Plot
Hollywood visionary Tim Burton pays homage to another Hollywood visionary, albeit a less successful one, in this unusual fictionalized biography. The film follows Wood (Johnny Depp) in his quest for film greatness as he writes and directs turkey after turkey, cross-dresses, and surrounds himself with a motley crew of Hollywood misfits, outcasts, has-beens, and never-weres. The real story, however, is his friendship with aging, morphine-addicted Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau), whom he tries to help stage a comeback. Landau's unforgettable Oscar-winning performance must be seen to be believed, as must Rick Baker's Oscar-winning makeup. While it would have been easy to make a film simply ridiculing the bumbling director, Burton instead focuses on his driving passion for filmmaking and his unwavering persistence in the face of ridicule and failure. Possibly the most surprising aspect of the film is the genuine sentiment with which Burton treats the relationship between Wood and Lugosi; his devotion to Lugosi is touching, as is Lugosi's final soliloquy -- an inane bit of dialogue from the hilariously bad Bride of the Monster that grows into a poignant metaphor for the actor's life and ultimate triumph of his spirit. Even the look of the film is right; it manages to preserve the air of one of Wood's own films while retaining a sense of artistry in much of the composition on screen (note the scene at the drug rehab where Lugosi endures a horrifying night of detox). In all, Ed Wood is a unique film -- at times side-splittingly funny; at others, tragic or even frightening -- and a heartfelt tribute to the love of movies, good and bad alike. ~ Jeremy Beday, RoviReview
Tim Burton's Ed Wood is a delightfully entertaining and uniquely inspiring film about an artist in love with his medium. Never mind that the artist in question, Edward D. Wood Jr. (played with panache by Johnny Depp), is generally believed to be the worst movie director who ever lived; Burton and screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski play Wood's story mostly for laughs, but they also have a genuine fondness and respect for Wood and his never-ending uphill struggle to put his crackpot ideas on screen. For Wood, any day in which he stood behind the camera was a good day, and if his sets were cardboard, his special effects laughable, his dialogue mind-bogglingly bizarre, and his cast a ragtag band of losers, misfits, and has-beens, none of it mattered as much as the simple fact that he was making a film. Ed loved movies with all his heart and soul, despite his lack of talent, and he surrounded himself with people who, like himself, were drawn to the life-changing magic of Hollywood and determined to be a part of it. While it would be easy (and perhaps more realistic) to show the lives of Ed and his friends as sad, Burton understands that a dream in the face of impractical circumstances is a big part of being a filmmaker, and if these characters often seem goofy, they just as often seem to feel strangely honored to be scraping by in the shadow of the Dream Factory. And the friendship between Ed and the aging Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau), in poor health and addicted to drugs, is touching in the least cloying of ways, as an old man who has been stripped of his dreams finds work with a young man whose dreams still keep him going. Plenty of films have been made about people who made it in Hollywood, but Ed Wood is the best film about the people who didn't, perhaps because Burton seems to understand that the biggest thing separating him from his subject is not talent but luck. ~ Mark Deming, RoviCast
- Johnny Depp - Ed Wood
- Martin Landau - Bela Lugosi
- Sarah Jessica Parker - Dolores Fuller
- Patricia Arquette - Kathy O'Hara
- Bill Murray - Bunny Breckinridge
- Jeffrey Jones - Criswell
Credit
Michael Okowita - Art Director, Victoria Thomas - Casting, Richard Hoover - Consultant/advisor, Michael Flynn - Co-producer, Colleen Atwood - Costume Designer, Mike Topoozian - First Assistant Director, Tim Burton - Director, Chris Lebenzon - Editor, Michael Lehmann - Executive Producer, Howard Shore - Composer (Music Score), Thomas A. Duffield - Production Designer, Richard Hoover - Production Designer, Michael Polaire - Production Designer, Stefan Czapsky - Cinematographer, Tim Burton - Producer, Denise Di Novi - Producer, Cricket Rowland - Set Designer, Bruce Hill - Set Designer, Christopher S. Nushawg - Set Designer, Chris Nushuang - Set Designer, Edward Tise - Sound/Sound Designer, Scott Alexander - Screenwriter, Larry Karaszewski - Screenwriter, Rudolph Grey - Book Author| Ed Thigpen: The Essence of Brushes (2004 Film), Ed Paschke (1982 Film) | |
| Ed Wood: Look Back in Angora (1994 Film), Ed and His Dead Mother (1993 Film) |
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