Ed Wood (1994) – Review

As I’ve stated elsewhere, biopics aren’t exactly my bag. For a start, they tend to be overly glossy, puff pieces that often struggle to to slip an incredible lifetime into a few scant hours and if I’m being totally honest, they all tend to feel the same after a fashion. However, focusing on someone who truly changed the world is remarkable talents or personality is one thing, dedicating an entire biopic on screw ups, misfits and delusionals is entirely another and that’s where Tim Burton comes in.
Burton, for all his flamboyant peccadilos, has always shown a tremendous amount of empathy for the outsider, be they Pee Wee Herman, Oswald Copplepot or Edward Scissorhands; but up to this point in his career, Burton had always masked his misfit worship in visually cartoonish, gothic flourishes that gave everything a sheen that veeres between the comic book or the fairytale – however, with Ed Wood, he forced himself to finally creep somewhat into the real world with dazzling results. Only Tim Burton could make a movie about Hollywood’s worst filmmaker and have it come out as his most accomplished works.

Edward D. Wood Jr. is an aspiring filmmaker in 1950s Hollywood who is desperate to make his creative mark on the world of cinema despite having all the skill of a damp washcloth. However, toiling away at tinseltown’s unseen underbelly, he finally sees his chance to shine when he hears of a low budget production company looking for a director for an exploitation B-flick named I Changed My Sex. Ed thinks he’s perfect for the job, not just because he is a hungry young filmmaker, but because he’s also a practicing transvestite with a weakness for angora sweaters who truly believes in bringing this intensely personal story to life. Also helping him cinch the gig is the fact that he can guarantee big box office star power thanks to a recent friendship sparked with horror legend Bela Lugosi – however, Lugosi’s star had well and truly faded by this point with bankruptcy and a rather hefty morphine addiction weighing him down.
Still, undeterred, the ever upbeat Wood throws together a clutch of similarly off-beat friends to make its opus – but not even its ungainly flop can shake Ed’s unshakable belief in his own talent.
Next up is an atomic monster movie that not only takes more advantage of Ed and Bela’s growing friendship, but sees yet more weirdos and oddballs join his troupe – all of whom seem equally in awe of their leader’s questionable abilities.
But with Lugosi’s health rapidly declining and with two flops under Ed’s belt, can the endlessly inventive auteur get back on the horse and get yet another shoddy opus in front of the camera? Well, you see, our guy is always a man with a plan – or should that be a Plan 9 From Outer Space?

Never mind the glory days of 50s Hollywood, Ed Wood takes us back to a time when Tim Burton’s filmography hadn’t become overloaded with flashy, but empty, blockbusters and Johnny Depp was still regarded as a serious actor whose career hadn’t gotten saturated with endless, panto-esque performances that made you forget how good an actor he truly is, but with Burton’s adoring biopic, you get a spirited, reminder just how good these two could really be. It’s majestically telling how Burton’s most obviously accessible movie is still about an utterly incompetent filmmaker who likes dressing up in women’s clothing while gathering a small family of like-minded eccentrics who help fall ass-backwards into immortality for the wrong reasons.
Burton had made comedies before, but usually with the help of Michael Keaton as a pervert ghost or Pee Wee Herman doing his man-child thing and stripped of being able to utilise his usual tropes of creepy clowns, black and white striped outfits or even a Danny Elfman score (Howard Shore expertly steps in armed with bongos), the director shows what he can do when not hiding behind his particular brand of gothic camp. That still doesn’t mean Burton is slacking in the visuals department – opting to shoot in striking black and white (which allows him to drop in a killer joke about a colour-blind stagehand) he not only invokes the spirit of the time, but it gives the film the same indie spark the movie is saluting.

Depp is fantastic, infusing his take on Wood as an innocently hopeful soul, so hopelessly in love with the world of filmmaking, he’s blissfully unaware that he’s completely shit at it – but the inhuman levels of can-do spirit wins you over completely as he and his carnival of freaks resort to any and all tricks to get film in the can. Wood’s amazing acts of fuckery are legend, but seeing them in action is even more rewarding as he simply refuses to take the loss – be it convincing his entire crew to get baptised so he can get funding from a church or utilising a girlfriend’s chiropractor as a lookalike (to describe it charitably) to finish a film after Lugosi has died.
Ah yes, Lugosi. Much has been made of Martin Landau’s Oscar winning performance as the cantankerous, washed up actor, but let me assure you, he deserved each and every plaudit whether nailing the accent or raking in the tragic pathos of an elderly man who has long stopped bring “useful”, he is simply magical. He’s also pretty fucking funny too, exploding into a petulant, jealous rage at the mere mention of rival Boris Karloff (“Karloff does not deserve to smell my shit!”) or bellowing out Wood’s awful dialogue like it has been scribbled by Shakespeare.
Joining this dysfunctional friendship is a cast that also includes Bill Murray as his most camp, Sarah Jessica Parker and Particia Arquette and they’re all furnished with devastating lines that are delivered with quotable aplomb.
It’s Depp who consistently delivers the best though. “I’ve seen reviews where they didn’t even mention the costumes.” he cheerfully counters at a bad review and later he weathers another knock back with a hopeful “Really? Worst film you ever saw. Well, my next one will be better.”.

Probably my favorite film about filmmaking Ed Wood is a cheerfully, warmhearted look at sheer optimism in the face of a complete lack of talent (see The Distaster Artist for similar results) and while its message of “fight for your dreams, even if the result is pure shit” may confuse some people expecting a more triumphant ending, the fact that Wood technically got the adulation he craved means that even the most ardent failure can be seen as a heartwarming win.
Wood’s worst equals Burton’s best.

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