Every September for thirty years, I’ve kicked off Halloween season the same way: Tim Burton’s film, the Rhino “Look Back in Angora” documentary by the late, great Ted Newsom, then a marathon of Edward D. Wood Jr’s actual movies. The cardboard tombstones, saucers on strings, Bela Lugosi stumbling through barely coherent stream-of-consciousness dialogue… it’s a ritual that sets the tone for several weeks of schlock and awe.
But more importantly for me, Ed Wood completely changed how I watch movies.
Burton turned me from a sneering film snob into someone who genuinely and unironically loves bad movies, and not as yuk-yuk camp kitsch – but actually loves them for what they are. Up till then, “Ed Wood” was a joke for me and my friends, the guy whose movies could only be appreciated as midnight double-features at the Rialto. We’d snort, snicker and feel superior to these “terrible” flicks with mismatched day-for-night shots and stream-of-consciousness dialog. We’d then congratulate ourselves for recognizing incompetence.
This changed in 1994. Burton, still running his Batman victory lap, could have taken any project he wanted. And what he made was a love letter to Hollywood’s worst filmmaker. Instead of making a big blockbuster, he chose to canonize this cross-dressing b-movie hack who couldn’t direct Bela Lugosi out of a paper bag. And I say that lovingly.
Which is, really, the most Burton thing imaginable – finding beauty in the broken toys nobody else wants to play with.
After seeing Ed Wood, I started evaluating every movie differently. I looked for the passion and love that transcended the quality of the final product. I already had a love of bad films from years stalking the video store bottom shelves, but now I saw the beauty in them as well: the ingenuity born from having no money, no permits, no decent effects. I saw the workarounds, the cheats, the desperate creativity.
Depp’s Wood affectation showed me that behind every piece of art, there’s an artist, and what they’re trying to do is often more interesting than what ends up on screen. Behind every “bad” film, there’s a group of people who probably had a blast making it, and when you open yourself up to it, that energy becomes infectious.
Plan 9 isn’t necessarily a bad movie, but it isn’t a good movie either. It’s both. It’s an expression of an artist using the tools he had available like cardboard tombstones, hubcaps on strings, a chiropractor as a body double. It’s got genuinely interesting ideas about identity and the military-industrial complex, especially for the era. Ed didn’t let his lack of talent get in the way of wanting to express himself. He actually tried.
And he put my brand of holier-than-thou, no-effort slackerhood to shame.
The guy I used to mock became genuinely inspirational and I don’t mean ironically or as counterculture cred, but as an artist who refused to let a small thing like reality interfere with his vision. He kept making movies that nobody wanted, with no money, no talent, and actors who were drunk, dying, or both.
And he loved every frame of it. So did I.
The adventures of Edward D. Wood Jr. and his entourage of ‘misfits and dope addicts’ has been a perennial favourite since I first rented it back in ’95. Sure, as a biopic it’s more than a bit apocryphal, but I love this quotable and quirky exploration of the marginal side of 50’s Hollywood. The cast is picture perfect, from Martin Landau’s Oscar winning turn as Lugosi to Max Casella as Paul Marco. And the black and white photography grabs you by the eyelids and keeps you firmly planted in the era. The green and red dresses are the perfect shades of grey.
By the time the credits roll, it hurts to leave that lovely little microcosm of unbridled optimism.
It also holds the distinction of being that rare Burton project without music from our favourite Oingo Boingo frontman, but Howard Shore provides an incredibly evocative Theremin-laced beatnik score. It’s pure magic. Funnily enough, Tim Burton would go on to make his own “bad movie” pastiche with Mars Attacks as his follow-up, clearly his time spent in Ed’s world was well spent.
Ed isn’t the worst film maker of all time, not by a long shot. And in this day and age, it’s a title that’s more or less meaningless as some directors would actually welcome the moniker for notoriety’s sake. A lot of wanna-B movies use schlock for ridicule and big Hollywood train wrecks are usually the result of having too many cooks or too many bloated yes men.
I’ll walk across the room for Jim Wynorski, Fred Olen Ray, J.R. Bookwalter or Frank Henenlotter any day.
And because of Bill Murray, I always pronounce “Sure” as though I’m rejecting Satan and all his evils. -Pop
-( He really does, and that becomes increasingly annoying during arguments – Mom)