Big Fish (2003)

Albert Finney: Ed Bloom (senior)

Photos 

Quotes 

• Senior Ed Bloom : They say when you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that's true. What they don't tell you is that when it starts again, it moves extra fast to catch up.

• Senior Ed Bloom : There's a time when a man needs to fight, and a time when he needs to accept that his destiny is lost... the ship has sailed and only a fool would continue. Truth is... I've always been a fool.

• Senior Ed Bloom : Sometimes, the only way to catch an uncatchable woman is to offer her a wedding ring.

• Senior Ed Bloom : I don't know if you're aware of this, Josephine, but African parrots, in their native home of the Congo, they speak only French.

  Josephine : Really?

  Senior Ed Bloom : You're lucky to get four words out of them in English, but if you were to walk through the jungle, you'd hear them speaking the most elaborate French. Those parrots talk about everything. Politics, movies, fashion. Everything but religion.

  Will Bloom : Why not religion, Dad?

  Senior Ed Bloom : It's rude to talk about religion. You never know who you're gonna offend.

  Will Bloom : Josephine actually went to the Congo last year.

  Senior Ed Bloom : Oh, so you know.

• Senior Ed Bloom : Most men, they'll tell you a story straight through. It won't be complicated, but it won't be interesting either.

• Senior Ed Bloom : I've been nothin' but myself since the day I was born, and if you can't see that it's your failin', not mine.

• Senior Ed Bloom : People needn't worry so much. It's not my time yet. This is not how I go.

  Will Bloom : Really?

  Senior Ed Bloom : Truly. I saw it in the eye.

  Will Bloom : The old lady by the swamp?

  Senior Ed Bloom : She was a *witch*.

  Will Bloom : No, she was old and probably senile.

  Senior Ed Bloom : I saw my death in that eye, and this isn't how it happens.

  Will Bloom : So how does it happen?

  Senior Ed Bloom : Surprise ending. Wouldn't want to ruin it for you.

• Josephine : Hi. How are you feeling?

  Senior Ed Bloom : Oh, I was dreaming.

  Josephine : What were you dreaming about?

  Senior Ed Bloom : I don't usually remember, unless they're especially portentous. Do you know what that word means?

  [Josephine shakes her head] 

  Senior Ed Bloom : Means when you dream about something that's gonna happen. Like one night, I had a dream where this crow came and said, "Your aunt is gonna die." I was so scared I woke up my parents, but they said it was just a dream and to get back to bed. But the next morning my Aunt Stacy was dead.

  Josephine : That's terrible.

  Senior Ed Bloom : Terrible for her, but think about me, young boy with that kind of power. Wasn't three weeks later when the crow came back to me in a dream and said, "Your daddy's gonna die." I didn't know what to do. I finally told my father, but he said, "Oh, not to worry," but I could see he was rattled. The next morning, he wasn't himself. Kept looking around, waiting for something to drop on his head. Because the crow didn't say how it was gonna happen, just those words: "Your daddy's gonna die." Well, he left home early and was gone a long time. When he finally came back, he looked terrible, like he was waiting for the ax to fall all day. He said to my mother, "I've just had the worst day of my life." "You think you've had a bad day," she said. "This morning, the milkman just dropped dead on the porch." Because see, my mother was banging the milkman.

• Senior Ed Bloom : You are in for a surprise.

  Will Bloom : Am I?

  Senior Ed Bloom : Havin' a kid changes everything. There's burping, the midnight feeding, and the changing.

  Will Bloom : You do any of that?

  Senior Ed Bloom : No. But I hear it's terrible. Then you spend years trying to corrupt and mislead this child, fill his head with nonsense, and still it turns out perfectly fine.

  Will Bloom : You think I'm up for it?

  Senior Ed Bloom : You learned from the best.

• Josephine : I'd like to take your picture.

  Senior Ed Bloom : Oh, you don't need a picture. Just look up "handsome" in the dictionary.

• Will Bloom : Unbelievable.

  Senior Ed Bloom : The story of my life.

• Senior Ed Bloom : It's rude to talk about religion, you never know who you're gonna offend.

• Will Bloom : You know about icebergs, dad?

  Senior Ed Bloom : Do I? I saw an iceberg once. They were hauling it down to Texas for drinking water. They didn't count on there being an elephant frozen inside. The wooly kind. A mammoth.

  Will Bloom : Dad!

  Senior Ed Bloom : What?

  Will Bloom : I'm trying to make a metaphor here.

  Senior Ed Bloom : Well you shouldn't have started with a question, because most people want to answer questions. You should've started with "the thing about icebergs is."

• Senior Ed Bloom : What do you want, Will? Who do you want me to be?

  Will Bloom : Just yourself. Good, bad, everything. Just show me who you are for once.

• Senior Ed Bloom : I was drying out.

• Senior Ed Bloom : I've told you a thousand facts, Will, that's what I do. I tell stories.

  Will Bloom : You tell lies, Dad.

• Senior Ed Bloom : Will never told ya?

  [Josephine shakes her head] 

  Senior Ed Bloom : Aw, probably just as well. He would have told it wrong, anyway. All the facts, none of the flavor.

  Josephine : Oh, so this is a tall tale?

  Senior Ed Bloom : Well, it's not a short one.

• Senior Ed Bloom : [to Will]  Your mother was never supposed to marry me. She was engaged to somebody else.

• Senior Ed Bloom : I caught an uncatchable fish.

• Senior Ed Bloom : And that's my life story.

• Senior Ed Bloom : Tell me how it happens.

  Will Bloom : How what happens?

  Senior Ed Bloom : How I go.

  Will Bloom : You mean what you saw in the Eye? I dunno that story, Dad, you never told it to me.

• Senior Ed Bloom : Truth is, I've always been thirsty.

• Senior Ed Bloom : A man sees things differently at different times in his life. This town didn't seem the same now that he was older. A new road had brought the outside world to Spectre, and with it, banks, liens and debt. Almost everywhere you looked, people were bankrupt.

• Senior Ed Bloom : [narrating over his younger self having just been told Sandra is engaged]  Fate has a cruel way of circling around on you. After all this work to leave Ashton the girl I love was now engaged to one of its biggest jerks. There's a time when a man needs to fight and a time when he needs to accept that his destiny's lost; the ship has sailed, and that only a fool will continue. Truth is, I've always been a fool.

• Senior Ed Bloom : I was never much for being at home, Will. It's too confining. And this, here - being stuck in bed. Dying is the worst thing that ever happened to me.