Arguably my favourite Tim Burton movie, theres VERY little to dislike about ‘Ed Wood’ in my opinion quite honestly. This somewhat fantastical recounting of a 5 year window in the life of the much maligned and often ridiculed ‘Worst director EVER!’ is witty, charismatic and ultimately incredibly charming, and quite often sends me back to my own days of low/no budget film making.
The film opens in 1952 with Ed working on a couple of theater productions before a chance encounter with a newspaper article finally sets him on his way to becoming one of the most infamous directors of our times ending in 1957 and probably his most talked about work ‘Plan 9 From Outer Space’
What I can say at the top of all this is, dont come to this film for historical accuracy. While MANY of the weird and wild events that are shown in this film actually DID happen. The film isnt beyond taking creative liberties in order to help better shape a coherent story. That means large chunks of Eds life are either somewhat tweaked, rewritten or dropped entirely. With the absence of anything to do with ‘Jailbait’, ‘The Violent Years’ or any of the work that went into the, ultimately collapsed feature ‘The Ghoul Goes West’ being totally absent barring the odd background reference.
Instead; We largely focus on Ed and his effects on the people around him across three of his better known feature ‘Glen or Glenda’, ‘Bride of the Monster’ and ‘Plan 9 from Outer Space’. Its regularly pointed out across the runtime that Ed had a certain magnatism for the strange, delusional or dejected from society and its quite comforting to see this BEYOND patient film maker group together these odd job crazies and throw them into his mix of B-movie horror, science fiction and campy fun.
On a scripting front, this things a delight, a wonderfully charming and charismatic piece thats got a perfectly balanced 3 act structure, plays the characters almost intentionally as 50s B-movie pastiches of themselves and keeps a zippy pace making a 126 minutes long feature feel like something closer to 80 with a sense of absolute effortlessness.
The characters obviously being corny 50’s interpretations of themselves doesnt dissuade the film however from giving all the characters depth, nuance, complexities that most ‘normal’ films would struggle to reach and most importantly the dialogues almost perfect, with endlessly quotable moments, genuinely solid humour that simultaineously feels fresh while keeping in line with the kind of humour that would have been around in the 50s and 60s. Its arguably one of the best scripts i’ve ever sat through quite honestly.
Same goes for the direction and cine, Burton here is in his element of ‘otherworldly’ but campy good fun and it’s clear he really understood the work he was getting into with this one as almost every scene screams 50’s hollywood honestly.
Equally direction of the cast is superb, with very clear instruction being given and, based on interviews, most of the cast took their performances very seriously and researched a LOT into their parts in order to perfectly nail the roles they were cast for. they work with set space effectively, they recreate scenes from Eds original movies near perfectly and most importantly, via the performances you yourself feel that your in the action with them as they ride the highs and lows of production woes.
Compositions are gorgeous, and its clear they got someone who specialises in shooting in black and white to work with them on this project as a lot of the lighting and colour cues are very much in line with 50s and older productions.
Theres some phenominal work with lighting here to create some fantastic visuals and scenes feel well thought out and much more importantly, made with care. This isnt a slapped together production at all, it feels very much like they wanted to keep the film as in line with the era it was being shot in as possible.
As for the performances, they’re pretty much flawless. Johnny Depp may not be playing Ed with high accuracy here, but he certainly captures Eds ‘can do’ attitude and his sincere opportunism with an animated reslish that I honestly loved.
Martin Landau is positively transformative as Bela Lugosi, there are moments where its easy to forget that landau is even PLAYING Lugosi and that he hasnt fully BECOME the man. its honestly spooky and I can easily understand how he won the academy award.
Sarah Jessica Parker, Bill Murray, Jeffery Jones, Lisa Marie and George Steele only further enhance this thing, bringing an A* game to an already winning cast. Had this thing JUST been Depp and Landau it would have been incredible. But this really does feel like the planets aligning near perfectly, to get so much talent that not only get it, but full embrace their respective roles in a single place…it’s honestly wonderful. Particularly George Steele as Tor Johnson. It was absolutely uncanny.
Throw in a score that feels like a modernisation of the old synthy 50s stocky scoring, which adds a wonderful tone and vibe to proceedings and ultimately completes the ‘look’ this film is going for and you have a film that really is one of my all time favourites to just dig out whenever. Its got a wonderful balance of light and dark, its pacy, with a rock solid script and casting married up to direction cine and scoring that understands whats needed and goes above and beyond to deliver on it.
You can say what you like about Ed’s movies…But ‘Ed Wood’ is absolutely one you dont want to miss out on.
TYTD Reviews 