This past Friday, I watched the movie Big Fish for the first time, with Jason. I suppose I owe Han a good bit of thanks, for letting me house-sit for him, for having a great DVD collection, and especially for introducing me to Jason.
Big Fish, a film by Tim Burton
Big Fish is a myth about myths. In fact, it’s adapted from a book, Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions, published in 1998 by Daniel Wallace. The film came not much later, 2003, produced by Tim Burton, with varying though marginally positive critical opinion. Metacritic passes along a mere 57, an underwhelming score on their terms.
Wikipedia suggests (without citation) that the novel “draws a few elements from the epic poem The Odyssey, James Joyce’s Ulysses, and American tall tales.” This strikes me as a bit of an understatement. I sadly have not yet read Ulysses, though it continues to climb to the top of my roster of future reads, so I can’t account for that. Certainly it bears resemblance to Homer’s Odyssey, though perhaps less clearly than O Brother, Where Art Thou. As for tall tales, Carl’s appearance strikes me in the vein of Paul Bunyan, while other elements do have the feel of a certain vague Americana. Beyond that, I think the movie, and presumably the novel, also draws inspiration from Bible stories, Canterbury Tales, and The Phantom Tollbooth.
But all this analysis without any explanation of my sudden interest. As I’ve already alluded to, I have a certain fascination and burgeoning curiosity for myths. I am also keenly aware of myths that make self-referential commentary, which I seem to be coming across more and more of these days. That trend towards metamyths is a topic I’ll be bringing up now and again on the blog.
But Big Fish makes an even more assertive claim than the typical myth about myth. The main character seems to believe that in telling these stories about himself, that he’s actually shaping the reality in which he lives, and that in some sense he never really dies. Just last week I was talking about Wanda Maximoff, and here I am again talking about a somewhat crazy character shaping the world through story.
And so not to belabor the idea, and pass the speculation along to the rest of you, I wonder: are we all somewhat crazy characters? Do we shape the world around us by the stor(ies) we tell?
