In 1980, Edward Davis Wood Jr. was posthumously awarded the title of “Worst Director of All Time”. This film is his story; a love letter to him.
Stage director Ed Wood is trying to break into the film industry. He learns that producer George Weiss is shooting a film about Christine Jorgensen (a transgender woman) and asks to direct, stating he is singularly qualified—you see, Ed enjoys cross-dressing. Coincidentally, Ed meets Bela Lugosi (the famous “Dracula” actor, now ‘washed up’ and hooked on drugs) and convinces him to play a role, giving Wood enough credibility to direct. When Weiss can’t get the rights to Jorgensen’s story, Wood writes the film about himself and “Glen or Glenda” is made. Wood then tries to independently write-direct-produce his next film, just like his hero Orson Wells. Wood assembles a ragtag bunch of characters around him to make the film. But, we watch as his vision gets continually chipped away by financiers, budget or time limitations, technical difficulties, challenges with actors, personal struggles, and Ed’s own naiveté about filmmaking. A heartbreaking story emerges about a man befriending his hero (Lugosi) at his most downtrodden, the uphill battle and pitfalls of producing art, and the way we resent and lean into the the labels and boxes that are placed around us.
Like most Tim Burton films (I'd argue), Ed Wood is not perfect, but has just enough of the right stuff for me to love it. The first of which was Martin Landau’s transcendent performance as Bela Lugosi. Between his amazing portrayal and Rick Baker’s prosthetic makeup, I was entranced and heartbroken. Howard Shore’s choice to score Lugosi with a Swan Lake motif (used in the opening titles of Dracula) lent itself to this weighty, authentic sadness (I love Elfman, but I don’t suspect he would have made that choice). The rest of the ensemble cast lovingly carried the responsibility of depicting B-Movie icons. The movie was surprisingly more grounded than previous Burton flicks but still retained a trademark dollop of style. There were ways the film dragged and Johnny Depp’s Wood began to blend with his Willie Wonka in unsettling ways, but I generally stayed engaged.
This film, made Burton at an arguably positive plateau in his career, makes a daring statement about how much credit any one person can be given regarding the failure—or success, for that matter—of a film. This is driven by a wonderful, climactic scene in which Wood meets his hero, Orson Wells, at Musso & Frank. Though Vincent D’Onofrio’s miming and Maurice LaMarche’s “The Brain” voice were imperfectly melded, the likeness was convincing enough to carry the dream-like meeting between two opposites who share a kindred spirit and struggle. Certainly, anyone who tries to tell their truth is a self-realized artist. And anyone who tries to live their truth is a self-realized person.