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Just saw Bride of the Monster last night, and got reminded of how much I like Ed Wood. Most b-movies just aren't bad in that particularly enthusiastic way. I love the secretary with the pencil behind her ear that appears and disappears at random, the guy shooting at the stock footage of the crocodile, Bela Lugosi's dead-sincere overacting, and oh, the rubber octopus! The octopus getting hit by lightning and exploding into a mushroom cloud has got to be one of the silliest and best scenes of all time.
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Buffalo
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Re: Ed Wood
Wed, November 10, 2004 - 7:57 AMIn BOTM, I think Eddie was trying for a parody version of all those old grade-Z movies Bela did for Monogram back in the 40s. Just compare it to "The Ape Man" or "The Corpse Vanishes" and Wood's masterpiece doesn't look half bad.
This is, of course, a minority view... -
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Re: Ed Wood
Wed, November 10, 2004 - 11:50 AM
From the other Ed Wood films I've seen I don't think Eddie was was capable of parody; it seemed he truly believed in the sanctity of each of the films he was involved in. Although he had a sense of humor in real life Eddie made BOTM in the same vein as any of his other films. -
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Re: Ed Wood
Wed, November 10, 2004 - 12:16 PMI have to agree--Wood's craft is too ineptly loving to be convincingly parodic.
On the other hand, he was cynical enough to end up making some fairly skanky porn movies. -
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Re: Ed Wood
Wed, November 10, 2004 - 1:47 PMLest we forget, Eddie attended Northwestern U. in an era when not just anybody could get in. He was also an admirer of Joyce and Proust, as well as cheap SF and cowboy movies. So much for the "Ed-as-lovable-boob" theory.
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Re: Ed Wood
Thu, November 11, 2004 - 11:29 AMThere's a piece missing in that argument, Rockstar. Could you clarify?
It doesn't follow that because Ed Wood had some education and admired verbose modernists that his movies were parodies of even worse movies. Arguably modernist literature is innately ironic and a college education requires the cultivation of a critical distance. But that doesn't mean that educated people who acquire the skills of critical analysis apply them in all situations. Nor does filmmaking directly relate to literary study (although it can).
Parodies are generally ironic. Contemporary enthusiasts of b-movies enjoy them ironically--from a mocking distance.
Most people I know watch Ed Wood films from a mocking distance, but I don't see any evidence--in his earlier, non porny movies anyway--that he approached his craft with that sort of distance. That's precisely the charm of them: there's such a sincere affection for his monsters, his effects, his goofy excess. -
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Re: Ed Wood
Thu, November 11, 2004 - 3:16 PMi agree. I don't see any calculation on the part of ed wood in any of his films really. He really seems sincere in all his ineptness.
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Re: Ed Wood
Thu, November 11, 2004 - 3:28 PM"That's precisely the charm of them: there's such a sincere affection for his monsters, his effects, his goofy excess."
Plow through Rudolph Grey's "Nightmare Of Ecstasy" (the standard bio of Wood) and you simply won't find a big lovable goof who loves monsters. You have him confused with Fred Olen Ray.
Instead, you find a slick fellow of immense charm and very few (but solid) gifts as a commerical filmmaker. Stuck on (and with) cowboys and monsters, he made intensely personal, intensely clumsy films that are still compelling to look at precisely because no one REALLY knows what is art or accident about them.
The habit of irony and distance, once cultivated, is hard to break. In an artist, especially, they become part of how (s)he sees the world. Eddie loved Bela and Buck Jones movies and wanted to make his own childlike, overdrawn versions of them. In a man as intelligent and well-read as Eddie, it's a bit of a stretch to say that intent ISN'T a possibility, even in his dumbest moments.
Of course, this idea kills some of the enjoyment contemporary audiences get from watching a boob flail around hopelessly. For me and others, the idea that Ed might be having a laugh at our expense is delightful. -
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Re: Ed Wood
Thu, November 11, 2004 - 4:35 PMI dont think it would kill any enjoyment on my part. John waters early films are pruposely over acted and while they look like they had no script most of them did and John knew exactly how he wanted it to sound. Theater of the absurb and all being an influence on them all. Now knowing that does not detract from those films for me at all. I still love them cuz they are hillariously satirical.
