WORDS Anna Lowder PHOTO Jonathon Kohn
Ten years after Big Fish, MADE Paper dropped by the town of Spectre. We were intrigued to see how the magical town - created on a hidden island outside of the city by Tim Burton’s crew a decade before - had fared during the Southern summers once the spotlights and cameras had long gone.
If you recall in the film Big Fish, Spectre is a town of friendliness and beauty. A simple place where the protagonist Edward finds a community of barefoot strangers, trusting and warm. Yet, he arrives first too early, and then too late.
We found a land forgotten, not unlike its rural neighbors. The film set has been ravaged by the elements over the past decade, yet looks not far from the closing scenes of Big Fish - the moments when Spectre lost its beauty and magic because the outsiders came. In reality, it’s the lack of outsiders that most often destroys places. It’s the loss of activity, attention, ideas, and work that turns towns into places of obsolete shadows.
Spectre faded once the film crews and craftsmen, the people and the life, left it. It is a ghostly place to take an afternoon walk, but it’s a town built of nothing waiting for the landscape to reclaim it. At MADE we love a good story. Story telling has its place in the culture of the American South specifically. Big Fish made Montgomery feel like a big fish for that Spring, and it felt good to be in the sunlight. But the film’s true legacy is its theme. That life comes and goes. Good stories tie us together and give us hope. And that the unknown - outsiders, strangers, even ourselves - is not to be feared, but rather embraced. Thanks for a good story, Spectre.
To commemorate the ten year anniversary of the Big Fish film, Big Fish author Daniel Wallace returns Saturday, September 6 for a book signing and movie screening at The Capri. Event starts at 2pm. For information, visit www.capritheatre.org. For the complete photo essay, pick up a copy of the September MADE Paper.
