SYNOPSIS: Ed Wood is a dreamer. He dreams of making feature films, having his name in lights and, for all intents and purposes, being the equal of Orson Welles. The problems with Ed are many: he doesn’t necessarily have the talent to be a director, producer, writer or actor; he has an outmoded and outdated sense of loyalty to the aged horror icon Bela Lugosi; and, oh yeah, almost forgot…he’s a cross-dresser. In particular, he likes to wear his girlfriend’s pink angora sweater, pumps, a wig and a skirt. He gets dressed up in his apartment and on the set. But then he learns of a gender swapping movie being made in a no-name studio and throws his hat into the ring for the writer and director roles. Soon, he finds himself in the spotlight.
ANALYIS: This is the fourth collaboration between director/producer Tim Burton and actor Johnny Depp (Edward Scissorhands, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride) and it is undoubtedly the most bizarre. Ed Wood was a real person, a real director, a real cross-dresser, a real friend of Bela Lugosi and, as history would have us believe, a real, real, real, REALLY bad director. In fact, the end of Ed Wood is devoted to the production of his most famous (and probably worst) movie, Plan 9 From Outer Space. But we’re getting way ahead of ourselves.
At its core, Ed Wood is about a man who desperately fancies himself as one thing and never quite gets the reality that he’s not good enough to be that thing. It would be like me trying to get onto an NBA team, finally making it and then pretending I’m the second coming of Michael Jordan. The difference between the two of us is that I know I’m not good; Ed has no concept that he has failed at anything. He finds the silver lining in every single critique, especially the play the movie opens with. The reviewer praises the realistic costumes; Ed seizes on and expounds on that, saying the reviewer found the play realistic. That’s the kind of mentality playing in this film.
While the movie is about reality vs. fantasy, it’s also about stock themes such as loyalty, hard work and trying to get ahead in the world. When Wood meets Lugosi, his idol, they immediately form a friendship. Lugosi has been out of work for years and is addicted to a range of drugs. Unfortunately, he also has no money left. So he becomes the new leading man for Ed Wood’s decidedly sub-B pictures. Its obvious Lugosi isn’t up to the strenuous work load, but he gamely carries on, fighting a fake squid on top of the water on a cold night or playing Mad Scientist #1,002,954. It would stand to reason that Dracula himself would become a mentor to Ed, telling him when to tighten the script or when something really doesn’t work. But he doesn’t. He reads the lines, does the actions and is complicit in production. It is his fault as much as Ed’s that the movies do not work.
Ed’s biggest fault as a director is that he makes too many compromises along the way. In order to finance Plan 9, he and his friends are all baptized by Baptists. In order to secure funding for an earlier movie, he bounces his leading girl girlfriend from the picture for what he perceives is a wealthy young girl. He tries every trick he can think of to get people to watch and fund his pictures. He begs an Elvira wanna-be to talk to some potential backers. He comes out as a cross-dresser for this first film. In short, this obsession with being Orson Welles overtakes him to the point that he overlooks even the most glaring errors in production: fake dirt, an actor walking into a door, flubbed lines…the whole nine yards. However, when you’re working with no budget, you really can’t go back for re-shoots or coverage, so he presses on.
Johnny Depp, who is quickly making a career out of playing eccentric types, plays Ed Wood and there’s no denying that Burton directed him to go so far over the top, to chew the scenery, to act like this movie was the last thing he would ever make. We can see the fact he delights in the role in every frame and relishes the chance to play such a colorful man. Legend Martin Landau portrays Lugosi and won an Oscar for his work (deservedly so). It’s never easy portraying a real person, let alone someone everybody knows from a film like Dracula. He too eats up everything around him while having a softer, more gentle side. The rest of the cast is filled out by name actors like Sarah Jessica Parker, Vincent D’Onofrio, Bill Murray and Patricia Arquette. There’s not a weak link among them.
Yes, Ed Wood is promoted as a comedy of sorts and there are funny moments. But, at its heart, the film is about never quite reaching your dreams no matter how hard you try. Ultimately, it’s heartbreaking that Wood never got the acclaim he so desperately wanted.