Tuesday 8 September 2009

Edward Scissorhands



This had long been one of those films that everyone talked about but I had never seen; and so I decided I would finally watch it. I now know why it is such a talked about film, despite being released in 1990 and I think it is without a doubt because of Tim Burton being such a fascinating director. Edward Scissorhands is a comedy/drama/fantasy/love film that tells a story of an artificial man named Edward who was an unfinished creation with hands made of scissors. Tim Burton was inspired to make this film because of his own childhood upbringing in suburban Burbank in California. He wrote this story as a reflection of himself as an outsider to the generic and conformed lifestyle that was suburban living and wanted to portray his isolation and inability to communicate with people as a child through his work in film. I think it was the fact that the story was so personal to Tim Burton that led him to be so passionate and therefore so successful in creating this film.
It was during the time that Burton was producing Beetlejuice that he hired Caroline Thompson to adapt his story into a screenplay and the fact that they worked so well together in creating Burton's vision meant that every detail was planned considerably. Burton is said to have been influenced by The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and Frankenstein (1931).
What i find most interesting about this film is the set. I think that it was so well planned and thought out and really adds so much to the message that Burton is trying to depict. Burton once described Suburbia as "not a bad place. Its a weird place" and he said that when creating Edward Scissorhands he "tried to walk the fine line of making it funny and strange without it being judgemental. Its a place where there's a lot of integrity". The juxtaposition of the suburban lifestyle with the remote Gothic Mansion was conveyed exceptionally well through the use of colours, lighting and set design. It made the suburban setting so green and fresh and perfectly generic with the wives in pastel colours and the houses all the same size and shape contrast so drastically to the dark and eery and very bizarre yet also completely unique and wonderful home of Edward in the Gothic Mansion.
I have always found Tim Burton's work inspirational but i really fell in love with this film for so many reasons; the message behind the story, the way that Johnny Depp plays Edward, and the numerous and innovative design methods used to make this film something very special.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq2PPFUhfpo

2 comments:

  1. Sweet film almost did a post on it too! xxx

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  2. I completely agree with you. For one, it was one of those films for me that I had never seen but always heard people talk about. I feel that it really shows Johnny Depp to be the incredible actor that he really is. If you look through out his films, he almost always plays a character dressed up as something, Willy Wonka, Pirates of the Caribbean etc, which shows a lot about his passion for acting, not just as being a good looking man. X

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