Tim Burton's screen image is made up of a series of "geeks": Batman, Catwoman, Penguin, a guy with scissors, a magician who builds a house out of chocolate, a zombie bride ...I guess he made Ed Wood because he saw Ed as belonging to his "freak" family. In his films, Johnny Depp's Wood is a wonderful hybrid of Orson Welles and Forrest Gump, a man born to make movies but who seems a little "mentally retarded". Such people can easily become the laughing stock of people, but Burton's film is not a satire. Wood of Bolton, first and foremost a man with a passion and a dream for movies, has always compared himself to Orson Welles, and his "struggle pattern" is very similar to Welles': at first a Theatrical director (although Wood directed only one bad play that was overwhelmed by critics), then moved into the film industry, writing, directing, acting his own roles, raising his own money as a producer, except for the comparison of his films Outside of the "shanzhai", the two are indeed comparable in their pursuit of movies. There's even a scene where the two meet in a pub, where a frustrated Wood stumbles across Wells, who tells him to "hold on to his ideals."
In the film, instead of laughing at his colleague, Bolton has full respect for him, giving Wood's struggle 100% seriousness, and sympathy for Wood's setbacks and frustrations. It's the respectful sympathy one filmmaker has for another, a sympathy that Burton's handling of one of Wood's co-stars, out-of-date horror star Bella Lecouture. Hollywood is "half angels, half devils", its films often show sympathy for weak and kind characters, and its power and operation process are completely in the hands of a small number of powerful people. One result of this paradox is that movies like Sunset Boulevard take a sympathetic and sardonic attitude toward past stars. "Ed Wood" has no irony at all. Bella is a poor old man whose glory days have long passed, and the rest of the time is half immersed in memories of the past and half paralyzed by drugs. When Wood first saw him, he was buying a coffin for himself. Bella and Marlene Dietrich in "Sunset Boulevard" are indeed very similar in terms of the twilight and bleakness of old age, but the character in Burton's film has to be sympathetic and respectful at the same time. Bella in the film "acts" his lines several times: "Home! I don't have a home! Hunted, despised, living like an animal, the jungle is my home! But I have to show the world... I also Be able to be the master!" With bold words and soulful music, the lines transcend its context and become Bella's own voice.
Fans who have seen "Project Nine" or Wood's other films will certainly have a lot of fun watching this movie. Not only will he see how the "flying saucers" held by the strings in "Project Nine" were made by Wood's girlfriend paint on the cardboard boxes, but he will also see how Wood was trying to make the "best ever" "Poor movie", how many bizarre experiences in the early preparations, and how many twists and turns encountered in the preparation of funds. Many people are puzzled that if Wood is so crazy about the movie, why didn't he make the movie well? Why can others only shoot one or two scenes a day, while he has to shoot five or sixty a day? Why does he almost never remake a scene? His movies are not average, but well below average! But he doesn't care about other people's reactions, he seems to be very satisfied with every movie and every scene he makes. My interpretation of this is that Wood, despite his lack of genius, revels in the films he makes in the same way that a real artist revels in his artwork, he has a real fascination with movies. This kind of madness is between the sacred madness of religion and the madness of art, and it transcends human reason. A sane person who rationally pursues even an idealistic goal, if he later finds out he has no talent, will probably say, as a character in Bergman's "Night of the Clowns" says, "You think you're doing the right thing. Do something, and do it, and you'll find out you're doing a stupid thing." Wood would never say that. Maybe God intended to make him a truly great artist, so he endowed him with ecstasy that ordinary people don't have, but then something went wrong and forgot to inject "genius" into him, so we have us Ed Wood Jr. today.
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