A Big Fish Film Analysis: “William, evolution and maturity of the son and reconciliation with his father "The Big Fish"

“William, evolution and maturity of the son and reconciliation with his father "The Big Fish"

Movie title: BIG FISH
Director: Tim Burton
Year: 2004

Introduction

The storyline of the movie is about the reencounter of William and his father Edward Bloom, who is suffering a terminal disease. William wants to know the truth about his father’s life in order to separate fiction from reality behind the stories Ed used to tell his son since he was an infant.

In this lovely fairy tale the audience can find the important issues of mankind such as love, family, forgiveness, courage, adventure and death, and how the head of the family loves more than anything: his wife and only son. Unfortunately, his longer absences through the years and the “lies” he told his son, have affected their relationship. Father and son remain distant to each other since Will’s weeding day, and only with Edward’s near death, they will return to talk and settle their issues and so William may accept the philosophy of his father's life in order to raise his unborn son.

Argumentation

Sequences of the movie according to my thesis:

Sequence 1: In the credits; The story of “the beast”, the big fish, told by Ed to his little child, then Ed tells the same story to the kids of a camp.

Sequence 2: Will travels by plane Ed remembers the tale of the witch.

Sequence 3: Will arrives home; Ed remembers his friend “the giant” and how he spent three years in bed, he remembers also his arrival to Spectre, the mystery town.

Sequence 4: Will, Ed, his wife Sandra and Josephine are having dinner. Ed tells the circus story to Josephine, his daughter-in-law.

Sequence 5: Will and Josephine in bed, Ed tells to Josephine about that time his father served the country in war while William talks to Ed sincerely.

Sequence 6: Will, Ed, Josephine and Sandra together, Will remembers when his father comes back from the war and starts to sell hand-form paperweights.

Sequence 7: Ed in the bathtub, Will goes to Spectre and visits Jenny, she tells her vision about Ed and how he saved Spectre of bankruptcy.

Sequence 8: Ed in the hospital, Will tells Ed a tale about Ed’s dreamed death, and continues to carry on Ed’s legacy of storytelling.

Thesis: “William, evolution and maturity of the son and reconciliation with his father "The Big Fish"


Sequence 1:
The search of greatness represented by the big fish on the sea, the search of opportunities is delineated by hundreds of rings hanged by fishing rods. We can only see the back of the father; the son’s body language says that he is getting bored of dad’s stories.

On Will graduation day, Ed is telling the same story to a girl and, on the screen we see the separation between father and son, different rooms, different body positions, Ed’s face cannot be seen. On Will’s weeding day, they fight near the water, which represents the element that Ed is comfortable in. So we see that the father always had the power between their relationship until they stop talking for three years.

Sequence 2:
William is in an office in Paris, working as a journalist. He took a different path from his father steps by working in a safe and modern place. Sandra is kind of Ed’s guardian angel because she looks up for him while he swims in the pool. Her image is double as she plays the role of wife and guardian, and we can see her, as she was a giant compare with Ed (she is the most important person in Ed’s life). Ed is the big fish because he observes the world underwater and he was the one who spent his life searching for something big. When Ed is fishing we see a double image of him; half is outside the water and half is on the water, while his reflection creates the illusion as he belongs on both parts.

Sequence 3:
William arrives home with Josephine, his wife, when he asks to Sandra about his dad health he feels that the house he grew up in still remains huge, even though he is an adult. When he goes upstairs to make his dad eat, we can see the camera in a high-angle shot while he sees in disappointment the pictures in the wall. The emotional weight of confronting his dad makes him feel small and childish. On the other hand when he enters to his dad’s room, the camera angle changes to a low-angle shot, now the son is above the sick father.

At this point we can see all of the marvelous things Edward Bloom did for his town, in a very fantastical and heroic way, like confronting the giant. Also Edward goes by accident to “Spectre”, a town that may represent heaven (all the people are beautiful and dressed in white) but also hell, the lagoon by the town is dark and sinister. In Spectre Edward meets 10 years old Jenny and made a promise to her, “I will come back”. As Ed leaves the town, we see a cord full of hanged shoes, the idea of death appears again, is not time of Edward yet.



