Big Fish
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"Storytelling and copulation are the two chief forms of amusement in the South. They?re inexpensive and easy to procure." -- Robert Penn Warren
Plot Summary:
Will Bloom visits his dying father Edward, a story-teller who has had a distant relationship with his son his whole life. Soon to be a dad himself, Will tries to understand the story of his father's often exaggerated life, separating truth from fiction.
Opinion:
While the term may be overused among Hollywood directors, Tim Burton is one filmmaker who deserves the term 'visionary'. Regardless of the overall quality of the movie (and they have varied in quality significantly), Burton films have a 'uniqueness' to them--a special something that's just a little 'off-center' from normal films. Movies such as "Batman" (and the first sequel), "Beetlejuice", "Sleepy Hollow", "Edward Scissorhands", etc all have a unique atmosphere and mood to them, and even when you don't like the film you have to admire Burton for at least trying something different. The most common complaint about Burton films is that they are "style over substance" and it is perhaps not a coincidence that "Big Fish"--one of his best films--has Burton toning down the "style" (a little bit) and adding a little more "substance" to put the movie a step above the level of empty eye candy into something more significant.
Viewers might draw similarities between this film and another recently released movie "Secondhand Lions" (which is also excellent)--both involve members of the older generation and their somewhat exaggerated life stories, and their younger relatives who try to make sense of what's really true and what isn't. While the comparison has some merit, "Secondhand Lions" has more of a straight-forward message and a simpler resolution to the generation gap (not to mention a slightly more upbeat ending) while "Big Fish" is a little more oblique--things get resolved at the end...but then again no, they don't--and deeper in a way because of it. "Lions" is the better 'family' film--as in one kids and parents would enjoy, while "Big Fish"--with romance a much bigger part of the story (a 'kid killer', of course)--would be more for the adult set. ("Big Fish" also has the higher rating--PG-13 to PG--than "Lions" although it's not a heavy PG-13 by any means--see below). Of course, it's not like the two films are competing against each other, so comparisons are meaningless after a point--why not just see both films?
"Big Fish" alternates between the present and the past--which almost exactly represent the "substance" and "style" parts respectively in the movie. Burton gets to have it both ways here with the past episodes of Ed Bloom's life being shown in hyper-stylized, exaggerated fashion while the present episodes with Will talking to his dad are more down-to-earth. Both parts work equally well, which is one of the reasons "Big Fish" is effective from beginning to end. The acting is uniformly excellent, from leads Billy Crudup and Albert Finney (with Ewan McGregor playing the younger Edward) to the smaller parts from Alison Lohman, Steve Buscemi (playing a weirdo--but then, you knew that, didn't you?), and Burton veterans Danny Devito and Helena Bonham-Carter. Helena Bonham Carter in particular is brilliant in her small part--and I mean goosebumps-over-your-whole-body brilliant (maybe it's her low, sultry voice...)
The ending in particular is beautifully written and shot--and doesn't neatly resolve things as you might have expected from watching the first part of the movie, especially if you happen to have seen "Secondhand Lions" and are expected virtually the same conclusion. The ending exemplifies the success of "Big Fish" to a T: it's impressive from a stylistic, visual sense, but also works on a baser emotional level as well.
"Big Fish", like most Burton movies, will appeal to those who want something 'out-of-the-ordinary' in movie experiences--especially great visuals, but the personal relationship between the son and his distant and dying father will also appeal to those who desire emotional dialogue and catharsis--and perhaps have felt a similar familial separations in their own lives. I would expect that the vast majority of the viewers of "Big Fish" will be able to appreciate it on some level.
Content Analysis: (2-2-2-0 on the Baron's scale, mid-to-light PG-13)
A few instances of profanity, one slightly off-color joke involving adultery, some non-sexual rear nudity (one of which is Danny DeVito--which may scare you off right there...) One guy gets beat up by another guy in a fist-fight. Basically, nothing too serious. "Big Fish" earns the PG-13 rating but is not extreme by any means. From a subject matter standpoint, "Big Fish" isn't really a kids movie (get "Secondhand Lions" for that) but would be a good 'date' movie. From a moral standpoint, the lessons about what being a good father is and is not from the movie's perspective may be of some concern, depending on how you choose to interpret it (see In-depth Analysis below)
In-depth Analysis:
Steven Graydanus of
Decent Films--whom you should be reading every week if you're not already--takes "Big Fish" to task for sending the wrong message about being a good father. Edward Bloom is 'faithful' to his wife in the sense that he doesn't have sex with anyone else, but is absent most of the time, and in fact (as Graydanus notes) spends a lot of unnecessary time with Jenny rebuilding her house (a possible example of 'asexual adultery' I mentioned in my
Girl With a Pearl Earring analysis). Plus, he had a somewhat dysfunctional and absent relationship with his son his entire life--telling him stories that were entertaining at first but acted as an emotional wall between them later in life.
