Ed Wood (1994)

After languishing for a few years, the Ed Wood DVD was finally released with, unfortunately, little fanfare. Although this black-and-white sympathetic portrayal of the pioneering b-movie director remains one of Tim Burton’s most ambitious and original productions (despite the fact that Michael Lehmann was originally going to be tapped to direct), Ed Wood is often overlooked even by his fans, no doubt because Ed Wood remains a bit of a cult figure. A tremendously prominent figure in the sub-culture of cult films and b-movies, yes, but even a famous cult figure is still a cult figure.

This is a shame, since even to those who don’t appreciate the ‘culture’ can appreciate this film, which is at its core simply a work about an ambitious, enthusiastic artist who simply didn’t have the talent (or the good sense) to match the scope of his dreams. Having the soul of a cult director himself, albeit one who has crossed over into definite mainstream success, and someone who has, thanks to his unconventional approach, butted heads with the studios and critics, Tim Burton’s interpretation of Ed Wood is rather endearing. Burton’s Ed Wood is naive, energetic, and, although a bit of a snake-oil salesman here and there, a firm believer in his films and in his own destiny. While you can certainly argue that Ed Wood was not in his own life the wide-eyed young director you see on the screen, Burton and screenwriters Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander hit on what separates Ed Wood’s works from the ocean of schlock out there: he wasn’t out to make a quick buck, at least not at the beginning, but like any director he was out to commit his visions to film. Sure, he wanted to pump out his films quickly and quality wasn’t first in his mind, but he knew what he wanted to make and he had statements to make. For its incoherence and laugh-out-loud stumbles, Glen or Glenda is a sincere cry for tolerance, made on the dime of a studio purely interested in exploitation. Even Plan 9 From Outer Space, Ed Wood’s Citizen Kane and the movie this biopic is primarily focused on, attempts to make a point about the ultimate pointlessness of war (especially poignant since Ed Wood was a World War II veteran) and the horrors technology can unleash. In his commentary for the film, Burton says that, for him, Ed Wood has a “surreal, dream-like quality” in his work, which is quite accurate. People do watch Plan 9 From Outer Space and Glen or Glenda to laugh at them, but these films do draw a wider and larger audience than many other films of equally shoddy quality. Perhaps there actually is an authentic talent, a real vision, beneath the careless directing, horrendous acting, and total disregard for continuity.

Johnny Depp is, simply put, fantastic as the infamous schlock director. The film focuses on Ed Wood’s ‘Golden Age,’ the years between when he got the funding for Glen or Glenda and when Plan 9 For Outer Space was released, and before Ed Wood turned to working in z-grade horror ‘erotica,’ so Depp’s performance, for all its manic cheerfulness, is well-suited for this stage in Ed Wood’s career. The real centerpiece, in my opinion, is Martin Landau’s eerily precise portrayal of Bela Lugosi. It isn't easy to make a tragic character in what is essentially a comedy, but Landau's Lugosi manages to be both a severely depressed, washed-out icon, yet also Wood's genuine friend. Also there are interesting performances by the film’s ‘villains,’ Sarah Jessica Parker as Wood’s unaccepting girlfriend Dolores and the portrayals of the sleazy studio boss and the devout Baptists who serve as Wood’s bewildered producers. Other than, debatably, Dolores’ refusal to accommodate Wood’s cross-dressing habits, their demands on our protagonist are perfectly reasonable: just make a decent movie that will turn out a profit! Likewise we see that both Glen or Glenda and Plan 9 From Outer Space are made under false pretenses: the former was supposed to be just a sleazy epic of exploitation, the latter an attempt to raise money for a series of religious films Wood was supposed to make, but never did. Regardless we sympathize with Ed Wood, because his world of lovable freaks and soaring ambition becomes our world, and because we can all probably understand what it’s like to have hope in spite of failure.

I say elsewhere that this is a comedy, which is only true in a technical sense. It’s funny in some parts, especially a fictional scene where Ed Wood, the worst director of all time, meets Orson Welles, the best director of all time, and discovers that Welles has many of the same problems Wood faces. However, there is also the sad tragedy of the last days of Bela Lugosi, his drug addiction and his frustration at being a dying star, and Ed Wood’s own quest to find a woman who actually wouldn’t mind seeing him in her clothes. If it were up to me, I’d label it a light-hearted drama, which blends in Ed Wood the cult figure with Ed Wood the real artist. I suspect if Larry Karaszewski, Scott Alexander, and Tim Burton were asked to describe the film, they would call it a love letter, not just to Ed Wood, but to struggling, third-rate artists everywhere.




Cast Connections

-Screenwriters Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander also wrote the first Problem Child movie, which in the commentary they say both made them experts in producing b-movies, and The People Vs. Larry Flint.