinematographyPhilippe Rousselot
Edited byChris Lebenzon
Music byDanny Elfman
Production
companies
Distributed bySony Pictures Releasing
Release dates
  • December 4, 2003 (2003-12-04) (Hammerstein Ballroom)
  • December 10, 2003 (2003-12-10) (United States)
Running time
125 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$70 million[1]
Box office$123.2 million[1]

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.[2] The film stars 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.

Screenwriter John August read a manuscript of the novel six months before it was published and convinced Columbia Pictures to acquire the rights. August began adapting the novel while producers negotiated with Steven Spielberg who planned to direct after finishing Minority Report (2002). Spielberg considered Jack Nicholson for the role of Edward Bloom, but eventually dropped the project to focus on Catch Me If You Can (2002). Tim Burton and Richard D. Zanuck took over after completing Planet of the Apes (2001) and brought Ewan McGregor and Albert Finney on board.

The film's theme of reconciliation between a dying father and his son had special significance for Burton, as his father had died in 2000 and his mother in 2002, a month before he signed on to direct. Big Fish was shot on location in Alabama in a series of fairy tale vignettes evoking the tone of a Southern Gothic fantasy. Big Fish premiered on December 4, 2003, at the Hammerstein Ballroom and was released in theaters on December 10, 2003, by Columbia Pictures. It garnered mostly positive reviews from critics, and grossed $122.9 million against a $70 million budget. The film received award nominations in multiple film categories, including four Golden Globe Award nominations, seven nominations from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, two Saturn Award nominations, and an Oscar and a Grammy Award nomination for Danny Elfman's original score. The set for the town of Spectre still remains and can be found in Wetumpka, Alabama at Jackson Lake Island.

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, has gradually grown exasperated with Edward's histronics, coming to believe all these tales to be just a ruse to captivate attention, and eventually falling out with his father.

Three years later in 2003, Edward gets a cancer diagnosis. When the illness approaches its terminal stage, Will and his pregnant French wife Joséphine return to his home town of Ashton, Alabama, to spend time with him in the last days. During the plane ride, Will begins to recall some of his father's usual stories, such as the tale of Edward's childhood encounter with a witch in 1932, 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 through this and other bits of personal lore and unlikely feats. As another example, he claims to have once been bedridden for three years due to his rapid growth spurts, and to have then became a locally famous sportsman, a mogul in grass-mowing in his neighborhood and other things, before being driven by his ambition to leave his hometown and pursue even bigger achievements.

In 1944, he sets out into the world with a misunderstood giant, Karl, who was terrorizing the town by eating livestock from the surrounding farms and had been risking lynching by the scared and angry town folk. Edward and Karl leave Ashton with the major's blessing and celebrated by all local characters. Soon they encounter a fork in the road, and decide travel down separate paths and re-meet where they merge again. Edward chooses a dangerous-looking path through a swamp, confident that nothing can really harm him, since the witch had forecast a different death at an older age. Soon he discovers along this way the secret and otherworldy town of Spectre, where the cheery but strange locals claim that he was early but expected. Among them, he befriends Ashton poet laureate Norther Winslow, who had similarly left their town years ago and suddenly stopped to send any news. Edward makes also a big impression on the Spectre mayor's child daughter Jenny, who claims their big age different not to be a big obstacle to love, as it will get less significant once they are both adult. However, Edward leaves Spectre, unwilling to settle down so soon, but promising Jenny and the others that he will return.

Edward and the Karl reunite. Continuing their wandering, they visit the Calloway Circus in 1948, where Karl turns out to be a more spectacular attraction than the local giant 'El Penumbra' (just a tall man) and Edward spots among the public a beautiful young woman, getting immediately infatuated. Karl is offered a job in the circus and Edward too convinces the ringmaster Amos Calloway to hire him, in return of one detail about the woman at the end of every month, instead of a normal salary. After three years of this arrangement and many small bits of information, in 1951 Edward discovers that Amos is secretly a werewolf. He is attacked by him during one of his periodic transformation, and similarly to the initial situation with Karl in Ashton, the circus people is about to shot the dangerous-looking "freak" with a silver bullet out of fear, but Edward manage to de-escalate the situation and shows the werewolf's playful and dog-like attitude instead, playing fetch until he turns back into human in the morning. Amos, impressed by Edward's courage, finally reveals the woman's name to be Sandra Templeton, and where to find her: she attends Auburn University, but her graduation date is near and she will depart soon.