That Edward wasn't that good a father isn't in question if you take the time to analyze it, but I would argue that the movie doesn't pretend that he was--in fact, his shortcomings as a father are the main point of the movie. The rift between father and son as demonstrated throughout the movie was shown to be more or less the direct result of Edward's tendency to use his stories (regardless of what percentage of truth they had in them) as the means of communication with his son at the expense of all others. Plus, Edward admitted to Will (in what was, in fact, one of the more honest and open conversations the two of them had) that he just wasn't capable of "staying at home"--that he needed to be out and about even though it meant he wasn't there for much of Will's life. Rather than excusing Edward's actions, I think the movie makes it clear what Edward gave up--he gained professional success, but lost the chance to have a close relationship with his son. The movie doesn't overtly state that Edward's decision was right or wrong--it merely notes the decision he did make and what consequences came of it.
That Edward really loved his son is not in question either, so in that aspect he could still be considered a 'good' father--only that other than providing for him and his mother financially, Edward didn't have a natural way of expressing that love. In a way, Edward was trapped. If you look at the scenes where the young Edward is telling the stories of his life to his young son, you can see how excited the young Will is to hear about the 'witch', the 'giant' and other stories. Edward knows his stories (in exaggerated form) are entertaining to his son and others and in a sense they become the only way he knows to communicate with him (He thinks it's perhaps the only thing he can do to make his son happy). It's quite possible that Edward may have wanted to communicate more honestly and closely with his son in later years, but may have been afraid that without the added 'excitement' of his previous stories, his son would find him boring--a fate worse than being hated to a man such as Edward. Regardless of the cause, though, Edward was a adequate father in many aspects but not in others and in my opinion the movie quite fairly lets the viewer judge for themselves which areas of parenthood were more important. This is one of the complexities of the ending in that Will doesn't suddenly 'realize' his father was a good father all along (as a simpler movie might have done) but rather he
understands and (more significantly) becomes
at peace with who his father was--accepting both the good and the bad.
What are we to make of, then, the scenes at the end where Will starts telling his son the same stories he heard from his father? Graydanus interprets this as a sign that Will has accepted his father's stories as an acceptable means of parenting and is passing it on to his kid, seemingly forgetting that it was the storytelling that led to a lifelong separation from his father.
I disagree, though... I see the point of the last few scenes as showing Will being at peace with who his father was including his stories--which means not that he accepts the telling of exaggerated stories as a substitute for parenting, but that the stories happened to be--for better or worse--the only way his father communicated with him and has become the only means for his son to understand his grandfather whom he's never met. Notice that Will isn't telling his son exaggerated stories about
his life, only the same stories he heard from his father--a clear sign that his version of parenting is going to be different than his father's.
Random Notes and Comments:
(1) The daffodil scene, when young Edward covers the whole yard outside his future wife's sorority in daffodils in an effort to impress her, is one of the few movies scenes that's actually more real in real life than it was within the movie. In the movie, the scene is clearly an exaggeration of Edward's retelling of the story--meaning he most likely didn't bring nearly that many flowers to his wife before they married. But in order to film the scene, the film's producers really did bring in all the daffodils they could find to fill out the yard (in other words, they're not computer generated).
(2) The 'war' Edward fought in appears to be the Korean War, although the actual country Edward parachutes into is kept purposefully vague. The ventriloquist is speaking Tagalog (language of the Philippines) while the soldier who tells him to get off the stage is speaking Mandarin Chinese. The conjoined twins are speaking Cantonese when they enter their tent and find Edward there, while some of the other soldiers speak Korean. As a joke (I assume), the translation book Edward is reading in the plane before he jumps is entitled "English to Asian" (Asian?).
(3) During the bank robbery, a letter board is shown with Romans 12:1-2 which reads: "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will."
