CINEMA: Justin Pearce=20
THE tombstone inscriptions used as title credits in Ed Wood=20 seemed like a touch of macabre Tim Burton inspiration. In=20 fact, the credit for the credits should go to Ed Wood=20 himself, as is demonstrated by Plan 9 from Outer Space –=20 on for a short run at the Seven Arts — which also starts=20 with tombstone titles. There the likeness between the two=20 films ends. Burton’s camera swoops elegantly from one stone=20 to the next; Wood cuts clumsily between the stones and then=20 finishes the credits with a plain list of names –=20 presumably because he’d run out of film stock.=20
Ed Wood — the film by Tim Burton — is quintessentially=20 Burtonian, as slick and as witty as Batman Returns, as=20 weirdly touching as Edward Scissorhands. Plan 9 from Outer=20 Space — the film by Ed Wood — is quintessentially Wooden:=20 wooden acting, wooden spaceships, wooden gravestones that=20 wobble. =20
It’s a lesson to film students in what happens if you don’t=20 read the chapters on establishing shots and on continuity.=20 However many times you cut from the mourners to the=20 gravediggers, no one is going to believe they’re in the=20 same graveyard unless you put them in the same frame. And=20 when the terrified woman flees from the graveyard at the=20 dead of night and is rescued by a gallant motorist in broad=20 daylight, no one is going to believe the two events are=20 continuous. A decade before Jean-Luc Godard, Wood was=20 deconstructing linear narrative without even trying — and,=20 what’s more, the results are much more fun to watch than=20 Weekend ever was.=20
Ed Wood dwells on Wood’s refusal to re-shoot a scene and=20 his obsession with found footage and recycled sets:=20 practical considerations which he elevated almost to the=20 status of principles. Plan 9 presents the results: a cinema=20 verite of sci-fi fantasy, glitches and all. We can’t help=20 noticing that the battle between the earthlings and the=20 aliens is forged out of stock footage of World War II=20 gunners interspersed with plastic flying saucers. Nor can=20 we fail to see that the chief alien’s office uses the same=20 doorway that we saw in an earthling aeroplane a few minutes=20
Once you’ve seen Plan 9, the character of Ed Wood as played=20 by Johnny Depp takes on a sad dimension. Burton’s film=20 never approaches pathos because its central character has=20 not the slightest notion of his own incompetence. In Plan=20 9, that incompetence is spread magnificently before the=20 eager eyes of the 1990s audience.=20
But the real tragedy of Ed Wood is that he was born 40=20 years too early. Back then in the 1950s people had far too=20 clear a sense of what was good for them — and Wood was=20 consequently a loser. Post-punk and post-grunge, Wood could=20 have been a superstar, and it’s taken Burton’s movie to=20 grant him that accolade posthumously.=20
Plan 9 from Outer Space will be screened at the Seven Arts=20 at 8.30pm on Sunday June 4; on June 5 at 8pm, June 7 at 6pm=20 and June 9 at 6pm=20