SUBMITTED BY Timbo

January 7, 2004 — Tim Burton drew on personal experience to inform his direction of "Big Fish", opening wide across North America this week.

The deaths of his parents led him toward a more heartfelt exploration of mortality and a warmer picture of life in his latest movie, about a tall-tale teller whose son learns to appreciate his dying father's fantasies.

"They were good people, but I wasn't particularly close," Burton said of his own parents. "But it doesn't matter whether you're close or not. When your parent dies you could be completely distant from them and it would still have a powerful impact on you."

Burton's father, Bill, died in 2000 while the director was working on his remake of "Planet of the Apes" and his mother, Jean, in 2002. He said he never fit into their Burbank household and had a remote relationship with them his whole life.

The filmmaker said the theme of child-parent reconciliation in "Big Fish" fed his interest in the story, especially since it never really happened for him in real life.

"It was not something that was easy for me to talk about with anybody," he said. "But this script was a great way to present that feeling without having to talk about it."

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