The fantasy movies are the most adorable ways to appeal to human imagination. People at different ages enjoy watching their favourite tales that are full of colourful images, uncommon characters, breathtaking adventures. However, the fantasy movies are created not only to entertain. Their mission is to bring meaning to our daily life. The adventures that are accurately ingrained in reality in the movies like The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Big Fish also teach the audience how to be courageous, ambitious, and sincere in order to make the life more meaningful. Sometimes the background of the fantasy movies could become also a tale, but what is vital is the ability to grasp the story and its message to eventually see the similarity between The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Big Fish.
Background
When The Adventures of Baron Munchausen first hit the screen in 1988, it did not actually fail but its spread among the audience was hindered by many factors which also turned into the legends in the same way as the stories depicted in the film. Terry Gilliam, the director of the film, was doomed to overcome various financial issues and logical patterns of the real world in order to produce the picture filled with wonder (Egget). Despite all the problems faced during the production and its further limited distribution, the final result appears to be free of the flaws from the real world. Furthermore, it is still regarded as one of the greatest fantasy movies ever produced. In the movie, we are able to see how reality smoothly collides with the power of imagination. As everyone probably knows, the story of the film is based on the tall tales about the real German nobleman who lived in the 18th century. We could hardly deny the fact that Terry Gilliam has created a highly appealing image of beloved Baron Munchausen who challenges his audience with unbelievable adventures. Even though, some parts of these adventures with little girl Sally were cut out from the original film. However, in the cooperation with a co-writer, Charles McKeown, Gilliam managed to pull the picture back from the brink of total oblivion supporting it with vivid details and unnoticed flashbacks from various Munchausen’s narrations. One of the great strength of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen’s accurate perception is also a wise choice of actors who starred in this film. John Neville became a protagonist of the film together with his little companion, Sarah Polley. While watching The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, the audience perceive a beautiful performance of Eric Idle, Jonathan Pryce, Uma Thurman, Oliver Reed, and many other talented actors. Besides, it was decided to shoot in Italy and Spain where the hot weather and a slow way of living brought new problems. The background which is hidden behind the film might have poisoned the overall image, but, instead, it magnifies the fantasy we are all looking for.
Despite the stereotype that Tim Barton creates only too macabre and gothic movies, Big Fish should not be classified as one. More than just a fantasy, it has become a genuinely light and colourful unity of drama, comedy, biography, and adventure. Being released in 2003, Big Fish has earned the title of fantasy drama film which represents the contrasting elements of reality and fiction in the perspective of ordinary human life. Probably, this combination made the movie so popular among the public. Moreover, it has a special intimate meaning for many people related to the process of production, for instance, the director himself was trying to understand with the help of Big Fish’s narration the life of his own father who died before (Hirschberg). It was one of the reasons why he agreed to work on the movie unlike Steven Spielberg. The story depicted in the film is based on the novel written by Daniel Wallace in 1998. In his book, he portrays the misunderstanding between father’s tall tales about his exceptional life and son’s disbelief in the validity of these tales. Tim Barton as a director of the movie managed to correlate images of fantastic and real in such a way that audience feels totally emerged in the process. There are moments of sadness and humor which symbolizes the truth of life. Tim Barton resembles the main character of the movie who entertains his surrounding with magical myths and becomes one of the myths himself. However, we could not only give praise for the director of the movie as the success of Big Fish depends on the whole crew. The person who created the verbal content of the movie is John August. The final script has become an appealing narration of Edward Bloom’s tall tales. The actors’ play mirrored the characters of the book accurately. Albert Finney, Ewan McGregor share the life of one character in the same way as Jessica Lange and Alison Lohman represents Edward Bloom’s wife. The audience could also enjoy the performance of Billy Crudup, Mario Cotillard, Helena Bonham Carter, and many other excellent actors who decided to bring their spirit into the movie. We are able to see that the production of fantasy movie is a long process which requires devotion and love for fantastic adventures. To my mind, Big Fish will remain the most atmospheric fantasy movie thanks to the successful collaboration of human attempts and fate.
Plot and characters
During the first minutes of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, it is written to the audience that they are going to witness “the age of reason,” specifically the late 18th century when Turkish forces attack an unknown city somewhere in Europe. At the first glance, we are not able to understand how imagination can still live in the city which is constantly bombed by the enemies. It seems that people are screaming and running in the streets only with one intention to save their lives. We could see the first signs of “the age of reason” mentioning that “our food stocks are low, save food by eating less.” No one could contradict this bitter truth, but it does not bring any hope either. However, in a few seconds, the first layer of contrasting reality appears in front of our eyes. We see that people are still willing to have some fun. It is not surprisingly that there are so many of them sitting in an almost damaged theatre which, in fact, has marvelous decorations and gives an opportunity to forget about the outer world for a moment.