Sequence 4:
After dinner Ed talks to Josephine; he tells her the story of how he met Sandra. This part of the movie is very romantic and the staging is full of color and fantasy, we see as if the sequence was a dream, the search of Ed for the love of his life; however, difficult it may be, Edward gets to know and conquer Sandra, eventually they got married.

William begins to understand his dad’s view because he listens to this conversation; Josephine plays an important role as mediator, being the caring and devoted wife, as his mother Sandra was always for Edward.

Sequence 5:
William reclaims to Edward when he is on his bedroom, he breaks Edwards heart by saying that he listens only lies during his whole life. But when Will is cleaning the pool, a big fish appears to him, he starts seeing the world as his father, even though he is “cleaning” the pool, the father’s natural habitat.

Sequence 6:
When Sandra, Josephine and Will enter to Ed’s garage to clean it, we can see a dirty and cluttered space, then Will throw most of the stuff away, but when Sandra finds the letter of the government notifying Edward’s mistaken death, suddenly Will changes his attitude toward his father and realize that not all the things he told him were a complete lie, the hand (a novelty product Ed used to sell) is toward Will, so the hand of his father is reaching his son.

We see the son growing up in giant steps, the son who will soon become a dad.


Sequence 7:
In one of the many life memories of Ed, we see how he accidentally helped a poet to rob a bank and in return, the poet gave him money, which he used to buy a house. When the camera shows this house, we see the same high-angle shot, like when Will arrived home after three years. The big white house with backyard and lovely wife and kid, represents the fulfilled “American dream”. As different from Edward, Will don’t fit in this dream because he is in the search of answers and his dad creates the moments and enjoys life.

Although William feels he doesn’t have enough time to learn more about his father, Ed remains calm about his death, he is immersed in the bathtub while his wife Sandra enters like a siren to merge with, in his natural habitat.

In the meantime Will goes to Spectre and looks for Jenny, the little girl that fell in love with Ed years ago. But Will finds out a terrifying and destroyed little town, nothing like the stories of his dad. He confronted Jenny, as she denies never having an affair with his father.

This woman, Jenny represents the good, the bad and the ugly of Edward’s life, as she plays the role of the witch who told him his death when he was a kid, Jenny was in love of Edward since she was a kid, but that love was not returned, then he helped her to recover the now ghost town Spectre. In this period he got confused, but in the end, nothing happened between them.



Sequence 8:
When Ed is in the hospital, Will stays with him, although a hospital is a cold, distant building, both are fenced in one place, father on the bed, as in most of the movie, and son in the chair, as the guardian of his final hours. The papers changed, his mother and Ed’s guardian said goodbye to him earlier to let spend father and son the final moments in order to fix their situation with love.

Edward asks his son to tell the story of his end, then, William becomes the storyteller and recreates the final path of Edward Bloom. As they get out of the hospital, we can see the trees in the winter, dry with no leaves, dying, like Edward, but when they arrive to the river, everyone important in Ed’s life are there, celebrating like in a party. Josephine throws Ed’s sandals to a cord between the trees, like Jenny did in Spectre. Until he is on the river, Sandra is half way down waiting for him; he returns his wedding ring to her as a sign of giving his love forever.

In a very emotional way, William throws Edward down to the river, as he converts himself in the Big Fish, the son remains in the water and finally understands his father way of live.

In the funeral William sees all of the characters he’s been listening all his life: the giant, (not so much), the circus guy, and the Siamese Chinese twins, who in fact, are twins. We see the “real” people, magnified by Edward Bloom.

After a period of seven years the narrator is still William, in the moment we see his son in the pool of his house telling his friends the stories of his grandfather; then, a big fish is swimming around and taking care of his people, Ed the immortal fish.


