Perkal- Sleepy Hollow

The movie and story of Sleepy Hollow were both very dark and share similar plots with some striking changes.  In the story of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving, Ichabod Crane is a teacher who hangs out with old ladies and tells ghost stories, while in the movie he is hired to help save the community from the headless horseman.  In the story, people who came to Sleepy Hollow became sleepy, which made them dreamy and loopy, which does not occur in the movie.  In the movie, Katrina is immediately attracted to Ichabod because he is not the typical man she is used to seeing in her town and she is blindfolded when she first meets him.  In both plots, Ichabod is seen as superstitious and intelligent, which I think were important factors that needed to be kept in the movie.  Ichabod in the movie does not believe that there is a headless horseman until he sees him for himself.  He thought in the beginning there was a rational explanation for this nonsense.  Another similarity between the story and movie is the importance of the witchcraft book.  The Witchcraft book was seen as the most important book in Ichabod’s life and when he was shot it made a hole right through the book.

The way that Tim Burton took Irving’s version of Sleepy Hollow, I think he wanted to do something more with Irving’s story and give an underlying meaning to it.  In all of Tim Burton’s works, he always adds his own opinions to them and makes sure that they show his way of life and how he feels about the topics, such as alienation, adaptation, and darkness.  We see the recurring theme of a house on a hill in Sleepy Hollow, which we also see in Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice.  I think that Tim Burton wanted to keep most of what Irving did, but add his personal attributions to the story, which is why we see the house on the hill and the outcasts in society.  Ichabod Crane would be the outcasts in this community because he is not the typical resident in this area of town, but he was called into help keep people safe from the headless horseman who was being controlled by a lady with his head.  Tim Burton does a good job of combining Irving’s story and his movie to make it similar, but not exactly the same.