Edward rushes to Auburn, and begins to closely court the friendly but already engaged Sandra over many days. He tries to win her over with more and more garish love declarations, going so far as to plant thousands of daffodils (her favorite flower, according to one of the personal details gathered from Amos) outside of her sorority house bedroom. This annoys her fiance, Edward's childhood peer Don Price, also from Ashton. Don was already envious of Edward's always gaining the spotlight in every endeavors, and brutally beats up him up eventually. This however prompts Sandra to break off their engagement and actually decide to marry Edward. Not long after, Don dies an obscure death due to a heart attack in the toilet, as the witch had prophesied.

Shortly after the happy marriage with Sandra, Edward is drafted into the army in 1952. He is sent to fight in the Korean War, but tries to shorten his tour of duty by volunteering for all the riskiest missions, in attempt to gain a honorable early discharge and return to his wife. In one of such missions, he parachutes alone into the middle of a North Korean military show, steals important documents, and convinces local troop entertainers Siamese twins Ping and Jing to help him go home and flee the country all together, in exchange for making them celebrities on the larger stage of American show business. Upon returning home, Edward decides to turn his skills into making money to buy his dream family home. He becomes again without effort a successful but fairly ordinary travelling salesman, until he crosses paths by chance with Winslow in a bank in 1963. It turns out that Winslow is there as a robber, claiming to have been inspired to also leave Spectre by Edward's example. Edward is unwittingly brought to help with the robbery, but the bank staff reveals not to have any money and to have kept pretension of solvency only to avoid a bank run. During their escape, Edward lectures the poet about where real money can be made in quicker but riskier ways than armed robberies, i.e. on the stock market. Winslow decides to follow such advice and parts ways, to start a career in Wall Street where he will become a wealthy broker. In gratitude, he repays Edward with ten thousand dollars, which allow Edward and his wife to finally move into their dream house.

In the present, Will is beginning to set his father's affairs into order and this gradually brings him to investigate the truth behind the above many tales. Upon finding some documents actually citing the town of Spectre, he travels there and meets an older Jenny, living alone in a dilapidated house. The aged woman explains that in 1968, Edward had indeed returned to the town of his first side-stop out of Ashton, and that he was instrumental in rescuing all the citizenship from bankruptcy, by buying all properties in an auction and letting all people to stay for free, thanks to the financial backing of his rich friends like Wislow or Ping and Jing. In particular, he had saved and rebuilt Jenny's old house with help of the giant Karl. Will figures out that Jenny and his father had actually an affair during his travel salesman's days, although dates and chronology of the embellished tales don't entirely add up. The woman acknowledges that there was indeed some truth in that, but that Edward had never stopped really loving his wife Sandra.

Will returns home, but finds out that during this absence Edward's condition has suddenly deteriorated further. He has had a stroke, requiring urgent care back at the hospital. Edward rushes to his death bed, where Edward briefly regains consciousness but is unable to speak much. They seem to have reached however a better degree of understanding and reconciliation than in years. Will calms down his dying father by taking over his usual role of narrating magic tales barely linked to the more prosaic reality, imagining in particular how the witch's glass eye prophecy could be reconciled with the present hospitalization, and lead to a spectacular happy ending among all other characters of a lifetime. His father dies peacefully in his arms during the tale.

At the funeral, Will and Joséphine are surprised when they start noticing all the people from Edward's stories. Everybody is slightly less fantastical than described, but still clearly recognizable from his father's over-the-top tales. They also share their own memories of Edward's life and of the experiences together, which may have not been so incredible but clearly left all of them inspired and enriched. Some time later, Will is shown to be also a father, now having fully endorsed Edward's tales which he passes on to his own young son.

Cast

Themes

Big Fish is about what's real and what's fantastic, what's true and what's not true, what's partially true and how, in the end, it's all true.

—Tim Burton[3]

The reconciliation of the father-son relationship between Edward and William is the key theme in Big Fish.[4][5] Novelist Daniel Wallace's interest in the theme of the father-son relationship began with his own family. Wallace found the "charming" character of Edward Bloom similar to his father, who used charm to keep his distance from other people.[6] In the film, Will believes Edward has never been honest with him because Edward creates extravagant myths about his past to hide himself, using storytelling as an avoidance mechanism.[7] Edward's stories are filled with fairy tale characters (a witch, mermaid, giant, and werewolf) and places (the circus, small towns, the mythological town of Spectre), all of which are classic images and archetypes.[8] The quest motif propels both Edward's story and Will's attempt to get to the bottom of it. Wallace explains: "The father's quest is to be a big fish in a big pond, and the son's quest is to see through his tall tales."[6]

