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Tim Burton: "Ed Wood"

Tim Burton will soon be in the news for "Dumbo," and I can't wait. Do you know what I sit around hoping for, in this world? I hope for a live-action remake of "Dumbo," with witchy Eva Green doing nefarious things in the shadows. And do you know who is here to supply my "fix"? It's Tim Burton.

One of the greatest things I bought this year was "Ed Wood," by Tim Burton. You can purchase it on Amazon. The opening credits involve spaceships and creatures from black lagoons and tombstones. Eerie high-pitched zombie music plays. You're swept into another world. The protagonist--whom Burton clearly loves--just wants to explore his interests through art. Those interests: outer space, cross-dressing, reviving the dead, squid-monsters. Ed Wood seems not to have talent, or a high level of quality control, but he has zeal. He has a thirst for improvisation. He has a vision, and he will stop at nothing to realize his dreams.

The greatness here is that you're not dealing with a standard biopic: The grand thing Ed Wood wants to achieve is not the end of apartheid, or a fabulous Ray Charles album, or, say, a renegotiation of LBJ's thoughts on race. No, it's "Plan 9 from Outer Space," which looks thoroughly awful.

And yet: A story happens when someone wants something, desperately, and must leap over various hurdles to get the thing desired. That's all you need. And "Ed Wood" has hurdles in spades. Mr. Wood doesn't have any money, so he agrees to cast a woman he (wrongly) believes is wealthy in the lead role (quid pro quo). This means enraging another woman--Wood's girlfriend, a terrible actress, and someone not drawn to self-reflection, wonderfully embodied by Sarah Jessica Parker--and actually saying goodbye to romance (at least for a while). Ed Wood recruits a genius--Bela Lugosi--to be in the film, but Lugosi's depression and his drug addiction create additional problems. (The mutual love between Wood and Lugosi is stunning--you can't make this stuff up--and even if "Ed Wood" had nothing else to offer, it would be memorable because of the chemistry between Johnny Depp and Oscar-winner Martin Landau.)

Burton brings the action to a fun, inevitable, ironic climax: He dreams up a meeting between Ed Wood and Orson Welles. It's not clear that these two ever did meet--though I guess it's not implausible, Hollywood being Hollywood--but veracity doesn't actually matter here. Whether or not Wood met Welles, we can imagine Wood "speaking to Welles" in his imagination. This is how young artists operate: They are in communion with the older artists they admire, even if only via imaginative reading, imaginative film-viewing.

Wood draws strength from Welles because he learns the problems he faces--bossy producers, erratic actors--are the problems all artists face. Not one us knows what he (or she) is doing. Knowing that he swims in the same sea of confusion that Welles swims in: This is what pushes Wood forward.

My sense is that people watch "Plan 9" now *because of* its badness. The wildness and implausibility and bizarre pacing: These things become their own form of art. Wood, an original, invents a new thing, a new genre. Burton's message: Who cares if you find fans in your own lifetime? Listen to the voice in your head, and have a good time, and you never know what kind of legacy you'll leave.

My fondness for Burton is matched by my fondness for David Fincher--and specifically for "Zodiac." Like "Ed Wood," "Zodiac" did not create a major buzz when it came out. Like "Ed Wood," "Zodiac" seems like a deeply personal statement: In depicting Jake Gyllenhaal's character's crazed obsession, Fincher seems to be telling us something about *his own* crazed obsession. A passion for crime-solving, a passion for storytelling: Is one thing really "saner" than another? We do the things we are driven to do. Good--and bad--changes result. You just have to be *you* ....

Anyway, if you're looking for a double-header, I recommend "Ed Wood" and "Zodiac." I can't think of a more inspiring bill-of-fare!

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