Posted by Jan den Breejen on July 27, 2001 at 00:56:15:
Jan's Movie Reviews - Ed Wood (1994)
A biopic of the life and work of the legendary 'worst director of all time', Edward D.Wood, Jr., concentrating on the best-known period of his life in the 1950s, when he made 'Glen or Glenda', 'Bride of the Monster' and 'Plan 9 From Outer Space', and focusing on both his transvestism and his touching friendship with the once great but now ageing and unemployed horror star Bela Lugosi. Wood was very feeling-driven; he made a movie with allmost no rational/logical storyboard, but just started and took 'dramatic' shots, which afterwards he tried to connect into a movie. He's described as 'charming, ebullient, allways a lively person, hapily very busy, doing many things at the same time, ever optimistic, a dynamo' . That was his manic side. The actors didn't see his depressive/melancholic/down periods ('I have failed') in which he was lethargic and alcoholic. He spend his money impulsively so he allways needed to be rescued by friends. The lack of life and movie goals, the impulsive sensation seeking movie shots, the immediate implementation of any crazy idea; the creative 'gung ho'-like experimenting, the idealization of bad idea's and devaluation of good idea's put forward to him by others; his borderline/bi-polar character structure explains his chaotic low budget amateurish, low quality movies very well. He simply aimed to high with too little money and too much pathetical world-improving messages.
Ed Wood must have been as confusing to himself as his movies are to us; no heads or tales to be found. He simply grasped what was handy to implement his brain wave and then quickly stuck it to something else that was available.
Classification: Narcisisstic Personality; he had a grandiose self-perception which didn't correspond with his real performance; he must hav thought that everything he touched somehow changed into golden movie clips. His periods of depression and ecstasy are too long to say he's mainly Mercurial Style (borderline personality depressive episodes are during a short time; max 3 days); on axis-I Ed Wood could have been Manic Depressively disordered
Jan