Conclusion:
We saw the story of the son of a very particular man, and how his way of life really affected their relationship as father and son. This movie taught us acceptation and forgiveness. Edward Bloom spent his whole life knowing about his way of die, and that made him feel big and immortal in so many aspects.

To William wasn’t easy to have such a charismatic, liar and distant father, so he became a journalist because he wanted to know the facts rather than fiction.

When he really understood his father, not only that he forgave him, but he continued Ed’s tradition of storytelling, as he realized that there is nothing wrong with that, more than embellish the truth, which is boring and common, nothing like Edward Bloom.

To die on purpose

The picture above I do not own.

A very small K surrounded by a shield was a singular tattoo he has it in his left arm, that K which sometimes is forgotten by him.
His infantile drawings told about a depressive tendency inherited by the paternal side. His greater tragedy was to wake up two days after he listened to the paramedic voices which very slowly became deformed.
His first loving deception faced it with a transversal cut in the veins of the left wrist
His second was with transversal and diagonal cuts in the right wrist.
His 18th birthday he realized that more than two bottles of expired tablets are missing.
His psychiatric treatment temporarily blocked him to think about continuing trying it.
His passion for the music helped him to focus his energy in a few notes.
His third and fourth attempt did not surprise to anyone, there were no roses in his room.
His note did not blame anybody
His pistol was borrowed
His 27 were not his end.

Imagine to the person

I do not see future in your oracle
temptations are not libidinous

The harvested field seen from the sky
little by little is showing you the route

You, cultivate the person
yea, cultivate the person

Imagine to the person,
Imagine to the person
yea, imagine her!

Queen of the melancholic coldness,
Pacha Mama of the Andean North,
Butterfly of the oil paintings
Run away
Plebeian of the planking verse.

Secrets

This short tale was selected as "Winner" in a web contest based on writing something inspired on the picture above.

http://www.treintatrios.com.ar/fotox.php?ph=26

In the middle of the noise and the daily landscape of the Plaza Mayor of Salamanca, They were always there. They were the most important part of the history of the town and the memories that have gone away, leaving only the majestic baroque constructions at sight, finely exposed to the eyes and curiosity of thousands of tourists who got to catch, with spontaneity, semicircular arches, details in flight, or the gilded tones of the stones of those monuments surrounded in the crepuscular chaos.

They, “the Carmelite” were the true relic of the place. Many had arrived in their childhood at the convent; they learned to keep well her secrets there, turning them impenetrable, although limpid when they communicate their thoughts; sensible in their reasonings, and diaphanous in the purity of their ideals.

It was just like that in the remote passed times, and so it is today when they are seen in their carry back and forth in their afternoons. With very short steps they get lost by the Plaza Mayor, so far from the convent. Their smiling faces would seem that they announced to voices their inner joy to live day to day within a relic of religion and art. It would seem that they wanted to show us their museum that never was exposed to anybody, not only to the novices who recently arrived to offer their youth to God.

Tuesday 87
But here it is what it has happened. I caught sister Noelia spying through the slit of the museum main entrance, again. Audacious little noun, besides, everybody likes her. But I cannot trust her any longer. Above all, because Julia and Graciela are more serious, more heartless with me. How can one be so changeable? Besides, it is not a person, they are two, plus Noelia, they are three those who put me in a corner with cautious and reject me with silences. I lose the energies thinking what happened? What do they want? What do they know? How many nouns more are going to reject me?

Nevertheless, my afternoons are peaceful now, although lonely. The catechism is finished and there is not much to do; I already become bored and I feel a little jealousy when the three leave to the Plaza. It is summer, Oh, my mother! All of us would have to go out the afternoons, but no, orders are orders, I am the one who cannot leave the place.

Tuesday 92
The fatigue in the eyes is more evident now than ever. My hands’ nerves are calmed down a little by the flaxseed tea, but my absolute conscience does not allow me to lie, and I pray and pray the double than yesterday and so I think every day that breaks.

