His Talent Did Not Match His Ideas

Rating: 10/10 (5 September 2007)

Poor Ed Wood, celebrated only now not for any great work he achieved in life, but for the spectacular mediocrity of his productions. Yet I'd like to think that somewhere in the great beyond Edward Wood, Jr. is pleased at how Tim Burton and Johnny Depp captured the very soul of a man who was born too soon or too late for various points in history.
As a biographer on his page at IMDb correctly points out during the hey day of the Poverty Row studios he could have settled comfortably in a career putting out shlock and making a living at it, had he come along in the Thirties. If Ed Wood were a young man today, he would find acceptance and support for his cross-dressing in a growing movement for transgender rights.
It was his sad misfortune to come of age in the fifties when movies were competing with television and could no longer inflict shlock on the public. He could no longer get work at Monogram or PRC or any of those other minor studios as a hack writer. But Wood was ambitious and like Orson Welles who he idolized he wanted to be a one man creative force.
As a cross-dresser Wood dreamed of a project that could explain his story and the stories of millions of others. He went to battle in several campaigns in the Marines with female undergarments. As Johnny Depp tells us his biggest fear was getting wounded lest his secret be discovered.
In his film Glen or Glenda he tried hard to tell of the duality of his sexual nature. Sad he didn't have the talent to pull it off.
Johnny Depp who made a deliberate career choice of eschewing teenage idol roles which he could have had after 21 Jump Street, notches his best screen performance as Ed Wood. Depp should have gotten at least an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.
One man who did win an Oscar in Ed Wood was Martin Landau who really does make you think you're watching Bela Lugosi. A Lugosi who puts aside the mask of horror he wore on his public face and lets you into his inner sanctum. A broken 70 something narcotic addicted actor who forms a great kinship with Wood because he feels needed and wanted again by somebody. And Wood basks in the attention that a former film star gives him. It's one of the most touching symbiotic relationships ever shown on screen. Landau's Best Supporting Actor was a foregone conclusion.
Long after the action of this film concluded Ed Wood died in 1953 in total obscurity. Johnny Depp and Tim Burton have given his life meaning in this film. As transgender people demand their just due in the public square, I'd like to think that an eighty something Ed Wood would be right in the forefront of things. I myself went to Washington, DC this year and lobbied with a number of transgender folks all over the country for federal hate crimes and anti-discrimination laws as a friend and ally. Ed Wood would be there no doubt in my mind.
I'm willing to bet that he would have been doing a documentary on a subject near and dear to him. And it would have been a subject near and dear and Oscar caliber stuff like his own life story was.