I think though watching films like plan 9 and bride of the moster and glen or glenda you can't say he was going for some kind of lynchian satire. I don't think people laugh at him or his movies cuz he was lovable boob either but becuase the films are so inept they are just plain funny. I like Ed wood dumb or not becuase of his sincerity in what he was making. I don't think He was making fun of anything in his films but that he took them very seriously. I think there is a charm in that but lets say he was completely aware of his limits and was doing some kind of parody with the limited budget he had. Where is the parody and what on earth was he being satrical about? I can't find any hint of German exprestionalist horror in there or bitting stabs at early hollwood horror either. I find his films to be the sincere effort of a smart of dumb man( i could care less honestly)who had no budget but alot of faith in what he was doing. But thats my two cents now rip me apart hehehe -
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Re: Ed Wood
Thu, November 11, 2004 - 5:04 PMI think we're all violently agreeing, really.
Sincerity does not equal boobishness, lovable or otherwise (though I could see how somebody from LA would equate the two, she said, ducking).
I'm not sure anybody regards Wood as merely a joke anymore: director of the worst films ever made, layer of the goldenist turkeys, etc. Tim Burton gave us a very different frame of reference, and MST3K's foisting of 'Manos,' The Hands of Fate upon the world has effectively dislodged Plan 9's reputation. (and I think Manos isn't half bad either).
I wonder how much Tim Burton has colored my perceptions. But I can't, for instance, see Wood as having the heart to mock poor old Bela, who is overacting his grand and creaky heart out in Bride of the Monster. And part of the pathos is the spectacle of somebody with his unassailable dignity gamely grappling with a rubber octopus.
But who's to say what's sincere about anything Hollywood. They were all, after all, professionals at producing emotion on demand.
Forget about it Jake. It's Chinatown.
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Although
Thu, November 11, 2004 - 5:30 PMJust to clarify, I see that you're also making a more complex point, RS--especially about Wood loving Bela. Just still not clear how somebody could love somebody or something and want to make cartoons of them at the same time. Well, ok, yes I am. Tarantino does it alla time. But that's also a more contemporary sensibility.
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Re: Although
Thu, November 11, 2004 - 8:56 PM"Sincerity does not equal boobishness, lovable or otherwise (though I could see how somebody from LA would equate the two, she said, ducking)."
Shannon, as anyone here can tell you, sincerity is the easiest thing in the world to fake.
From all accounts, Eddie loved and admired Bela deeply and Bela totally dug on Wood's eccentricities and marveled at his speed as a filmmaker. That doesn't mean "Bride of the Monster" can't be a cartoon or that Bela wasn't in on the joke. Lugosi actually MADE all those dumb old movies Wood was trying to duplicate. Again, check out "The Devil Bat," "The Ape Man" or "The Corpse Vanishes" for the proof. BOTM is slicker, funnier and even further over the top.
And so, given its self-imposed limitations, succeeds as art. As weird as that sounds.
"Just still not clear how somebody could love somebody or something and want to make cartoons of them at the same time."
If you were a cartoonist, you'd do it compulsively. That Ed Wood made cartoon movies is pretty much beyond dispute.
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Re: Although
Sun, February 20, 2005 - 5:37 PMI am a devoted Edwood fan from way back. I agree with this thread. I know people who are like Ed Wood. They are charismatic con men -dreamers. They have a dim sense that they cannot deliver the grand product they are selling but their vision is sincere.
I know Eddie didn't see himself thius way..but I like to think of him as a performance artist..his mania and his "Throw-it-all-in -the -cauldron-and- stir" filmmaking method are truly unique. No one could ever reproduce an Ed Wood.
It's not just the finished product we love, it's the whole package: conning his backers, conning distributers, conning his actors, stealing props, improvising scripts, one-take scenes, anacronisms and in spite of all the Jerry Rigging, he always felt he had made great art.
I've never seen his porn movies, but I get the feeling that he probably felt that those were more art than erotica. One does get the idea that he was very (oddly) sexual, but even his transvestism had an innocent aura about it.
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