by Louis Williams

Created on: July 30, 2010

ED WOOD

At one point in Ed Wood, Ed, in drag, in a bar, looks over and sees Orson Welles alone at a table and joins him. I have no idea whether this meeting ever took place, but it is a wonderful moment: the creators of Citizen Kane and Plan 9 From Outer Space have a drink together. That is, one of the anointed geniuses of Hollywood and the creator of the worst movie of all time for a few moments occupy nearly the same space. What Welles tells Wood is to follow his dream and be true to himself artistically. Wood leaves the meeting inspired and confirmed and the result is Plan 9, a genuine classic of bad film making. The perfect double bill, in fact, would be Plan 9 and Citizen Kane, the one so good it’s bad, the other so bad it’s good.

Ed Wood, for its part, is very well done. If it resembles any earlier movie it might be Hearts of the West, which dealt with a not terribly bright young man determined to write cowboy scripts for Hollywood and totally oblivious to the triteness and banality of every idea he has. The title character of Ed Wood is the same. He never had a good idea in his life and completely missed the fact that he hadn’t. He is utterly in love with film making—that is, he is utterly in love with the process of film making—so in love that the idea of quality never crosses his mind. He is either supremely egotistic, or supremely oblivious, quite possibly both. Once he says “action” the result has to be good, so good that one take is all he ever needs.

True, Ed always lives in the sub-basement of Poverty Row. He doesn’t have the luxury of budgets that would allow many takes, but even so he regularly turns out movies in four days. He expects and wants to do this. Speed is one form his sense of artistry takes. He has never heard of a second draft. He has never heard—and would reject if he did—the idea that time and thought make for depth, that even mediocre art is art meditated. He is, in other words, supremely, impenetrably innocent, so in love with Film, that he can’t see that his films are junk.

But there is more: Ed Wood is a transvestite and a magnet for those who have made their names out of appearing unusual. His transvestitism is no secret, that is, he makes it no secret. He regularly drags up and gives the matter no thought, no matter how much his cross dressing may shock others. He regularly, too, accepts the—what is the polite term these days?—scenically impaired?—Vampira,

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