ED WOOD (1994)
A Film Review Copyright Dragan Antulov 2003
Movie reviewers should never forget to appraise movies separately from people who had made them. Some of the greatest works of art were created by artists with whose company hardly anyone would spend a second in real life. And some of the worst films ever made are the work of people whose characters and biographies are much more colourful and interesting than anything that they had put on screen. Ed Wood (1924 - 1978), filmmaker whose reputation oscillated between utter anonymity, utter infamy and cult status, is one of such artists. Another artist, Tim Burton, saw a little bit of himself in Ed Wood's story and paid tribute to late filmmaker in ED WOOD, 1994 biopic.
The plot of the film begins in the early 1950s Hollywood. Ed Wood Jr. (played by Johnny Depp) is decorated WW2 veteran who works as a stage hand at Universal studios and dreams of starting career of a filmmaker. First step in that direction is chance encounter with Bela Lugosi (played by Martin Landau), Hungarian-born actor who used to be great star of 1930s horror classics. Twenty years later Lugosi is burdened with old age and morphine addiction but Wood befriends him and decides to rejuvenate his career by casting him in his films. The first one is GLEN OR GLENDA, Wood's semi-autobiographical exploration of his own cross-dressing lifestyle. Critical panning and utter commercial failure don't discourage Wood from creating new films in similar style. He recruits set of bizarre characters for his cast and crew and prepares to make the defining movie of his career - PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.
Just like Ed Wood, Tim Burton is seen as a filmmaker outside of Hollywood mainstream and filmographies of both men are made of titles with unusual subjects, quirky style and bizarre characters. Of course, Burton is much more talented and much more fortunate of those two, but that didn't prevent him from treating Ed Wood with a dedication of a religious devotee. Almost everything in the film - from production design, titles, black-and-white photography and the cast - pays homage to Ed Wood and his world of 1950s trash cinema. Script by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (just like in the case of Larry Flynt's biopic two years later) takes selective approach to Ed Wood's biography, leaving the audience with the impression that PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE used to be the ultimate triumph of Ed Wood's career; latter stages of his life that included pornographic films and alcoholism, were ignored. Relatively large part of the film is dedicated to the depiction of friendship between young, upstart Wood and elderly Bela Lugosi. This not only provided opportunity for Johnny Depp to portray talentless filmmaker as caring human being, but also led to Martin Landau winning "Oscar" for his powerful portrayal of a morphine-addicted ex-star. ED WOOD also features usually unrecognisable Vincent d'Onofrio in a brief but memorable role of Orson Welles. ED WOOD, because of its sentimentality and somewhat loose treatment of historical facts, is probably not among the best examples of Hollywood biopics. On the other hand, audience these days needs being reminded that the road to worst films is often paved with noble ambitions.
RATING: 7/10 (+++)
Review written on May 30th 2003
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in Croatian http://www.purger.com/users/drax/reviews.htm - Movie Reviews in English http://www.ofcs.org - Online Film Critics Society
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