Zack Olander - Mythic Truth in Big Fish

 The film Big Fish is about a man who has led an incredible life and has a knack for telling exciting stories about it. His character blends realistic and fantastical elements in his stories, and later on in the movie it is revealed that the fantastical elements are actually more real than it initially seemed. This brings up the theme of truth and meaning within storytelling.

But this blog post isn't going to be about that. Instead it's about how the movie proves its own point.

In the movie, the main character's son finds out that his father was in fact not lying about his life the whole time when a motley crew of fantastical people show up to his funeral including a witch, a werewolf, and a giant, with the point being that there is truth in stories. Obviously, in real life, there are no real werewolves or giants, but this point still stands. Even without objectively true points, the stories that we tell still have truth to them, which is what gives them their meaning. 

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