I renounce to be the chosen one. Forgive me Mother! I apostatize of my position. I do not get tired to sin, because I am only a single human being, without friends, only sisters, who are not indulgent with me, only demand of me with greater intensity that I tell the truth, and their silence is the wilder punishment than those of the medieval time.

And I know that not even after my death they will find my truth. And, I write, and write, because with their apathy they do not allow me to talk. There are secrets that do not belong to us, that existed, and, without requesting it, they name us heir. And this secret would have to be assumed by me, but they demand me to inherit it. I do not want, I am not able. The museum will remain closed.

Huge Cats

They try to open the oxidized main door, and after many attempts and several minutes, inside they were surprised by the walls, without paying attention to the dust of sheets on the furniture or the spider webs impossible to believe in each corner of the room over 100 meters large. They returned home.

Years of not stepping on that house, first it moved them away to take care of a serious patient in another country, then the economic recession of their own one, and later something called custom. Each footstep on the before white carpet, is a memorable memory or not, but a memory of yesterday. The decision to sell the house was already taken, so they decide to make inhabitable the place for some days and to pack/sell their memories, their marriage, their youthful life.

Two days later in their old big rambling house, the main door was strucked. Humberto, The husband, goes down to open. Humberto is an almost fat old man, with an extensive moustache and much corporal hair. –Yes? Good morning, What can I do for you?.- Hello, Good morning. Are you Humberto?.- Yes, Can I do something for you?.- Don Humberto, I used to live in this street when we were kids.- The truth is that I do not remember you, I am sorry, I have come back after 40 years, please come in, come in and let’s talk.

Humberto receives to the stranger in the living room that is already a little more inhabitable after two days of deep cleaning. The stranger gets in and feels much homesickness. Humberto offers him tea not to be discourteous.

Well, Humberto I will tell you, I used to live here when we were children. But my family moved itself to another city and I did not return, as well as you, for a long time. But in the summer of the 51 I returned and I got marriage. And she was very beautiful, and surely you are asking yourself why I am speaking in past time. My wife and I lived near here, and as a just married couple, we were very… how to say it something impetuous, and we were never satisfied to make love only in one place, so we looked for many alternatives outside the common thing: Plazas, parks, the police station, parking spaces, public baths, etc. Until a day we realized that your house was left and we decided to get in. Humberto did not let be astonished but he would prefer to listen to the story as it was a very normal conversation.

Excuse me, but you said to get into my house? Yes, the stranger answered with energy, there is a window near the kitchen that was not sealed, we got in by the open window and sometimes we remained until the next day. We used to bring food like a day in the country, was very amused. Until she started to feel ill.

When Humberto opened his eyes saw his wife thrown in the floor and mutilated, her arm and leg were the food of two cats of a great size. Humberto shouted as hard as he could and not only that he shouted but he wanted to standing up himself, and it was then when he realized that his feet were next to him being devoured by a giant white cat. Humberto did not feel any physical pain, he only shouted and his shouts were like those of a dog that howls when she does not find to her puppies after looking for food. The cats were scared and fled leaving to the couple sunk in their

Description of a face

The first thing that comes to my mind is her spot of meat laid down there in her left cheek, or was on the right side? , a quiet spot, does not bother her, nor either to whom see it. It is not inert but it has a calm personality, not so her turned-up nose, perfect, which I always envied it, but she does not like it because she says it has big hollows, and I would like to measure it with my fingers to verify its absurd size.

Her wide mouth, which surely was one of her greater attractiveness, it needs the delineated “heart” in the superior part, it is like a half oval that stretches itself when she drops an outburst of laughter. Her mouth did not lose the pink tone as she always feared because of the constant use of the lipstick, every time more and more.

She has one of the frontal teeth a little broken, I always noticed it, and nevertheless I never asked her what was what happened there, it is not one of those important defects, but it is one of those details that I watched without asking.

