Big Fish

I watched Tim Burton's Big Fish tonight for my master class assignment.  It was an excellent movie.  The story is one about, well, stories.  It is about the way we all tell our own stories, how our lives come to be narratives for someone else, and how there is always a little bit of adventure and magic behind some of the more mundane parts of life.  This movie is about that magic.  Burton highlights the distinction between the father, a story telling man who lives in his created world of intrigue and fairy tale adventure, and his son, a practical, no-nonsense man bitter with his father's compulsory elaboration.  It is interesting to note the difference in lighting between different segments of the movie, the flashbacks to the father's tales shown in a very surreal, soft, vividly colored light, while the scenes in the 'real world' are of a more muted, normal tone.  In a way, it gives the story scenes an almost heightened realism, giving them a depth and emotional character far greater than the normalcy of the other parts of the film.  This aids in blurring the line between story and real when approaching the question of importance or significance.  It attaches us closer to the stories, but grounds us in the reality, dividing our attention between the conflicting worlds until the reconciliation at the end, the son entering into the bright, fantasy-lighted world and understanding his father.  A somewhat in-between level rounds out the finish of the film, maintaining the brightness, but removing some of the softness, revealing a melding of story and reality, finally compatible, within the son's life.