Big Fish: A Comparison Between Film and Book

Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions is a book written by Daniel Wallace in 1998. It is probably better known for being adapted into the 2003 Tim Burton film Big Fish starring Ewan McGregor and Albert Finney. The film received four Golden Globe nominations, one Academy Award nomination (for the score), and got mostly positive reviews from critics. The novel, though almost certainly less popular than the film, is every bit as touching and interesting as the movie.

The story revolves around William Bloom trying to determine what is and what is not true about his father Edward Bloom’s life. His father is on the verge of dying and he goes to visit with him before his death, though their relationship has suffered because Edward has always told fantastical stories about his life experiences and has not really ever taken much seriously. William is afraid that his father will die before he ever learns the truth about what his life was really like. He is frustrated with all the tall tales, jokes, and general untruths. He wants to know what his father’s life was really like – boring or not. In the book and in the film we get to experience both Edward’s life as told by none other than Edward himself, and William’s search for the truth about his father’s life.

Daniel Wallace’s book is very short and is written like a series of vignettes. All the vignettes are, of course, tied together chronologically to create Edward Bloom’s life. Tim Burton’s film runs much the same way the book does. It goes back and forth between William talking about his father and the (very) semi-autobiographical story from Edward’s point of view.

In Big Fish (the film), Edward’s life often seems to have an illuminated sort of look, as though all the scenes were filmed with a soft glow over everything. If you read the book, the words seem to have that very same tone. In this respect I think the film was nearly perfect in interpreting the book. Edward’s life translates to film much like a fairy tale, because Edward’s life reads very much like one.

There is not much difference between the stories told in the book and the stories portrayed in the film. Wallace’s book featured slightly different stories – for example Karl the giant was a less important character, perhaps, than he was made in the film Big Fish. Note that there are definitely differences between Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions and Big Fish: the film.

These differences, however, seem to pale when you realize how the tone of the movie so perfectly aligns with that of the book, and how well the stories match up even though they are not exactly the same. Essentially they are both the same story and produce the same reaction from the audience, which is a lot of what matters. Whether or not the stories are perfectly the same, they still match up in many ways and the things that matter are preserved well.

The characters are portrayed fairly accurately (it does help that the novel was not heavy on physical descriptions, but more on the story) – Ewan McGregor plays a wonderful young Edward Bloom, Albert Finney shines as the aged Edward Bloom on the verge of dying. Billy Crudup plays William Bloom accurately, and Jessica Lange is very believable as Edward Bloom’s wife. Their Southern United States accents lend a hand to the story and make it seem both more authentic and more like a fairy tale. The authenticity stems from the fact that a film taking place in Alabama but lacking any Southern accents would be very unrealistic. The fairy tale factor is due to the musicality of most of the accents in the film. Overall, the actors all did an incredible job and lent as much to the magic of Big Fish as any of the special effects or sets.

The score of Big Fish, done by longtime Burton colleague Danny Elfman, is impressive, especially juxtaposed with the film. Elfman’s music tends to have an ethereal quality and it is matched quite well with the similar vibe to the film. The non instrumental songs included in the film were also very effective in interpreting the book’s general style and feeling.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, the film retains the melancholy feeling that dangles between the words of Daniel Wallace’s novel. Though the film has an incredibly bright feeling, as do many of the tall tales in the book, the overall feeling is one of sadness as it all culminates to one thing – Edward is dying and William wishes to know him for who he truly is and was. But all at once, Edward is the stories he has told. Whether they are true or not is immaterial – the stories Edward tells are everything he wanted his life to be, so they capture his essence perfectly. It is a horribly sad (but uniquely so, I might add) story both in print and in film, and both mediums hold that sadness quite well.