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8.7/10
FilmFascination Rating
Have you ever been so creative that your imagination starts pushing the extent in a way that makes you wonder about its practicality in the first place? That is how the tales told by Edward Bloom are.
His wife and almost all the people are fascinated by his stories. Mostly because of the way he narrates them. He creates the environment and makes it an experience for the listener. They are extremely charming to everyone but his son Will, who is tired of listening to all his extravagant stories repeatedly. He finds them so exasperating that he stops speaking to his father for several years.
He thinks the stories are in a way just hiding who his father truly is and most of them are lies. Because, in the entire movie, almost the whole time, all we can hear Edward speaking is telling his stories. There are very few conversations that are situationally built. At other times, it feels that he is just finding chances to tell another one of his tales. There is no denying that Will has a point- Edward’s stories are pretty self- flattering that it is hard not to feel some sympathy for Will, who grew up in his father’s shadow and, for much of his childhood, in his absence.
At the time when Edward is on his deathbed, all Will wishes is to know his father behind the façade. We and Will together go on this journey of finding reality. Burton used the film to confront his own emotions concerning his father’s death in 2000. “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.”, he said.
In the novel Big Fish by Daniel Wallace, Burton (Director) has found a vehicle to express his fascination with fantasy and its relationship to reality. Wallace found the “charming” character of Edward Bloom similar to his father, who used charm to keep his distance from other people. The movie is arranged into an episode of flashback stories that come now and then, along with returning to the present. In one, Edward, as a boy, meets a witch (Helena Bonham Carter) with a magical glass eye which shows how a person is going to die. In another, he comes upon a town in which grass grows in the street and everyone is barefoot and happy. And how can I forget his intoxicatingly sweet story of finding his love, involving skywriting planes and the famous field of daffodils put together just for his wife. Every once in a while, between these tales come hard emotional scenes that bring a smile to your face. This beautiful scene is where Will sits outside his father’s room just to listen to his story. Billy Crudup, Will in the movie, also plays the last scene which could have easily gone cringeworthy so beautifully. It is these scenes that add depth to the movie.
‘Big Fish’ is beautiful in the sense of its imagination. More than the imagination, what is truly admirable is how beautifully everything is visualised and actually shown. One distinctive scene I remember is the dance scene in the secret town of Spectre. The camera shot, where it rotates circularly and it feels like we are actually dancing in the scene in place of Edward. It is fun to watch and experience all the stories of Edward because of how intricately the environment for each of them is created by Burton. Even when sometimes the storytelling falters, his inimitably strange sensibility leaves its traces on the memory. The tales feel grand but at the same time are grounded. While we come across many stories, there are scenes that are purely silly, but again that is why it makes you wonder if it really happened. But the silliness does not make the movie any less enjoyable.
It is unbelievable how close the story gets to you at a point. Even the characters who had only a scene or two are remembered by us. That is how the movie has been designed. Even in the flashbacks and the present, you have no trouble imagining adventurous Edward thickening into Mr. Edward played by Albert Finney telling all his tales. Even more delightful is to watch his beautiful wife Sandra growing up into the character played by Jessica Lange in the present. It is the skills of both Ewan McGregor and Alison Lohman that make this possible.
There is a very crisp line between liking it and not liking it. It depends a lot on how you perceive the movie. So, if someone tells me that he did not like it, I wouldn’t be surprised. I think it would be a little too much for the realists to handle. But, keep in mind, it has been added to ‘Great Movies’. So it has the potential, only if you are ready to let the imagination flow.
Favourite Quotes
Will Bloom: A man tells his stories so many times that he becomes the stories. They live on after him, and in that way he becomes immortal
Will Bloom: Have you ever heard a joke so many times you’ve forgotten why it’s funny? And then you hear it again and suddenly it’s new. You remember why you loved it in the first place.
Senior Ed Bloom: Most men, they’ll tell you a story straight through. It won’t be complicated, but it won’t be interesting either.
Will Bloom: Unbelievable.
Senior Ed Bloom: The story of my life.
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