Martinez- Ed Wood

Tim Burton’s fascination with Ed Wood comes from how he admired him as a filmmaker. His admiration and fascination of him did not come directly from loving Wood’s movies, but from the passion that Wood had for making movies. Burton sees himself in Wood because like him, Wood was an outsider- no one wanted to fund his movies and no one appreciated his work like he wanted them to. At the beginning of the film, Ed Wood, the credits are written on gravestones and the camera is moving through a graveyard filled with lifeless plants. Burton is paying homage to Wood here because Wood starts Plan 9 from Outer Space in a similar way. He also has credits on gravestones. The music in the background as these credits are going on is a tribute to Wood as well. The music sounds spooky and has a sci-fi feel to it. Ed Wood was fascinated with sci-fi and horror. This goes on to my next point. As well as the credits on the gravestones at the beginning of the film, Burton shows some UFO looking objects flying through the screen. Again, this is reference to Wood’s love of sci-fi and anything from outer space. Even though Wood’s movies may have not been well received, he was passionate for what he loved and he was willing to do anything to carry out his vision in his head. This is significant because even though there was not a large audience that had an appreciation for these kinds of films, Wood was not concerned with feeding the audience more of the kinds of films they like to see; he wanted to do make movies that were not being made by other filmmakers. Wood struggled to rack up funds to support his films- movies do not come cheap. Despite his financial struggles, Wood did what he could with what little he had in order to make his movies. Burton shows this is in the film as he uses cheesy movie sets in the scenes where Wood is trying to make his movies. The cheesiness of these sets stirs up sympathy within the audience. It makes the audience realize how important filmmaking was to Wood. He did not let anything get in the way of his dreams. Even though he did not have much, he made it work for him and his cast. Burton’s fascination and respect for Ed Wood is shown in the way he depicts him as a hard working and passionate filmmaker who was devoted to carrying out his dreams. Burton’s connection to Wood comes from the fact that even though Wood was rejected by many people, he still managed to do what he loved-making films.