“Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.” This homily has been attributed to any number of writers, thinkers, and folk heroes. One need only look so far as that one relative who is always making a scene at parties to see it in practice. The struggle is when that person is one that you love and the story is about you. While at my father’s wedding reception he spoke with a young man about an experience, within earshot of me, that he purported that I had had as a missionary in Peru. He stated that at one point after arriving in a small hamlet the campesinos came in and helped themselves to my clothes and supplies, leaving me with nothing. The young man was aghast. He could hardly believe his ears and yet here was my father and here was I. There was one problem: it never happened. Not to me. Not to anyone I knew. Nor had I ever heard that story until my father told it. This, however, is the truth. My experience was hard. The people were poor. And I felt sorry for them. That’s it. So in that sense, the story was “true” albeit not factual.
Stories of this type exist as part of the mythology of our culture. Within the LDS and more specifically LDS BYU culture myths exist that are true though perhaps not factual. For example, Steve Martin the actor is not nor ever has been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Yet the story persists. It has become elaborate in its details. He was seen on Jay Leno wearing a CTR ring. A friend of mine claimed to have seen him talk about his conversion on David Letterman. My own brother claimed to have had a companion whose brother baptized him. None of these claims are factual, but they support a common belief. They indicate that the gospel is a powerful force and can change the life of anyone, even a dirty old sinner like Steve Martin. Stories of this type can start with a grain of fact. It is entirely possible that a man in California by the name of Steve Martin was baptized in the early 90’s. But the story assumes more details to support the truth it claims. Gradually, the story becomes more epic and the characters are transported from real life to the mythic world of heroes. The myth is still true (The gospel can change anyone.) Though now the facts have been replaced with the shinier model, poetry. This is not unlike the Tragedy of the past. The Trojan war was real. The truth is that war is hell and women suffer. Though the events of Euripides Trojan Women likely did not happen, it is true to the ideas that it presents. Or while it is likely that Henry in Shakespeare’s Henry V never said “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers! For he who sheds his blood with me this day shall be my brother.”, what is true is that war equalizes us all as we face that same specter, death. Tragedy or the epic poem or even a story about a man running from God and being eaten by a fish are repositories of truth, though the trappings may be fantastical. In fact, that’s the whole point.
Sir Phillip Sydney in his Defense of Poesy speaks of the delight of poetry. Poetry’s ability to take noble ideas of truth and God and encase them in the beauty of metaphor, is what brings this delight. Delight, though pleasurable, can also be ennobling and beatifying. This is why poetry in this broad sense is also the language of the gospel. One can be delighted in the beauty of the metaphor of the 23rd Psalm and enlightened by the truth it contains. Truth and poetry go hand in hand, while facts do not.
In Tim Burton’s Big Fish, Edward Bloom is a man of stories. He tells stories of varying degrees of factuality, but all contain truth. As Ed Bloom speaks with Josephine of his dream of the crow, the camera pulls close to his face. The music becomes foreboding. And Josephine is enthralled. In the end, it’s just a joke. She laughs, delighted with him. The story has little to no bearing in fact, but the truth of the darkness of the adult world is still present and the characters and audience can delight in the intersection of the craft of two storytellers (Ed Bloom and Tim Burton) with that truth. This is the crux of the argument of the film. That these poetic stories are more important than the facts. Real life has incidents that do not matter to truth. Poetry carefully crafts the formalistic element to express that truth, regardless of the facts. As Edward says to Will regarding his (Will’s) writing “It has all of the facts and none of the flavor.”
This is evident in the visual text of the film as well. Burton chooses to intensify and broaden the color palate in the visualization of Edward’s stories. Everything is bigger, brighter, more grotesque, and more beautiful than real life. The acting is more gregarious. All the shots are more “perfect” than those in the real world. Case in point, as Edward tells of giving the Daffodils to Sandra, we see warm light on her face as she awakes. She walks to the window and camera hangs over her shoulder and she draws back the curtain and we see a field of pure yellow with Edward standing on the right third. This image would be virtually impossible to replicate in real life, yet we revel in it’s beauty. And it expresses the truth: that Edward Bloom loved her enough to do anything for her, and that Tim Burton believes that these stories matter.
The delight of Poetry comes from its ability to wrap the truth in beauty. In doing so it is more palatable and memorable. We will more readily accept truth in the delightful dressing of poetic text, visual or verbal. Perhaps this is why the myths of our LDS culture endure. We delight the perfect coincidences and LDS specific language. We are enlightened by the truth and entertained by flavor. The facts matter not when a good story draws us in. This is not a lie, it is poetry as Sydney and Aristotle and so many others defined and when we share stories in this way, we are in good company.
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