Tim Burton's best film ?

Rating: 9/10 (17 June 2002)

With this film, Tim Burton planned to tell us the life of the worst director in the world ever. His name was Ed Wood and he lived in the fifties. We learn that Ed Wood loves wearing angora pullovers and women clothes. He also loves being dressed up as a woman and above all he's fond of the actor Bela Lugosi and his horror films. When Wood's meeting him for the first time, he's so elated that he wants him to play on his poor films. On the other hand, Burton show us the way Ed Wood used to make his films and we can say that they were very eccentric: for example a wholesaler in meat accepted to produce one of his films "Bride of the Monster" and the special effects are ridiculous: in the worst film ever made "Plan 9 from outer space" (even the title doesn't mean anything), flying saucer are made of cardboard. Then, in the last years of his life, Wood was living in poverty, took a lot of alcohol and finally died in 1978 at the age of 54 years old.
This film is very successful because Burton attempts to reconstruct Ed Wood's life as precisely as possible and Johnny Depp is very convincing in the role of this fascinating man so Burton succeeded in his plan. Of course Wood's films are the worst films ever made but he thought that he was making masterpieces just like Orson Welles! I found it both funny and extraordinary. But the film is worth being watched thanks also to Martin Landau who is very good in his Bela Lugosi role; thanks to his performance, he won an oscar for the supporting role. The other actors like Bill Murray or Patricia Arquette are very well used Moreover, the film alternates comic moments, especially when Wood is making his films, and tragic moments such as Lugosi's funerals. At last not only made Burton a masterpiece but he also paid a tribute to Z films.