Ed Wood

(1994)

As American independent cinema became its own genre in the nineties, so did the independent meta-movie, which tied the pursuit of an alternative lifestyle to the process of making films in the US outside the studio system. ED WOOD is certainly the best of these. The film places the contemporary wave in a historical context intertwined with the fragmentation of classical Hollywood cinema in the late fifties. It marks out the independent scene as a refuge for marginalized communities and identities, from ethnic minorities to transgender people. As maverick auteur directors emerge from the business and mainstream themselves – a story director Tim Burton knew all too well having just come off two BATMAN pictures – Edward D. Wood Jr. stands as the epitome of the cinema artist whose personal creative agency comes not from critical acclaim, quality, or success, but vision, drive, and inclusivity. For a director that can make stylistic choices which utterly overwhelm a movie, Burton settles on the simplicity of technique befitting the subject. Austere black-and-white cinematography, bare brutalist sets, and a verité look and feel that is the preference here but a by-product of guerrilla filmmaking in origin. Orson Welles appears in an entirely fictionalized encounter with the titular director, but it is also his unorthodox vision of Hollywood cinema that is most at play here, where chiaroscuro lighting meets shadow puppetry and crane shots that appear to leave the backlot and enter the real world. In cinema, there is no bad art, only the uncommitted artist.