Ed Wood

365 Films

Entry #38

Ed Wood (1994)

Directed by Tim Burton

Ed Wood is one of Tim Burton’s most flawless films and I didn’t even bother to see it in theaters when it was first released.  You must understand that to a ten year old it carried none of the usual Burton trademarks.  It was in black and white, there was no Danny Elfman score, and there was no central protagonist with a gruesome deformity.  Actually, that last part isn’t entirely accurate, but we’ll get to that later.  Ed Wood is a film best appreciated as a valentine to filmmaking.  And because this is a Tim Burton movie, said valentine works only as a method to keep one’s personal demons at bay.  If I could talk to my stupid ten-year-old self I would say, “this is exactly like a Tim Burton movie…moron!”  The prestigious biopic label has become a premonition as to the contents of the extremely bitter pill one is about to swallow.  These movies tend to fill an audience with dread not because they are poorly executed, but because they are so crushingly tedious.  The most refreshing part about Ed Wood is that is avoids the entirety of those pernicious clichés.  This is not the whole life of Ed Wood from birth to death and there’s no childhood trauma as psychoanalysis hoping to provide some full-proof screenwriting solution to a painfully obvious character arc.  Burton also avoids a disastrous step by aligning our sympathies with Mr. Wood and most visibly in Johnny Depp’s amazing performance.  Ed Wood is not reduced to a fish in a barrel type of mockery he so easily could have been.  Credit must also go to screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who had a cottage industry back in the mid to late 90’s of biographical screenplays about fringe personalities that usually avoided the trappings of the genre.  I suppose what makes Ed Wood such a perfect fit for Burton is because he was a man whose art was fueled by the storm that raged inside his subconscious.  Between the alienation caused by his cross dressing tendencies to the alcoholism that eventually consumed him for good, Wood had a lot material from which to draw.  What makes the character of Ed Wood (as envisioned by Burton) so thrillingly alive is the fact that he has an almost insatiable drive for normalcy.  Wood doesn’t shut himself away in isolation or dress up in black leather to fight crime in Gotham City.  He makes movies.  He pursues an art form that not only requires one to be incredibly social, but also to bare one’s most naked of vulnerabilities.  Movies also allow one to seek out and find a new family, however temporary they may be.  The flawless ensemble cast is a true testament to this fact with each one more screwed up and passionate than the next.  And in a rare occasion of the academy rewarding the RIGHT recipient with an Oscar, Martin Landau won deservedly for his devastating portrayal of Bela Lugosi.  Burton doesn’t pretend to know what Wood should have done with his life to get his shit together.  The best he can do is illuminate the work he left behind and remind us that even the shoddiest of work can produce a personal, genuine, and emotional connection.