I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Tim Burton—but here’s a project of his I’m on board with resolutely. Wedged amid mega-successes like Batman and Nightmare Before Christmas comes a more personal take that seems to be a recurring resonating theme with Burton—that of the outcast bent on doing his own thing anyway. It’s something that probably resonates with many a few creatives, in fact—even if sometimes their creations become known and loved for different reasons than they might’ve wanted. With that in mind, here’s my take on Ed Wood!
From the get-go Burton goes all in on the cardboard gravestone aesthetic Wood leaned into with such masterpieces like Bride of the Monster, with a black-and-white palette combined with theremin-doused music by Howard Shore. And that takes us into Hollywood of the 1950s, where Johnny Depp plays our titular young director trying to find his masterpiece, going from kitschy plays to trying to make personal art out of exploitation films for sleazy producers.
Depp of course plays everything to a hilt, all wide-eyed and boyish—everyone else is all cynical and somewhat more realistic as you might expect from veterans of Tinseltown. Whether that’s deliberate of Burton or just Depp for you is down to the viewer, but hey, it works well enough in giving us a contrast. Either way, over time Wood starts collecting himself an entourage ranging from phoney psychics like Criswell (played here by the eternally awesomely sardonic Jeffrey Jones) to TV hosts like Vampire (the precursor to Elvira, played here by Lisa Marie) to legend of horror and Wood’s personal hero, Bela Lugosi himself. The original Dracula here is given to us by Martin Landau, who essentially steals us the show by concentrating all the sweary grandma energy you can possibly conceive into one.
The movie as you might expect plays somewhat loose with the facts—Lugosi wasn’t as foul-mouthed as portrayed here and still was visited by his fellow horror stars of yore, and Wood’s relationship with his girlfriend Dolores (Sarah Jessica Parker) was somewhat less one-sided. Things go of course somewhat out of the window near the end with a cameo by a certain filmmaking legend that I think even any casual punter can get was made up here.
But that can be put aside if all else is executed well-enough—and while Depp’s wide-eyed performance maybe gets a bit one-note, everything else is funny when it needs to be and moving when it needs to be. There’s enough to relate for those struggling to get even within a vague distance of one’s dreams, be it begging for fundraising by just asking anyone at a party, to ‘borrowing’ rubber octopuses (well okay maybe not everyone can relate to that, but the principle remains).
An interesting thing is how well the film holds up with acceptance—Wood here as in real life was into transvestism, and between his film Glen and Glenda there’s certainly a note of bucking against gender norms. Naturally, this was less of a topic in the nineties, and in this film most of the characters don’t really get it as you would in turn expect in the fifties—but ultimately, there’s no judging, and it’s heartwarming enough to see that ultimately it’s the ‘deviants’ here sticking together in about the only sort of place that they could in such times, with master of deadpan Bill Murray exemplifying the sorts Wood found solidarity with.
And that takes us to Wood’s ‘masterpiece’—Plan 9 from Outer Space, a joyous procession of flying saucers on scream, redundant dialogue that’s redundant, and a storyline of very camp aliens trying to warn humans against WMDs by raising zombies, somehow. Of course, Wood approached it all with sincerity—and that’s the sort of thing that gives us the perfect cheesy movie. For decades, that’s how Plan 9 ended up enjoyed—though as the film notes at the very end, this unfortunately came after Wood spiralled into alcoholism and churning out bad erotica films.
Either way, much like Wood himself, sincerity is the name of the game here—and between enjoyable performances and all the belief in following one’s vision—as off-kilter that can be sometimes—that’s why this remains Burton’s best film for me. Alongside fake cephalopods and faker spaceships, give it a watch…
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