Artifice, art, and Edward.

Rating: Null/10 (18 January 2000)

Film students often point out that Tim Burton's work usually contains an autobiographical edge. I don't know very much about Mr. Burton, but it does seem that his most successful films usually involve several key elements -- the somber protagonist more often than not clad in black, at odds with the world around him, in love with an unattainable woman, and passionately devoted to a particular craft. "Batman"'s Michael Keaton, Johnny Depp's Ichabod Crane, and Depp's Edward Scissorhands all share these qualities, but Scissorhands seems to come the closest in not only exploring the psychoses of the main character, but also exploring the line between the artist, his craft, and its audience.
Into the happy world of domesticity comes Edward, a man clad in black leather, with scissors for hands. Standing out amidst the monotony of suburbia, his presence immediately causes a stir among the local townspeople. When Edward begins trimming the gardens, then the hair of the dogs, and finally the hair of the women in town, he goes from certified mystery man/freak to local celebrity, on the basis of a gift he himself does not seem all that impressed with. (He expresses a desire to have normal hands.) His joy comes not from creating, but from seeing the joy creating gives to others. All Edward wants to be is accepted, especially by Kim (Winona Ryder). His art is a means to an end. Through a series of tragedies however, Edward moves from celebrity to has-been to criminal. Eventually forced to flee domestic life, he wreaks havoc on the local townspeople, destroying the work he created and thereby inciting the town to riot. At the end of the film, he is left alone, creating in solitude, designing ice sculptures to the one woman he has loved, and yet can never have.
The film's theme of a misunderstood genius who only wants to be loved is certainly unoriginal. What is interesting is that it is imbibed with meaning by a filmmaker whose own life mirrors that of its protagonist. Burton's quirky early work ("Frankenweenie," "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure", "Beetlejuice") became art-house successes that led to commercial success and paved the way for 1989's "Batman," a critical and commercial blockbuster. Burton never sought the kind of commercial success that "Batman" afforded him, going on record in interviews stating that he preferred more personal statements as opposed to the big franchise success a "Batman" film would give him -- artifice as opposed to art. There was obviously an audience primed and ready for Burton's take on the world, however -- both his Batman films, "Nightmare Before Christmas" and even "Edward Scissorhands" were critical and commercial successes. But, like Edward in the film, it is only a period of time before a misunderstood genius becomes just that -- misunderstood. Thus both Burton's next two films -- "Ed Wood," an homage to the brilliant (or brilliantly insane, take your pick) director, and "Mars Attacks!" -- were commercial duds, the second resoundingly so. The artist had apparently fallen out of favor with the public, refusing to do a third "Batman" film or simply grind out "hits". With "Sleepy Hollow," Burton seems to have regained a measure of the audience's approval without sacrificing his values.
The fear of any filmmaker, or any artist, is the audience's approval, or lack thereof. Any artist who creates for a mass audience relies on that audience to keep him funded, particularly in the film industry, where you are only as good as your last film's box office receipts. Sooner or later, if your films lose money for the studios, you will find yourself without the opportunity to create, and although you could shoot on Super-8 for your family, if you have the drive to express yourself through film, you want people to be exposed to your work. The audience however is frequently blown by opposing and contradictory winds -- what is popular this month is next month's old news. The audience for Edward's work in "Scissorhands" is initially intrigued by his eccentric designs, then turned off by them as new fads come along (Edward asks Meg's brother Kevin to play "rocks scissors paper," to which Kevin replies, "It's boring!"). When a filmmaker dares to put across a piece of personal work, the rejection of the audience is even harder to take -- in the film, Edward cannot detach himself from his hands, they are a part of him -- thus when the townspeople reject his work and begin to regard him as a freak, it is incredibly personal, especially for someone who has only sought approval.
Yet even in this, the film offers hope. As the townspeople begin to turn from Edward, Kim begins to see Edward as more than a freak. She begins to see his heart -- and slowly but steadily falls in love with him. The most tender moment in the film is when she asks him to hold her, and (in a scene that would be comical in any other film, but here plays as tragically as Romeo losing his Juliet) Edward holds up his "hands" and says, "I can't." In a moment of trust, she steps past the hands that people once loved but now revere, and puts her arms around him. What matters is no longer the superficial appreciation of an audience that was never meant to appreciate the work (all they cared about was what it could do for them -- it becomes a sign of status to have hair cut by Edward), but the sincere appreciation of someone who has come behind the work, and loved the man as he is.
If the film is a highly personal statement by Mr. Burton about the art and craft of filmmaking, vs. the business and artifice it can breed, it is a powerful one by a director who (at that time) was a top box-office draw of hope that filmmaking could be personal first and foremost, rather than being just a homogenized piece of entertainment. (The continued success of razzle-dazzle franchises and slam-bang action films must disappoint him.) One however doesn't need to psychoanalyze the film or its director in order to appreciate "Edward Scissorhands" as a sweet, aching, poetic look at love, from the perspective of a young man who, despite his handicap, only wants to be loved the same way as everyone else is.