It’s a miracle any movie gets made. If that sounds hyperbolic, fine. I’ll tweak it: it’s a flat-out water-to-wine-the-leper-is-cured-the-blind-can-see if a great movie gets made. A bad movie, that’s just a miracle, like my wife making it somewhere on time — it’s big, but she didn’t have to walk on water to get there. The arduous, soul-swallowing process starts simply enough, with a script. From there moving parts and variables are added. Over and over again, they’re added, complicating every phase of filmmaking from prep to post.
If it’s a good script, or even a great one, the accumulation of moving parts and variables can drag the movie into the abyss. Studios can throw money at their movies when these problems drag it down, and they can still end up with a wreck (“Waterworld,” “Ishtar”). Studios also have the luxury of time, which, coupled with talent and ingenuity, can be used to patch up a sinking ship, and sometimes, sometimes, this results in artistic and commercial success (“Jaws,” “Titanic”).
But Ed Wood had none of these luxuries. He had not money, nor time, nor good scripts. Neither was he blessed with talent or ingenuity. Resourcefulness, sure; gumption, yeah, some. But mostly what he had was a deep and nearly unparalleled love of movies. It was a miracle that any of his movies got made and saw the light of day. I sincerely believe Wood deserves a pat on the back just for not giving up, for sticking with it and not only convincing financiers of his vision but seeing that vision through to the end. More than once.
I am not offering up a serving of revisionist history. Ed Wood’s movies are bad. Stinkers. Personally, I don’t even think they’re so bad they’re good; they’re just plain bad. But when you know his story and understand his passion, so brilliantly conceptualized in Tim Burton’s “Ed Wood,” his movies become…aw, hell, they’re still turkeys. But you come to appreciate Ed Wood’s infectious enthusiasm.
Burton eulogizes Wood (Johnny Depp) as a humorous, sincere, plucky outsider who surrounds himself with misfits. The guy never utters a discouraging word, and sees the silver lining in the darkest of clouds. Oh, and he wears women’s clothes, explaining:
“I’m all man. I even fought in WWII. Of course, I was wearing women’s undergarments under my uniform.”
Burton manages to have his cake and eat it too, at times mocking Wood, but never losing sight of his humanity. The movie hinges on Wood’s relationship with Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau), the former star now a morphine-addicted loner first seen shopping for a coffin (“Too constricting!” he bellows after trying one on for size). Burton clearly admires Wood’s blind optimism, and identifies with Wood’s other flaw: his commercial sensibilities.
Wood makes movies that he’d like to see. He makes them badly, but it’s difficult to imagine “Glen or Glenda” connecting with early 1950’s audiences even if he wasn’t a poor director working from half a script and some stock footage. Burton was the perfect director for this, with his love of kitsch and obvious affection for fifties-era exploitation films, but I think that many directors, artists, actors, and writers could identify with Wood’s lack of commercial sensibilities. In the movie business, broadly speaking, you only work for as long as audiences respond to your output. Burton had to admire that Wood bucked this trend.
But while Burton empathizes with Wood, the movie never gets sentimental or portrays him as some kind of misunderstood genius. Writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, are masters of the quasi-biopic genre, and their work here remains true to the Ed Wood biography “The Nightmare of Ectsacy,” without ever making the audience feel sorry for Wood. In the book, Ed Wood’s widow reveals that he took the “worst director in the world” label very personally (who wouldn’t?), lamenting that he makes the type of movies he’d like to see. This personal, sad moment works well in the book, but would have been a total buzzkill in the movie. Instead, Burton, Alexander and Karaszewski craft a scene where Wood meets his idol, Orson Welles, in a bar. The cinematic icon tells him “visions are worth fighting for,” advice that emboldens Wood to finish his movie and allows Burton to stage a triumphant Hollywood red carpet finale.
The movie was, ironically enough, a box office dud. My wife and I snuck into a midnight sneak preview screening after watching “Quiz Show” and “The Shawshank Redemption” back to back. The hipster crowd and Depp’s incessant grinning were too much for my wife, and we walked out. “Don’t tell me you liked that?” she demanded as we left the theatre. Yeah, I kinda did, and went back to see it by myself weeks later. It’s better on repeat viewings, I told her, but she wasn’t buying. “Bela Lu-don’t-go-see It,” she told our friends*.
Maybe she’s right, but I love the movie. Depp is hilarious as Ed Wood, Bill Murray provides chuckles as a gay sidekick, and Martin Landau’s achingly honest portrayal of Bela Lugosi was perfect enough for me to not be too mad that he beat Samuel L. Jackson at the Oscars the following year. It’s not a particularly mainstream movie, but I reject my wife’s claim that it’s pretentious and artsy. It certainly could have been, if Burton and his writers had been dishonest about Ed Wood’s lack of talent. But they set out to make an admittedly esoteric but entertaining film, a love letter to a man who had a dream, and lacking the tools to make the dream come true, pursued the dream anyway.
*There remains some dispute over who came up with this line. I maintain it was my wife who said it. She maintains that a guy we met a year after the movie came out said it, but we haven’t seen this guy since he left Atlanta to become a stand up comedian in Boston. If you are this guy, thank you for the hilarious line and forgive me for crediting my wife.
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