Big Fish is a 2003 American fantasy drama film based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Daniel Wallace. The film was directed by Tim Burton and stars Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange, and Marion Cotillard. Other roles are performed by Helena Bonham Carter, Matthew McGrory, and Danny DeVito among others. Finney plays Edward Bloom, a former traveling salesman from the Southern United States with a gift for storytelling, now confined to his deathbed. Bloom's estranged son, a journalist played by Crudup, attempts to mend their relationship as his dying father relates tall tales of his eventful life as a young adult during which scenes he is played by Ewan McGregor.
Screenwriter John August read a manuscript of the novel six months before it was published and convinced Columbia Pictures to acquire the rights. August began adapting the novel while producers negotiated with Steven Spielberg who planned to direct after finishing Minority Report (2002). Spielberg considered Jack Nicholson for the role of Edward Bloom, but eventually dropped the project to focus on Catch Me If You Can (2002). Tim Burton and Richard D. Zanuck took over after completing Planet of the Apes (2001) and brought Ewan McGregor and Albert Finney on board.
Big Fish was a Swedish experimental rock music group with influences from industrial music, punk, jazz, blues, metal and folk music, adding up to a unique sound.
One of their songs, "Den Blinde Rasisten" (eng. "The Blind Racist"), is based on a poem by Hans Alfredsson. "Den Blinde Rasisten" gained a lot of popularity for its lyrics, which tell the story of a blind boy who grows up to be a racist. He then undergoes a surgical procedure that restores his sight. A glance in the mirror and the man falls dead of a heart attack. The glance had taught him that "he himself was a nigger".
Big Fish: Music from the Motion Picture is the soundtrack, on the Sony Classical label, of the 2003 film Big Fish. The original score and songs were composed by Danny Elfman.
The album was nominated for the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score.
Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions is a 1998 novel by Daniel Wallace. It was adapted into a film, Big Fish, in 2003 by Tim Burton. A musical adaptation starring Norbert Leo Butz premiered in Chicago in April 2013.
A young man (William Bloom), at the deathbed of his father (Edward Bloom), tries to reconcile his memories of his dad with who he really is. Whereas he always saw his father as an irresponsible liar, he comes to understand his dad's exaggerations and their roots in reality
The book is written in a chronological (although they may not appear so at first) series of tall tales. Despite the novel's first-person narration, there is no present tense part of the book. The various stories are Will's retelling of tales that Edward has told about his life. The 'My Father's Death Take' chapters are William planning out his final conversation with his father in his head and how it will go, so that when the actual conversation takes place, he will be able to get to bottom of the truth and of truly understanding his father.
I count and enter them by ones and twos and threes.
Their faces gone, their seams unseen.
Standing in lines of six, walking two by two,
I watch them tick the math work hits
The red line slowly thins, the red streams are dead
ends
Yet they reach for their guns to their suns
Eyes rolling back into, the haze of black and blues
Colors are at default of that.
Voices screeching loud. all echoes stop.
It’s now the time to look beyond
The red line slowly thins, the red streams are dead
ends
The rain makes
The red line slowly thins, the red streams are dead
ends
They ask me why does the sun rise quick,
Does the darkness still shine the light above
To the earth below?
I need to go, need to go below, need to go
It’s catching on again, the night of day to rain.
Today will break what others made
Against the walls they stand, lifting their hands as
one.
All quakes that shake, all others fate
The red line slowly thins, the red streams are dead
ends
The rain makes
The red line slowly thins, the red streams are dead
ends
They ask me why does the sun rise quick,
Does the darkness still shine the light above
To the earth below?
I need to go, need to go below, need to go.