And her eyes… the thing with which she has seen to pass the world during 58 years, are bipolar amber color: with tears they become sad emerald, with intense light they are black gypsy, with good news they are illusion yellow; they are big of nature although she does not believe it and try to force their size with intense black delineated lines in the inferior eyelid and brown shades until almost arriving at the eyebrows, those weak lines that because of a long ago error happened to pass through the Gillette and never again recovered their genetic thickness.

Her glasses are part of her face, she always wears them, and they rest in her chest when she remains slept reading, they dim themselves while they wait until she leaves the shower, they request to be rescued when one, two, three and more times have been forgotten in the taxi, yes, she has at least two pairs, just in case.

Something I always envied of her is her front, is common to envy the forehead? I do not know, perhaps for someone like me, whose front measures with luck three fingers, yes maybe, (paternal inheritance) and it is not that I have a limited intelligence because of the small forehead, but I always needed space to have a decent fringe, to use the hair in several forms, borders to the right, to the left, topknot, tuft that cover the face a little … I am confined myself to the line up in the middle of my head or to throw the hair back in a useless tail. However her front is like a yard with enough space to play.

Wrinkles and crow’s feet are not her problem. Her face has not been wrinkled easily, perhaps her neck a little, but does not bother her, like any other women who with excess of foundation and neckerchiefs tied towards a side, try to hide his mature years. Her oval form of face has given her tenderness in her features, when smiling, her cheeks are sweet apples.

Martu and his brothers

Daniel Goldberg is the photographer of the picture above.

In a beautiful and ancestral town, once upon a time three sawhorses brothers who, almost ever, were route companions. They shared themselves the same owner, mother and food, as well as the interminable hours of long walk, very few hours of dream, and, in general, a life of deprivations and pains, seemed to the one of so many other little animals that inhabited the Planet.

Martu was the son of Nora and Facu, nephew of Nacha and grandson of Gusta. He was a boy so prankish that all the afternoons he felt the necessity to change, becoming a hyperactive player of long arc. In the afternoons, when he went to school, and the nights he returned to adopt his normal shape; he was again a boy of 8 years and 4 months, with no brothers, but many mascots of short and long life.

His pleasure to be called Martu ended when he was 6 years and 2 months old. At that time he would prefer to be called just Eltinao. And, although nobody took him seriously, and not matter the tantrums he did it, the family and friends of the school called him “Martu”; his real name, Martin, surely someday would use it.

It was typical of him to play with foods, to mix tuco with the earth of the garden and even to make a consistent and homogenous sauce; he also filled up the pies with insects, or he inflated them with wind. Sometimes, Martu got tired to play around with his sawhorses.

But they, the sawhorses, did not want to be the children toy. Their fatigue was such that they loved their resting hours. In that way was understood by the older brother, the leader of the three. Sometimes he put his big eyes on his small brothers and full of sadness its eyes look at a distance, on the horizon.

The brothers liked to take a walk around the town, free, but not urged on. No one of them took the advantage, no one remained back. They loved walking to their own compass, and also feeling the children caresses, the ones who saw them walk.

And it happened in a springtime afternoon, when Martu took them to walk around. Facu had told him in the morning, that before removing them to warned him to go with them. But the boy took advantage of the schedule nap of his father and went to see the sawhorses. He found them in their stay, brooding very slowly, and without doing much. Martu carried them towards the little path of stones that happened to pass through the town.

The four walked like brothers in a dominical stroll. Martu sang or hum to them in the ears. The three little sawhorses reacted with gestures of internal affability. They crossed the small stream that ran behind of the priest Jijón’s house. That house always seemed with a “kept” aspect to Eltinao, perhaps because it was one of the oldest of the town, with a giant wood door, to which only an adult could touch it.

They walked more of half an hour, until finally Martu found his objective: the house of his friend Pepe, which had ceilings of sun-dried clay bricks and cement covered with painting of very alive and attractive colors. The house was supplied with a small shop taken care by his parents. They were very good friends of Facu and Nora. Unfortunately, just that afternoon they went shopping, asking their son to take care of the small shop. Very responsible Pepe knew all the prices and places destined in the bookcase for each product.

