The Porcupine's Dilemma

Rating: Null/10 (2 July 2012)

"For a community made up of so many freakish outsiders, Hollywood's oddly conservative." - Tim Burton
Tim Burton directs "Edward Scissorhands". The film stars the chameleonic Johnny Depp as Edward, an odd man-child who was created in a spooky castle by an elderly inventor, played by horror maestro Vincent Price (in what would become his last film role). Edward's based on Burton's own life as an angst-filled loner growing up in Burbank California. Misperceived, ostracised and constantly brooding, he created Edward as a teenager, the character's scissor hands (he's literally unable to get close to anyone) emblematic of Burton's feelings of isolation, his inability to connect with others, and the misconception others placed upon him. Cute.
Burton worked with Price earlier on "Vincent", and clearly adores the actor, or rather, what the actor is associated with; expressionism, classic B movies, early horror films etc. "Edward Scissorhands", with its popcorn Gothicism, Expressionism and Surrealism (Lang, Murnau and most of all Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer, are huge influences on Burton), itself borrows liberally from "Frankenstein", "Beauty and the Beast", "The Cabinet of Dr Caligari", "Elephant Man", "The Phantom of the Opera" and "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame", and is arguably better than the filmed versions of each. It's an ugly tucking tale, but Burton puts his own spin on things and doesn't overreach; his film stays on the level of a simple children's tale, very whimsical, magical and charming. The film's memorable score is by Danny Elfman, though Burton initially approached Robert Smith of the English Gothic Rock band "The Cure" to do the soundtrack. Edward, and even Burton in real life, strongly looks like Smith. Not so cute.
"Hold me," a character played by actress Winona Ryder whispers. "I cant," Edward cries. The couple spend the film caught in the porcupine's dilemma, someone getting hurt whenever they get close. As is typical of these films (see "Elephant Man" et all), the "townsfolk" and "angry locals" who "bully" our "ugly duckling hero" are ridiculously caricatural. They're a horde of dumb bad guys who, reminiscent of the final scenes in James Whale's "Frankenstein", arbitrarily decide to pick on poor Edward, form a gang and run him out of town. In response Edward, like Quasimodo and The Phantom of the Opera, flees and consigns himself to a tower overlooking regular folk. Ryder's character then spends the rest of her life lost in a lover's lament, missing the scissor man who stole her heart. The film's bookends are magical, Burton's tale offered as an explanation to a sleeping child as to why snow falls from the sky. Snowflakes, we learn, are essentially "the sadness" of our hero, Edward, as he carves ice sculptures from the mountaintops of the love he never had. Coppola would cast Winona Ryder in his "Dracula" film some years later, recognising the similarities in her role here with the classic damsels of horror-tales past.
While Edward is essentially a cyborg, the film portrays him more as a "monster" or "freak". Tod Browning's hugely influential "Freaks" is its granddaddy (also the ancestor of Lynch's "Elephant Man"), as Burton goes to great lengths to draw parallels between suburban life and horror movies. All these films attempt to simultaneously "humanize" the monster whilst revealing the monstrosity of normative, non-disabled society. Edward may be part Frankenstein, part Freddy Kruger, but the townspeople living around him are themselves torn straight out of a John Waters or David Lynch ("Blue Velvet") freak-show, all regular people painted in such a light as to seem grotesque and hideous. Even their surroundings are freakish, "normal" towns and homes exhibiting a plethora of kitschy artifacts (1950s interior decorating and costuming) and garish colour schemes. Burton also goes to lengths to highlight the clockwork routines of the townsfolk; their stifling conformity and machine-like normative lives. Meanwhile, everyone treats Edward's existence as a disability or a correctable medical condition, recommending various doctors or quick-fix solutions to "rectify" his "incomplete state". Unsurprisingly, regular folk only grow to value Edward when he "makes himself a tool" and "starts working" (grooming dogs, trimming hedges, barbecuing, cutting hair). Difference doesn't matter, so long as you conform to homoeconomicus, becoming a functional and productive worker within society.
The film's villains are heavy-handed and its romance rushed, but this is nevertheless one of Burton's better films. It was released in 1990, before Burton became a brand-name, typecast and spokesperson for all that is emo. Today Burton's a bit of a joke; an ageing goth rocker, or freakish blend of Botox and black mascara, marketed as a morbid outsider yet fully ingrained in Hollywood. The whole Goth image doesn't work past 35, Tim.
8.5/10 - Worth two viewings.