Screenwriter John August identified with Will's character and adapted it after himself. In college, August's father died, and like Will, August had attempted to get to know him before his death, but found it difficult. Like Will, August had studied journalism and was 28 years old. In the film, Will says of Edward, "I didn't see anything of myself in my father, and I don't think he saw anything of himself in me. We were like strangers who knew each other very well."[9] Will's description of his relationship with Edward closely resembled August's own relationship with his father.[9] Burton also used the film to confront his thoughts and emotions concerning the death of his father in 2000:[5] "My father had been ill for a while ... I tried to get in touch with him, to have, like in this film, some sort of resolution, but it was impossible."[8]

Religion and film scholar Kent L. Brintnall observes how the father-son relationship resolves itself at the end of the film. As Edward dies, Will finally lets go of his anger and begins to understand his father for the first time:

In a final gesture of love and comprehension, after a lifetime of despising his father's stories and his father as story-teller, Will finishes the story his father has begun, pulling together the themes, images and characters of his father's storied life to blend reality and fantasy in act of communion and care. By unselfishly releasing the anger he has held about his father's stories, Will gains the understanding that all we are is our stories and that his father's stories gave him a reality and substance and a dimension that was as real, genuine, and deep as the day-to-day experiences that Will sought out. Will comes to understand, then, that his father—and the rest of us—are our stories and that the deeper reality of our lives may, in fact, not be our truest self.[10]

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.[11] August read the unpublished novel following the death of his father. In September 1998,[12] August convinced Columbia Pictures to acquire the film rights on his behalf.[13] August worked hard to make the episodic book into a cohesive screenplay, deciding on several narrators for the script.[8] 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).[14][15]

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."[13] Spielberg eventually left Big Fish when he became involved with Catch Me If You Can (2002), and DreamWorks also backed out of the film.[14][16]

With Spielberg no closer to committing, August, working with Jinks and Cohen,[13] considered Stephen Daldry as a potential director.[17] "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."[13]

My father had recently died and, although I wasn't really close to him, it was a heavy time, and it made me start thinking and going back to the past. It was something that was very difficult for me to discuss, but then this script came along and it actually dealt with those same issues, and so it was an amazing catharsis to do this film—because you're able to work through those feelings without having to talk to a therapist about it.

—Tim Burton[8]

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.[8] He signed to direct in April 2002,[18] 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.[13]

Casting

For the role of Edward Bloom, Burton spoke with Jack Nicholson, Spielberg's initial choice for the role. Burton had previously worked with Nicholson on Batman (1989) and Mars Attacks! (1996). In order to depict Nicholson as the young Bloom, Burton intended to use a combination of computer-generated imagery and prosthetic makeup. The director then decided to cast around for the two actors in question.[8] Jinks and Cohen, who were then working with Ewan McGregor on Down with Love (2003), suggested that Burton cast both McGregor and Albert Finney for Edward. Burton later compared McGregor's acting style to regular colleague Johnny Depp.[8] Viewing Finney's performance in Tom Jones (1963), Burton found him similar to McGregor, and coincidentally found a People magazine article comparing the two.[13] McGregor, being Scottish, found it easier performing with a Southern American English accent. "It's a much easier accent to do than a standard American accent because you can really hear it. You can get your teeth into it. Standard American is much harder because it's more lyrical."[19] The same dual casting applied to the role of Bloom's wife, Sandra, who would be played by Jessica Lange and Alison Lohman.[8] Burton commented that he was impressed with Lohman's performance in White Oleander (2002).[20] Burton's girlfriend, Helena Bonham Carter, was also cast in two roles. Her prosthetic makeup for The Witch took five hours to apply. "I was pregnant throughout filming, so it was weird being a pregnant witch," the actress reflected. "I had morning sickness, so all those fumes and the make-up and the rubber ... it was hideous."[21]

Burton personalized the film with several cameos. While filming in Alabama, the crew tracked down Billy Redden, one of the original banjo players from Deliverance (1972). Redden was working as a part-owner of a restaurant in Clayton, Georgia, and he agreed to reprise his role in the Spectre vignette. As Edward Bloom first enters the town, Redden can be seen on a porch plucking a few notes from "Dueling Banjos". Burton was pleased with the result: "If you're watching the film and don't recognise the solitary, enigmatic figure on the porch, that's fine. But if you do – well, it just makes me so happy to see him and I think other people will feel the same way."[22] Original Big Fish author Daniel Wallace makes a brief appearance as Sandra's economics teacher in the "Courtship of Sandra Templeton" sequence.[23]

Filming

Burton focused on the story and limited the use of digital effects. Costume designer Colleen Atwood created special dresses for identical twins Ada and Arlene Tai. One set of dresses created the effect of fused twins on camera, while another set enhanced the added CGI of conjoined twins.[24][25]