Near the laughing public, the reason takes place in the image of the public servant who eliminates everything that demoralizes the citizens, starting with a too courageous soldier. He is also to decide whether the theatre troupe will remain in the city or not after their daring play about Baron Munchausen. Eventually, he gives them one night to get out of the city. His character symbolizes our rational and logic world where everything should be “normal, simple, unexceptional,” and usually in a black suit. He gets irritated by an old man who claims to be genuine Baron Munchausen. It is the first fight between fantasy and reality. With the appearance of Baron Munchausen, we start emerging in a new layer of complex imagination together with the audience in the theatre without even noticing it. We find out the cause of the war. The baron believes that he is the reason of Turks invasion. He leads us to the narration introducing the life of Ottoman. Sultan is one of the heroes that are portrayed as violent and selfish men. They serve as a metaphor to the real world where power, desire, and weapon guard law and order. To the list of reality irritants, we should also add The King of the Moon and Vulcan. However, during the first narration, we also see Munchausen’s servants who obtain exceptional talents to defeat all the enemies. Terry Gilliam highlights that they are not able to use them when they are separated, and Munchausen is not near. The baron is the catalyst for their faith in themselves. Unfortunately, when the first narration is interrupted we see an old man who is tired of the world where science and progress prevail.
The death is chasing him, and he would be happy to follow her. Though, he needs to wait until she will be able to embrace him as the audience experiences a new overlapping fantasy of this notable man thanks to a little girl who wants to know all the adventures. Not only does she bring Munchausen back to his imaginary tales but she also joins him in his adventures on finding the servants. On the Moon, they save Berthold, the fastest man in the world. In the volcano, they meet Albrecht, the strongest man in the world. Finally, in the sea monster’s belly, they find Adolphus, the sharpshooter with a perfect sight, Gustavus, the man who possesses extraordinary hearing and powerful lungs, and Bucephalus, the famous horse. This team is going to beat Turks. Finally, we are able to understand that only people who believe in miracles and fantasies could save the town. Sally has become a pure representation of childish faith in tales. However, she also keeps her connection with the reality as she feels responsible for helping people. The director gives special emphasis on the appearance of Munchausen. We need to admit that he looks younger by “the touch of adventure.” The story of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen provides a diversity of stories which intrigues and fascinates with unique characters.
Big Fish starts with the prominent words, “there are some fish that cannot be caught. They are just touched by something extra.” While watching the movie, we are going to try to understand what ‘something extra’ means. We encounter a man who adores storytelling. He does not tell stories about a stranger who never exists. On the contrary, he tells the stories about himself and his own adventures. His life is accompanied by unusual events and extraordinary people. He himself possesses uncommon ambition and luck. It seems that he likes exaggerating, and everyone enjoys listening to him, everyone but his son, Will. Having listened to father’s stories from the early childhood, he grows tired of fiction because they do not let him understand who the father is in reality. He symbolizes the pragmatic aspect of our life where everything should be based on clear facts. The movie portrays his own struggle whether to accept the fantasy or stick to conventional reality. During his wedding party, he is not able to continue perceiving the flow of father’s imagination and refuses to talk with him. As many other people in the world, Will gets annoyed from the things he is not able to understand and check. After the quarrel during the wedding, father and son have not been talking for three years until Edward Bloom starts feeling worse suffering from cancer. Together with his wife Will comes to parents. It is his last chance to talk with his father and catch his true identity and understand himself because as he mentions he “did not see anything of myself in my father, and he did not see anything of himself in me.” It is high time to find the balance between their contradictory selves. They are trying to resolve the conflict while stories overlap the reality. It resembles the memory path which every person should take again in front of the death. Edward Bloom decides to share his memories with those he loves most in this world for the last time.
