‘Ed Wood’ – Tim Burton’s Best Film?

Tim Burton’s “Ed Wood” (1994) is one of those seemingly out-of-character masterpieces that sneak up on you when a filmmaker with a well-established body of work makes something completely different.

“Ed Wood,” which arrived after Burton’s “Batman Returns” (1992), is a low-budget period piece, set in 1950’s Hollywood, filmed in soupy/cheap black and white. It’s a buddy comedy about Edward D. Wood Jr., whom many still consider “the worst filmmaker of all time” and his best friend, the legendary Hungarian actor, Bela Lugosi.

Johnny Depp (at the time, wildly cast against type) stars as Wood, who works in the film industry but can’t catch a break. As a playwright, he cheerfully inspires his devoted thespians to pour their hearts out, invest in his bizarre dialogue and get their hopes up in his cheesy productions.

However, the reviews and Wood’s lack of talent and experience always halts his hoped-for trajectory. Upon meeting the frail, elderly Lugosi (Martin Landau, in a remarkable, Oscar winning performance), Wood suddenly finds a movie star with enough recognition to get his movies backed.

Armed with a skeleton crew, blind optimism and questionable taste and motives, Wood talks Lugosi and his cabal of B-level performers to helm such films as “Bride of the Atom.” Wood goes from being a bad theater dramatist to an even worse filmmaker, but his gusto and cheerful demeanor keep everyone working, though always remaining skeptical about the result.

ED WOOD (1994) Director of Photography: Stefan Czapsky | Director: Tim Burton pic.twitter.com/G1Ah4PGWHg

— One Perfect Shot (@OnePerfectShot) March 11, 2015

 

Only by looking a little closer do we realize that “Ed Wood” is to Burton as “After Hours” (1985) is to Martin Scorsese, and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1992) is to Francis Ford Coppola and “25th Hour” (2003) is to Spike Lee, and on and on.

It’s exciting when a great filmmaker with established themes, visual trademarks and character types does something that seems to be out of the blue and against type but is actually an extension of what they’ve been obsessed with all along.

Reportedly, Burton connected to the story when considering his own filmmaker/actor friendship that formed when he collaborated with the late, great Vincent Price. The heart of “Ed Wood” is the scenes between Depp and Landau, who have a surprisingly rich chemistry.

These are layered turns, as Wood and Lugosi both have closely guarded secrets that, in very different ways, define who they are. When the story gets dark and we learn Lugosi’s secret, the union between Lugosi and Wood becomes heartbreaking and beautiful. The scene of Lugosi, alone, strapped to a cot and crying out while in rehab, is easily the most haunting image in a Burton film.

RELATED: BURTON’S ‘BATMAN RETURNS’ REVIEW

Of all things, “Ed Wood” is a love story, portraying the deeply formed friendship between two friends, which becomes a quasi-father/son trust. Wood needs Lugosi because he’s a massive fan and Lugosi is willing to join him on his misadventures, while Lugosi sees in “Eddie” a makeshift son and the only person willing to support his career.

“Ed Wood” portrays the family unit of an acting troupe in theater and film, in which your collaborators are dysfunctional but loving siblings. Wood is an outsider whose dreamy optimism is, somehow, what always motivates him.

As an ensemble piece about finding a makeshift family in the midst of outcasts and oddballs, “Ed Wood” is affectionately in place with every other Burton film on a thematic level, though the look and feel isn’t entirely the gothic chic we expect.

There are, naturally, fabrications and exaggerations in the screenplay by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. For example, Wood didn’t first meet Lugosi at a funeral parlor bur backstage on the set of a low budget turkey Lugosi was making.

Yet, the extent of affection between them was apparently genuine. The truth is that Wood and Lugosi both died because of their substance abuse, which the movie doesn’t overlook. The biggest exaggeration the screenwriters add is the quasi-happy ending, which Wood didn’t get in real life.

The post-credits reveal what really happened to Wood and those in his circle, which range from the sad (like Wood’s fate) and the surprising (Wood’s ex-wife wound up writing Elvis Presley tunes later on!).

Karaszewski and Alexander give the film the happiest ending possible, leaving the post-script to allow for an amusing, affectionate coda on the lives of the characters. The screenwriters, who later wrote “The People Vs. Larry Flynt” (1996), keep us invested in the story, which never feels like an in-joke or too much for the uninitiated.

If anything, everyone I’ve shared this movie with has subsequently sought out Wood’s penultimate “Plan 9 From Outer Space” (1957).

Tim Burton’s star is revealed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. https://t.co/wxrWvt5aTS pic.twitter.com/ClKngp3LlB

— Variety (@Variety) September 3, 2024

Depp is amazing in this. Nothing the actor did before would indicate how dynamically funny and inventive he is here. This would be his second collaboration with Burton after “Edward Scissorhands” (1990). Clearly, Burton brings out something special in Depp.

Landau never hits a false note- there is rich emotional depth in his take on Landau, which never becomes a caricature. Landau isn’t just doing an accent; this is a brilliant interpretation of a long suffering and troubled artist.

What Landau achieves here is, frankly, one of the best performances I’ve ever seen in a movie.

Patricia Arquette enters the third act and gives a welcome, sweet turn that provides a needed transition to the harrowing passage of Lugosi in rehabilitation. There’s also some reliably scene stealing from Bill Murray, a wonderful turn by wrestler George “The Animal” Steele as B-movie thespian Tor Johnson and a hilarious Lisa Marie as a constantly irritated Vampira.

Burton’s film is a passionate love letter to the movies and, far more daring, recognizes that there’s a special, accidental bliss in B-movies. Are Wood’s movies horrible? Definitely. Are they entertaining, unintentionally funny and worth seeing at least once?

Absolutely.

As a Hollywood satire, it still holds up: at one point, Wood asks a no-nonsense producer, played by the wonderful Mike Starr, of a pending job offer to direct, “Is there a script?” The producer’s response: “No, but there’s a poster. It opens in a few weeks.”

The world of cheap B-movies in 1950’s Hollywood isn’t all that different from today – just get the film done, don’t worry about quality! Starr is hysterical playing a proud producer of “crap,” but the character doesn’t feel like a caricature.

Neither does Vincent D’Onofrio’s take on Orson Welles (with the vocals dubbed by Maurice Marche of “Pinky and the Brain”), in which the writer/director informs Wood (in an entirely fabricated but delightful scene), “Visions are worth fighting for. Why make someone else’s dreams?”

This is the rare Burton film that wasn’t composed by Danny Elfman. Howard Shore’s wonderful theremin and bongo-tinted orchestration is fantastic. Stefan Czapsky’s cinematography may be in black and white but it doesn’t mimic Wood’s clumsy filmmaking.

“Ed Wood” is stirring and lovely in its compositions, like the scene of Wood watching Lugosi’s final scenes alone in a screening room, a reflection of how film can capture moments we take for granted as they occur and only recognize in hindsight how lucky we were to have experienced them.

Undoubtedly, the black and white cinematography and arcane subject matter killed the film’s chances in theaters. Now, it’s become one of Burton’s most quotable cult films.

I frequently rewatch “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” (1985), “Batman” (1989), “Frankenweenie” (2012) and especially “Mars Attacks!” (1996) the latter of which amusingly feels like a big budget Edward D. Wood Jr. film.

Yet, its “Ed Wood” that is remains my favorite of Burton’s films.

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