Big Fish

At William Bloom's wedding party, his father Edward recalls the day Will was born, claiming he caught an enormous catfish using his wedding ring as bait. Will has heard his father's fanciful tales many times, and believes they are lies. Fed up by the stories, Will has a falling out with his father. Three years later, Edward is diagnosed with cancer, prompting Will and his pregnant wife Joséphine to spend time with him in Alabama. Edward's life is chronicled through flashbacks, beginning with his boyhood encounter with a witch. She shows Edward how he will die, which does not faze him. As he reaches adulthood, he finds his home too confining, and sets out into the world. He meets a giant named Karl, and they begin traveling together. When they find a fork in the road, they take separate paths. Edward traverses a swamp and discovers the hidden town of Spectre, where he befriends the poet Norther Winslow and the mayor's daughter, Jenny. Not ready to settle down, Edward leaves Spectre, but makes a promise to Jenny that he will return. At Joséphine's request, the bed-ridden Edward tells her how he met his wife, Sandra. In more flashbacks, Edward and Karl visit the Calloway Circus, where Edward falls in love with a beautiful woman. Edward and Karl get jobs in the circus, and the ringmaster Amos Calloway reveals to Edward one detail about the woman each month. Three years later, Edward discovers that Amos is a werewolf, but shows no ill will towards him. In gratitude, Amos reveals the woman's name as Sandra Templeton. Edward confesses his love to Sandra, but she rebuffs him despite his romantic gestures. Sandra's fiancé, Don Price, beats Edward up, which prompts Sandra to break off their engagement and marry Edward instead. In more flashbacks, Edward is conscripted into the army and fights in the Korean War. He parachutes into the middle of a North Korean military show, steals important documents, and persuades the conjoined twins Ping and Jing to help him escape in exchange for making them celebrities. Upon returning home, Edward becomes a traveling salesman. In the present, Will investigates the truth behind his father's tales. He meets an older Jenny, who explains that Edward rescued Spectre from bankruptcy and rebuilt it with help from his circus friends. Jenny reveals that although she loved Edward, he remained loyal to Sandra. Edward has a stroke and Will visits him at the hospital. Unable to speak much, he asks Will to narrate how his life ends. Will tells his father a fantastical tale of their daring escape from the hospital. They arrive at the banks of a lake, where everyone from Edward's stories has gathered to see him off. Will carries his father into the river, where he transforms into a giant catfish and swims away. Satisfied by Will's story, Edward dies peacefully. At the funeral, Will and Joséphine are surprised to see all the people from Edward's stories, although they appear less fantastical. Later, Will passes on Edward's stories to his sons. ==Cast==

• Ewan McGregor as Edward Bloom (young) • Albert Finney as Edward Bloom (senior) • Perry Walston as Edward Bloom (age 10) • Billy Crudup as Will Bloom • Grayson Stone as Will Bloom (age 6–8) • Jessica Lange as Sandra Bloom (senior) • Alison Lohman as Sandra Bloom (young), née Templeton • Helena Bonham Carter as Jenny (young & senior) / The Witch • Hailey Anne Nelson as Jenny (age 8) • Robert Guillaume as Dr. Bennett (senior) • Marion Cotillard as Joséphine • Matthew McGrory as Karl the Giant • David Denman as Don Price (age 18–22) • John Lowell as Donald "Don" Price (age 12) • Missi Pyle as Mildred • Loudon Wainwright III as Beamen • Ada Tai and Arlene Tai as Ping and Jing • Steve Buscemi as Norther Winslow • Danny DeVito as Amos Calloway • Deep Roy as Mr. Soggybottom • R. Keith Harris as Ed's Father • Karla Droege as Ed's Mother • Zachary Gardner as Zacky Price (age 10) • Darrell Vanterpool as Wilbur (age 10) • Miley Cyrus as Ruthie (age 8) • Joseph Humphrey as Little Brave • Billy Redden as Banjo Man • Russell Hodgkinson as Some Farmer • Daniel Wallace as Econ. Professor • George McArthur as Colossus • Bevin Kaye as River Woman ==Production==