With a soft touch of imagination, the audience embarks on the adventure with Edward Bloom. The story recalled by his son invites us to witch’s house where Edward Bloom finds out how he will die. From that point on, he knows that anything else he can survive. As we could see this knowledge gives him an additional courage to try the haunted roads and fight for the love of his life because he accepts the death, but not dying. Not only do we experience his adventures while others recall them but we mostly hear them from Edward Bloom. We learn that he has spent some time in bad before because his body was growing too fast. This parallel might serve as the way to get away from the present pain. Edward continues escaping from the reality. Young Edward Bloom appears to be an enthusiastic person who feels constrained in his hometown, Ashton. He won everything possible in the city. Once Bloom decides to sacrifice himself in order to save the town from the monster Karl who turns to be his friend. They agree to find a bigger city as one of them does not fit in the size of Ashton physically while another does not fit in it mentally. On their way, Edward comes across the town of Spectre where he meets isolated community and refuses to stay with them, even when everything seems to be so balanced there. There is a little girl, Jenny, in the city who falls in love with Edward and will keep her passion during all her life. We could never notice that the main character tries to offend people around him, including Karl and Jenny. Instead, he is always kind and supportive. He keeps saying that he is a fool and unreasonable man but his purity is extremely attractive. Others get hooked almost instantly. We notice how Edward builds his network of special people to whom we could also add the poet laureate from Spectre, the werewolf from the circus, the twins from Japan. He describes them as fantastic people. It irritates Will. However, he starts seeing that they do really exist. It is hard to count how many stories the life of Edward Bloom contains. Everything he was doing in his life is dedicated to love. However, the more he tells, the better we understand that he is waiting for the most important tale to be narrated. He makes all his attempts in order to plant a seed of fantastic reality in the heart of his son. Big Fish is genuinely catching and the pure movie where one could find the story of courage, friendship, understanding, and love.
Message
Even though, some might think that the movie, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, is only created as the representation of the tall tales narrated long ago in Germany, large number of people will agree that the main message of these visualized adventures is to show how it is vital to escape from this materialistic world in order to change it for better. Gilliam looks for inspiration and finds it in the limitless imagination of Baron Munchausen who pleases women, shows real courage in front of the enemies, and feels sad seeing a nuclear missile that can kill thousands of people. He is not an ordinary dreamer. He does care about others a lot, and find it unacceptable when someone lies or spoils the reality of his adventures. Unfortunately, in the end of the story, he is doomed to face death. However, we understand that Munchausen is born and dies every day when he proclaims, “that was only one of occasions when I met Death” because he lives in every person. As a fantasy movie, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen reveals the reality by giving freedom to the power of imagination.
Big Fish is like an imaginary pattern stimulated by the reality. Edward Bloom is a hero who does not want to accept grey and predictable life. He creates the stories which explain his personality. He is a strong man who overcomes all problems on his way in order to find the love of his life and support his family. He managed to turn daily problems and disbelief of others into fantastic adventures that make his life more colourful. Eventually, he becomes immortal thanks to his own stories. The main message of the movie lies in the relationship between Edward Bloom and people that he meets on the path of life. He shows that we should accept others and remain true to ourselves. Only in this way we are able to live magical story from the early beginning till the end. The big fish symbolizes a purpose of our life. It is not surprisingly that for everyone it looks differently. Edward Bloom’s purpose is to make his life full of meaning.
Conclusion
Having worked with The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Big Fish, I have found that the stories depicted in these movies have a lot in common. Owing to the fact that the movies were inspired by written stories, we are able to assume that their influence on human imagination is undeniable. If they were transmitted into visual form, it means that they should be spread among other people as well. The production of both films had its ups and downs. However, they were both released despite all the problems and received positive feedback from the public. Of course, Big Fish was instantly accepted while The Adventures of Baron Munchausen had to prove its value. Eventually, the recognition of the tall tales by Baron Munchausen is supported by time. I am inclined to believe that the directors of the movies did a great job while representing the real life with a touch of imagination. Indeed, the stories of our daily life might spark fantastic tales, especially when they belong to extraordinary individuals with limitless imagination. Both in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and in Big Fish, we encounter men who adore telling the amazing stories about their adventures adding unrealistic facts. I am convinced that these facts are what make the stories so attractive to others. While it is true to say that the majority finds an inspiration in them, there are still those who doubt their credibility. We could see in the movies how the tales should fight with doubt in order to remain in the hearts of others. While Munchausen should not bow to the whole world of reason, Edward Bloom should only find the right strings in the soul of his own son. While they are given a chance to relive their stories before the death, they manage to convince their listeners and show how it is important to bring fantastic meaning to every event in our lives. The imaginarium of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Big Fish teaches us how to catch our own big fish.
Works Cited
Egget, Brian. “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988).” Deep Focus Review. 16 Dec., 2012. Web. 27 Feb., 2016. <http://www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/adventuresofbaronmunchausen.asp>.
Hirschberg, Lynn. “Drawn to Narrative.” The New York Times. 9 Nov., 2003. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/magazine/drawn-to-narrative.html>.