Martu arrived when Pepe was alone in the small shop. The afternoon was calm, very calm, ancestral and humid, a precise afternoon to play. Perhaps for that reason Pepe forgot the order of his parents and he went away to play in the internal little yard. On the other hand, Martu aloud ordered to his sawhorses “remain here. I am not going to delay”. The sad young donkeys did not have more to do. They remained in the entrance of the small shop.

The minutes spent slow. The three little brothers had to be there without moving, feeding the anxiety little by little. By all single side the shouts of the children who played the ball were listened to. Meanwhile, the afternoon sun ignited and the shade of the small shop entrance changed places, reducing itself more and more. Then, the older ass, the one than always decided for the three, thought about leaving, and with a glance ordered his brothers also to start departing.

But the two small ones did not move, and they did not perturb either when the older one began to walk. Perhaps he looked for a little water, or perhaps to run away. That site was incorrectly chosen by Martu to wait. The older ass realized that the smallest ones were not going to follow him. He stopped his walk and he backed down, the minors had developed more their fidelity…

Note: I give the animals personal pronouns, because of my love and respect for them.

Reflections of the happened and without happening days

This short tale was selected with a "Special Mention" in a web contest based on writing something inspired on the picture above.


http://www.treintatrios.com.ar/fotox.php?ph=04

My head is part of the heritage you will leave, I take part in your life, I locate myself in your visits area, I am not moving, they take me, clean me, admire me.

To touch me cause delirium and fear, to touch happened in past lives, I miss a grave, I miss a shovel, I want to enjoy the hardship, I want to feed the hungry worms, I like the evening breeze coming through the window, nothing else.

I am useful for your sporadic thoughts, your smoke and I shape a single thought that tells you what is wrong in your life, and then you run away, closing the only opportunity I have to escape, but what am I saying?, I don’t have the body that would have served me to do it, I don’t have the desire to plan it, nor encourage the rest of unwilling faces who are with me and hesitate to talk.

The leader to my life I am not, nor either Adam's ribs, those that served as food centuries ago, or were just a few years?

I pretend to be dead to survive this immense punishment of seeing a Monair’s inert retort accompanied by your two Ikea lamps which do not match with that leather sofas nor with the spinal cord of that happened tree.

Wanted

Wanted: Many years of experience (Maximum age: 30 years)
Wanted: title (s) degree (s) / Master in any specialty
Wanted: personal and professional references
Wanted: ability to work extended hours
Wanted: honesty and honor
Wanted: excellent presence
Wanted: cordiality in the treatment of upper (Staff and plant)

Priority:

That has good health
Not married
Without dependents
To live near the Company
Bilingual or trilingual
That has a vehicle

The company offers:
Minimum remuneration
Unpaid overtime
Contract no longer of six months
Social work after six months
Three-month test
Growth opportunity in change management
Overall stability in office and all contract payments

Interviews on Monday, 7 am, come in fasting for occupational examination (if hired).

Advertising Ideas 2

A video made by two photos and an observation. Was for the London Film Festival 2009, shortlist.

Advertising Ideas 1

This is a video for an Advertising Contest. Tribeca Film Festival 2010. Shortlist.

The Yard

The following story was made during a weekend workshop in Buenos Aires, 2008. Slogan: To make a child-tale based on values, within a lapse of 4 hours and non longer to 8 lines.

Suddenly, there were too many children in the yard of the greatest building of the city, none of them were known in spite of living in the same place.

It was one of those afternoons like any other one, full of light and traffic, those of everyday. The children did not know how to interact among themselves. But John, the foreman’s son (kept at a distance of the cyber world), lonely, or maybe ignored, was the one who invited them to play, as he did it every single day.

And after many hours, and although the electricity returned they continued sharing that afternoon, the first of many more.