Development About six months before it was published, the screenwriter John August read a manuscript of the 1998 novel Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions by Daniel Wallace. In September 1998, August convinced Columbia Pictures to acquire the film rights on his behalf. He worked hard to turn the episodic book into a cohesive screenplay, which he decided needed multiple narrators. In August 2000, the producers Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks began discussions for Steven Spielberg to direct the film. Spielberg planned to have DreamWorks co-finance and distribute Big Fish with Columbia, and intended to start filming in late 2001, after completing Minority Report (2002). Spielberg courted Jack Nicholson for the role of the older Edward Bloom. He felt that the script did not give Nicholson enough to do, so he asked August to write new sequences. With Spielberg no longer involved, August and the producers restored the script to its previous version. Spielberg later admitted that he made a mistake by asking August to alter the screenplay. August took his favorite elements from the previous drafts and came up with what he called "a best-of Big Fish script". August, Jinks and Cohen considered Stephen Daldry as a potential director before deciding to approach Tim Burton. At this point, August felt the script was the best it had ever been. A process of dual casting also applied to the role of Edward's wife, Sandra, who would be played by Jessica Lange and Alison Lohman. Burton's girlfriend, Helena Bonham Carter, was cast in two roles: Jenny and the Witch. Her prosthetic makeup for the Witch took five hours to apply. She was pregnant during filming and experienced morning sickness, which was exacerbated by the fumes from the makeup. Burton personalized the film with several cameos. While filming in Alabama, the crew tracked down Billy Redden, one of the banjo players from Deliverance (1972). Redden was a co-owner of a restaurant in Clayton, Georgia, and he agreed to appear in the Spectre sequence. As Edward first enters the town, Redden can be seen on a porch plucking a few notes from "Dueling Banjos". Daniel Wallace makes a brief appearance as Sandra's economics teacher. Filming were used to create the effect of conjoined twins. Principal photography began on January 13, 2003. Scenes in the town of Spectre were filmed on a custom-built set on Jackson Lake Island. Principal photography continued until the first week of April and is estimated to have generated as much as $25 million for the local economy. The Spectre set can still be found at its original location. Flooding on the set interrupted filming of the circus scenes for several weeks, but Burton managed to deliver the film on budget and on schedule. Post-production Although Burton limited the use of digital effects in Big Fish, he employed color grading to achieve a Southern Gothic aesthetic. ==Release==

The world premiere of Big Fish took place on December 4, 2003, at the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan. Columbia Pictures had initially planned a November wide release for the film in the United States, but ultimately decided on a December 10 limited release. The US wide release occurred on January 9, 2004, with the film appearing in 2,406 theaters and earning $13.8 million in its opening weekend. It eventually grossed $66.8 million in the United States and $56.1 million in other countries, for a total of $122.9 million worldwide. Critical response On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 76% of critics have positively reviewed Big Fish, giving it an average score of 7.2/10. The website's consensus states: "A charming father-and-son tale filled with typical Tim Burton flourishes, Big Fish is an impressive catch." Metacritic calculates an average score of 58/100 based on 42 reviews, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale. In his review of the film, Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly called Big Fish "a wide-eyed Southern Gothic picaresque in which each lunatic twist of a development is more enchanting than the last." Mike Clark of USA Today applauded the casting choices. He called the evolution of Alison Lohman's character into an older woman "delightful" and "a metamorphosis to equal any in screen history." Gleiberman, Travers and Clark all compared Big Fish to Forrest Gump (1994). James Berardinelli found the film's fairy tale approach reminiscent of The Princess Bride (1987) and the films of Terry Gilliam. He called the film "a clever, smart fantasy that targets the child inside every adult, without insulting the intelligence of either." In a mixed review, Roger Ebert wrote, "[T]here 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 cliché. Referencing the fable The Boy Who Cried Wolf, Corliss called Edward Bloom "the man who cried fish." Slant Magazine ranked Big Fish as the 85th best film of the decade 2000–2010. Accolades Home media The Region 1 DVD was released on April 27, 2004, and Region 2 was released on June 7. The DVD contains seven featurettes and an audio commentary track by Tim Burton. A special edition was released on November 1, 2005, with a 24-page hardback book titled Fairy Tale for a Grown Up. The film was released on Blu-ray on March 20, 2007. ==Thematic analysis==

The reconciliation between father and son has been called the central theme in Big Fish. Daniel Wallace's interest in the theme began with his own family. He described Edward as similar to his own father, who used charm to keep his distance from people. In the film, Will believes his father has never been honest with him, using extravagant myths about his past to hide himself. Wallace said that Edward and Will each undertake their own quest in the film. Edward's quest is "to be a big fish in a big pond" while Will's quest is to see through his father's tall tales." Burton also used the film to explore his emotions about the death of his father. ==Notes==