Burton planned to start filming in October 2002, but principal photography in Alabama did not begin until January 13, 2003.[14] Apart from filming in Paris for one week in May, Big Fish was entirely shot in Alabama,[8] mostly in Wetumpka[26] and Montgomery (such as the Cloverdale neighborhood).[16] Brief filming also took place in Tallassee and on the campus of Huntingdon College.[27] 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.[28][29][30] Principal photography for Big Fish in Alabama continued until the first week of April.[8][31] and is estimated to have generated as much as $25 million for the local economy.[26]

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.[13] Although McGregor was on set from the beginning of filming, Burton chose to shoot all Finney's scenes first.[8] 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.[32][33] Despite the delays, Burton delivered the film on budget and on schedule.[13]

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.[8] 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.[34] Scenes with Karl the Giant were commissioned using forced perspective filmmaking.[25]

Music

Main article: Big Fish (soundtrack)

The soundtrack was composed by regular Burton collaborator Danny Elfman.[8] 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.[35] 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."[35]

Release

Columbia Pictures planned to wide release Big Fish in the United States on November 26, 2003[36] before pushing it back to December 10 for a limited release.[37] The film premiered on December 4, 2003 at the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan.[38] The domestic wide release in the US came on January 9, 2004, with the film appearing in 2,406 theaters and earning $13.81 million in its opening weekend. The film eventually grossed $66.81 million in U.S. totals and $56.11 million in foreign countries, with a total of $122.92 million worldwide.[39]

Critical response

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."[40] Metacritic calculated an average score of 58/100, based on 43 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[41] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[42]

Critics compared the film to Forrest Gump (1994).[43][44] "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."[45] 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.[43]

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."[44] 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."[46] 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."[47] 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."[48] Big Fish was No. 85 on Slant Magazine's best films of the 2000s.[49]

Home media

The Region 1 DVD was released on April 27, 2004,[50] and Region 2 was released on June 7.[51] The DVD features a Burton audio commentary track, seven featurettes and a trivia quiz. A special edition was released on November 1, 2005, with a 24-page hardback book entitled Fairy Tale for a Grown Up.[52] The film was released on Blu-ray Disc on March 20, 2007.[53]

Accolades

Award Category Recipient Result
Academy Awards[54] Best Original Score Danny Elfman Nominated
BAFTA Awards[55] Best Film Nominated
Best Direction Tim Burton Nominated
Best Actor in a Supporting Role Albert Finney Nominated
Best Adapted Screenplay John August Nominated
Best Makeup and Hair Jean Ann Black and Paul LeBlanc Nominated
Best Production Design Dennis Gassner Nominated
Best Visual Effects Kevin Scott Mack, Seth Maury,
Lindsay MacGowan, Paddy Eason 		Nominated
Golden Globe Awards[56] Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy Nominated
Best Supporting Actor Albert Finney Nominated
Best Original Score Danny Elfman Nominated
Best Original Song Pearl Jam
For "Man of the Hour" 		Nominated
Grammy Awards[57] Best Score for a Motion Picture Danny Elfman Nominated
Saturn Awards[58] Best Fantasy Film Nominated
Best Actor Albert Finney Nominated
AARP Movies for Grownups Awards[59] Best Actor Nominated
Argentinean Film Critics Association Awards[59] Best Foreign Film, Not in the Spanish Language Tim Burton Nominated
Awards Circuit Community Awards[59] Best Actor in a Supporting Role Albert Finney Nominated
Best Adapted Screenplay John August Nominated
Best Cinematography Philippe Rousselot Nominated
Best Original Score Danny Elfman Nominated
Best Visual Effects Nominated
Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards[59] Best Picture Nominated
Best Director Tim Burton Nominated
Best Writer John August Nominated
Best Composer Danny Elfman Nominated
Best Song Eddie Vedder Nominated
Casting Society of America, USA Best Casting for Feature Film, Drama Denise Chamian Nominated

Adaptations

A musical adaptation starring Norbert Leo Butz premiered in Chicago in April 2013.[60]

References

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  2. ^ Gleiberman, Owen. (December 19, 2003). Big Fish. Entertainment Weekly.
  3. ^ Hirschberg, Lynn (November 9, 2003). "Drawn to Narrative". The New York Times Magazine. p. 650.
  4. ^ Salisbury, Mark; Tim Burton (2006). "Introduction to the Revised Edition by Mark Salisbury". Burton on Burton. London. p. XX. ISBN 0-571-22926-3. Burton connected to its central theme of a son trying to reconcile with his dying father, and the script gave him a means to address his feelings about the death of his own father, who had died in 2000. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
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  1. ^ She is credited as her birth name, Destiny Cyrus.

Further reading

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