An article I read from Time International stated,
“Tim Burton, misfit child of Hollywood, has made a movie about incorrigible grownups. What could this mean?
Because he tends to dress like a mortician and has made a fair number of films that romanticize gloom, Tim Burton has emerged as one of those directors who are not just makers of myths but subjects of them too. The most prevalent Burton myth is that he is dark and possibly a little disturbed. In addition to his clothes and movies, there are eerie bits of biography to support this view, like the fact that Burton’s parents blacked out the windows of his childhood bedroom, apparently to save on heating bills. (Burton grew up in Burbank, California–not a notoriously difficult place to heat a home.) The second Burton myth is that his mind is still trapped in the eremitic universe of that darkened bedroom. Evidence includes his lavish re-creations of ’60s pop trifles (Batman, Mars Attacks! and Planet of the Apes) as well as more personal films (Edward Scissor-hands, Ed Wood) that center on misunderstood emotional savants with a likeness to a certain director.”
(Tyrangiel, 2004)
Big Fish is a movie that you can watch and never know that Tim Burton directed it. Yes, after realizing the fact, you may think to yourself, “Wow! That makes a whole lot of sense!” You may make the reference of the odd moments of the film and relate them to the ideal Burton movie, but you also may not. There is something about Big Fish that is intriguing and interesting. After watching this movie, I had no idea that Tim Burton had directed it. I was much younger than I am now, and I wasn’t too interested on the Directors of movies at the time. But now, I really enjoy the fact that Tim Burton directed it. As I start to become an adult, I find myself connecting with Tim Burton movies due to the meaning that comes from within the films. I do not only find interest in the cinematography and editing of the films, but in the implicit meaning as well. I think this film, Big Fish, is a film that quite possibly had more of a personal meaning to Burton than anything else.
In an Entertainment Weekly article that I read titled, “Tim Burton’s BIG Adventure,” I found interesting information regarding the movie. It explains a little bit on why the movie is not the typical “Burtonian” film that you would normally see. It also explains a bit on why Burton chose to do this movie in the first place. This article was written and published in 2003, so keep that in mind when you are reading and thinking about the years being referenced. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
“Columbia Pictures spent at least $75 million making Burton’s rendition of Daniel Wallace’s slender novel, and for a drama without built-in marketing hooks, that’s a risky sum. While it showcases a notable cast–Ewan McGregor (as the Finney character’s younger, imagined self), Jessica Lange, Alison Lohman, and Helena Bonham Carter (Burton’s girlfriend of two years and now the mother of his 2-month-old son)–none of the actors are exactly marquee draws. A potentially bigger hurdle: Big Fish isn’t typically Burtonian. It hasn’t got the obvious teenage appeal of such loner-brooder fantasies as Pee-wee’s Big Adventure or Edward Scissorhands, or the familiar mythology of the first two Batman films or Sleepy Hollow or Planet of the Apes (which grossed $360 million worldwide despite gripes about the ending). “Part of the reason I did it,” says, Burton, who’s 45, “is because it’s not something to put into a quick category.” But Big Fish is also partly an act of therapy. Burton’s father, Bill, died in 2000, while Burton was scouting locations for Apes. His mother, Rickie, passed away last year. Although he wasn’t close to them–as an adolescent, he left their suburban house in Burbank (where he was raised with a younger brother) to move in with a grandmother–their passing shattered him anyway. “You cannot prepare yourself for it,” he says. “It’s heavy-duty. It’s hard to sort out. It’s hard even with a therapist to put into words.” Then along came words and images that spoke to Burton’s pain. When screenwriter John August (Charlie’s Angels, Go) and producers Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen (American Beauty) approached Burton about making Big Fish, he quickly said yes. The script barely changed from green light to final cut. “It’s stuff that’s real,” says Burton of the dying-father story line, but very difficult to talk about. That’s what I loved about the movie. It was a way of exploring that. Otherwise, those feelings would’ve just kept swirling around.”
(Daly, 2003)
Finally, the Time International article put it best. In this ending, Burton discusses his need for connection in movies, and he discusses his family and how he grew up. This ending is very interesting to me because it makes it easier to think of Burton directing this film after reading this last part that I have for you. When I read this, I was able to picture Tim Burton connecting to Big Fish through his own troubled and bizarre childhood. Big Fish can be summed up as troubled and bizarre, most definitely. And it has been nice to make that connection through doing research for this blog post! Ok. Here is the part of the article that I was just talking about:
“Burton needs movies not just as an excuse to get up in the morning but also as a means of exchange between himself and the real world. “Half the things I’ve ever worked on are these big behemoths where there’s a release date before there’s a script” he says, but the other half are abstract attempts at autobiography. “I’m amazed at people like Robert Wise [The Sound of Music, The Andromeda Strain] who can go from genre to genre, and every movie seems different” he says. “I never felt that I could do that. I need some sort of connection. The doing of it–making a movie–is a cathartic experience, so there’s got to be …A wound? Burton would prefer that no one confuse the art with the artist, but he makes it tough. Many of his earlier films are responses to growing up in a family that couldn’t express itself. His father, a parks employee, and his mother, who ran a gift shop, rarely touched their two children, says Burton, and at age 10, he left his family and moved in with his grandmother. He never fully reconciled with his father before the elder Burton’s death in 2000, which could be why he was driven to direct Big Fish. “My father died, and my mother was ill, so I read the script” he says, “and I feel like it captured a thing that was always quite difficult for me to put into words. That relationship, it just, you try to talk about it, and it doesn’t, it didn’t … Well, you can never really talk about it. You know, these issues are just in you. So I thought I’d just show it.”
Burton may live in his own space, but it is not juvenile, and it is not sealed. While he refuses to attend industry events like the Oscars–“It’s a popularity contest, and based on my growing-up experiences in school, I lost”–he loves having movie people around him. “I enjoyed working with animation a little” he says. “But I love actors and sets and all of that. It’s just more fun. No matter what you’re doing, you stand back, and it’s like there are all these people standing around in funny clothes looking at you and … Maybe I seem to them like the most foul-tempered, sealed-off zombie creature, but I get such incredible joy. It’s like a wonderful, absurd dream.” Just real.”
(Tyrangiel, 2004)
Work Cited:
Daly, S. (2003). Tim Burton’s BIG Adventure. Entertainment Weekly, (741), 44.
Tyrangiel, J. (2004). BIG FISH IN HIS OWN POND. Time International (South Pacific Edition), (4), 54-56.
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