'Edward Scissorhand Review'
The title of this film is ‘Edward Scissorhands’ and it was directed by Tim Burton. It was made by 20th Century Fox on the 7th of December in 1990. The genre is quite complicated as it could fit into quite a lot of different genres. The genre is a dark comedy/gothic/romance. It cost $20 million to make it and they got a profit of $60 million.
When a middle aged saleswoman called Peg Boggs (Dianne Wiest) visits the mansion on the hill due to business, she doesn’t realise this would be a big mistake. When she finds Edward (Johnny Depp), a naive, quiet and surreal invention, she takes him into her home, unaware of the trouble he would later cause from plain misunderstanding of the world.
This is set in the past in the 1950s and we can guess because of the way they are dressed. It starts and finishes with a grandmother telling her granddaughter the story of Edward in modern day. The story of this film isn’t realistic and is fantasy but it doesn’t matter because they are not trying to tell a real story, they are trying to tell a fairytale to teach people lessons. An example of this is when Peg finds Edward up in the castle and takes him home with her instantly. It isn’t realistic to take someone you’ve just met home that instant, but the moral is to think before you act.
There are many different stock characters in this film. Edward is the main character who is naive and is a vulnerable target. He looks different to other people so therefore people judge and bully him. Peg is a strange but kind person. She is motherly and caring but can go over the top sometimes. For example, she is always asking Edward to cut her hair for her even though it was already short. Kim is Peg’s daughter and Edward is in love with her. She is your typical heroine who Edward ends up with. She is a beautiful teenager who is growing up and learning about the world but she usually goes with her boyfriend Jim who leads her into trouble.
Jim is an aggressive and manipulative teenager who is Kim’s boyfriend for about half of the film. An example of him being manipulative is that he gets Edward to open the door to his house and then Edward ends up in trouble for stealing. The inventor is the spooky, mysterious and eccentric old man who created Edward but never lived to finish him off. The grandmother at the start and end (Kim) is old, slow and caring. When she is telling the story she is sitting down and dressed in the same way as in the story but it is modern day.
This film is about the Boggs’ family life and how they cope when an obstacle threatens to cause them to fall apart. It’s about how they deal with Edward when he comes into their family. It’s also about teenagers growing up, facing the world and entering and exiting relationships. Kim is going out with Jim but then she dumps him because she has realised just because he is good looking doesn’t mean he is going to be a nice person inside. He is always putting pressure on her to do things. Kim needs to think for herself and this is what it teaches you.
This film also teaches us to ‘live and let live’. This means to live your life but not to get in the way of others and to try to make them feel as if they can’t be themselves. Jim bullies Edward about the way he is and it is as if he is telling Edward to go back up to the mansion where he came from.
Tim Burton is the director of this film. He is an American film director, producer and writer. He mainly does dark and quirky films. Other films he has been associated with are Corpse Bride, Batman, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland and many more. He has been known to work with Johnny Depp and Danny Elfman who has composed the music in most of his films.
Burton has used many techniques for this film. This includes lighting, costumes, setting and props. These all fit into ‘Mise-en-scene’. Natural lighting is light that is there anyway. There is natural lighting in the castle because it is night time and this is to create a spooky atmosphere. Artificial lighting is light created by humans. There is artificial lighting in the house which is lighting the room. The director chose the darkness to fit into the film because it is a dark film. This film is similar to Frankenstein because a different thing is invented and loses its creator.
Tim Burton has purposefully made this film weird because it is supposed to bring a different and new type of film to the audience. However, it makes it look awful. This is because it is totally ridiculous for every time a mouse squeaks tons of women run on to a lawn and start blabbering on about something ridiculous. Also, there are colour coordinated cars, a twisted house and a kid in a ridiculously big bed where she is being told a bedtime story. This is one of the worst areas that Tim Burton has tried to make this film effective when it is not.
Props are a slightly better part of the film. There aren’t many props but they are good. An example of the props in this film is the microphone that Edward breaks. He does this because he is in love with Kim and has been asked who his girlfriend is. He feels nervous about speaking into the microphone and breaks. This shows you who he is going to end up loving. Camera shots are used to show us different things in subtle ways. An example is when Peg has just met Edward it does a head shot to show you his messy black hair, his scars and pale face. Edward wears complete black to show he doesn’t fit into the crowd and when he tries to put on a normal shirt and fails it is as if to say that he can’t be a normal person.
Diegetic sound is where both, the audience and the people in the film can hear the sound. Non diegetic sound is where only the audience can hear the sound. An example of diegetic sound is when the radio is playing in the background to show that this is a normal household. When Edward is in the castle and the inventor is about to die there is a low, flowing music to show this is a sad moment and it makes the audience feel quite spooked because it isn’t telling you what is going through the characters’ heads.
This film is aimed at young teenagers. It is probably ten to thirty year olds because it is quite violent and has a few rude references in it. It is rated PG because of these. Equally, it is not an adult’s film because it is mainly children’s comedy.
My personal response is that this film is neutral. It has a few good and exciting moments but they only last for a limited amount of time. I don’t think it isn’t good though. It has a good story line although the ending is poor. This is because it is unexpected in a bad way. Overall I think that this film is quite good. It isn’t worth getting on DVD but you probably should rent it as it is worth seeing once. It could get a bit boring so don’t get too excited about watching it but it is still alright.
