Edward Scissorhands

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edward Scissorhands
Directed by	Tim Burton
Produced by	Denise Di Novi Tim Burton
Written by	Caroline Thompson Tim Burton
Narrated by	None
Starring	Johnny Depp Winona Ryder Dianne Wiest Alan Arkin Anthony Michael Hall Vincent Price
Music by	Danny Elfman
Cinematography	Stefan Czapsky
Editing by	Colleen Halsey Richard Halsey
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	December 7, 1990
Running time	105 min.
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$20,000,000
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Edward Scissorhands is a 1990 film directed by Tim Burton and co-written by Burton and screenwriter Caroline Thompson. It stars Johnny Depp as Edward Scissorhands,Winona Ryder as Kim Boggs, and Dianne Wiest as Peg Boggs. Vincent Price also has a role in the film; his last performance before his death. The film centers Peg Boggs who meets a young, shy, quirky and bizarre looking man named Edward - with hands made of scissors - and adopts him into her own 'typical American' family.

The movie is a fable set in an exaggeratedly stereotypical vision of American suburbia that intentionally combines clichés from both the 1950s and the late 1980s. It also has a central theme of the isolated, misunderstood major character, a theme that recurs in much of Burton's work. Further, many of the motifs and themes of the 1931 film Frankenstein are referenced in Edward Scissorhands.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Production 4 Literary antecedents 4.1 Frankenstein 4.2 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 4.3 Beauty and the Beast & The Phantom of the Opera 4.4 Struwwelpeter 5 Adaptations and memorabilia 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Plot

When the neighborhood Avon lady, Peg Boggs, fails to make any profits in her neighborhood, she goes to the creepy castle on the hill and meets Edward. Edward is an artificial man whose inventor died before being able to put hands on his creation. Instead Edward has many long metal scissor-blades for hands. Touched by Edward's loneliness, Peg brings him home to her family; Edward thus must adjust to life in the suburbs. He falls in love with Peg's daughter Kim, who is frightened by Edward at first, but grows to love him while everybody else in the neighborhood grows to distrust him because of his dangerous condition, especially her jealous boyfriend Jim, with whom she breaks up after he abandons Edward when they are almost caught stealing from Jim's own father. Edward only stole because Kim told him to.

During his time in the suburbs Edward's childlike innocence is highlighted frequently. In one scene, Kim's father (Peg's husband) quizzes Edward about what to do if he finds a briefcase full of money. Edward, not thinking about where the money came from or realizing it might have an owner, selflessly declares that he would buy nice things for all his loved ones. This is seen as moral degeneracy by Kim's very conventionally minded father, who proceeds to give Edward a lecture and set of moral rules to memorize and follow. Later, he escapes, seeming quite confused and shaken, from a seduction attempt by the town's gossip. It is just this naivety that allows Jim to convince Edward that he is helping when they break into Jim's father's highly secured room which contains his precious possessions, and leads to his being the only one caught (while the others escape Edward is locked in by the security system and must wait for the police).

The film climaxes in the attic of Edward's castle; Jim tries to shoot and kill Edward, but Kim grabs the gun still in Jim's hands and it is fired into the air, bringing part of the roof down on Edward. Jim then begins to beat Edward in the back with a long metal rod and Kim once again comes to Edward's aid. Jim hits Kim and kicks her off, sending her flying. This enrages Edward, who stabs Jim in the stomach, pushing him toward a window. He then pulls his hands from Jim, sending Jim falling to his death. Kim manages to keep the townspeople out of the castle by telling them the roof fell in the attic and killed Edward. To prove this she holds up another scissor-hand she took from the laboratory.

Even though Kim and Edward go their separate ways, a love remains between them. The film begins and ends with an elderly Kim telling her granddaughter the story of Edward Scissorhands. When the girl asks her grandma how she knows Edward is still alive in the castle, the elderly woman answers, "Before he came down here, it never snowed, and afterwards it did. If he weren't up there now, I don't think it would be snowing. Sometimes you can still catch me dancing in it." Then comes a scene in which Edward, who has not aged at all, is making ice sculptures from the attic of his castle which is filled with other beautiful sculptures. The ice that is being chipped off to give the shape to the sculpture is the source of the snowflakes falling on the town. The story ends with a young-again Kim joyfully twirling in the snowflakes.

[edit] Cast

• Johnny Depp as Edward Scissorhands
• Winona Ryder as Kim Boggs
• Dianne Wiest as Peg Boggs
• Anthony Michael Hall as Jim
• Kathy Baker as Joyce
• Robert Oliveri as Kevin Boggs
• Vincent Price as Edward's inventor
• Alan Arkin as Bill Boggs
• Conchata Ferrell as Helen

[edit] Production

The genesis of Edward Scissorhands came from a childhood drawing of director Tim Burton, which reflected his feelings of isolation and being unable to communicate. After making Batman, he found that Warner Bros. unreceptive to the idea, but 20th Century Fox were interested. He hired Caroline Thompson to write the screenplay, having been impressed by her short story First Born, about an abortion that comes back to life.^[1]

Tom Cruise was initially interested in playing the lead role.^[2] In 1989, Johnny Depp read the script and "wept like a newborn". Meeting Burton and producer Denise Di Novi in Los Angeles, California, he and Burton got on very well. A few weeks later Burton hired Depp in the role.^[3]

The casting of Vincent Price was done as an homage to the actor who's movie were an influence of Tim Burton and as returning a favour for Price providing the narration of Vincent.

[edit] Literary antecedents

[edit] Frankenstein

The plot of Edward Scissorhands bears resemblances to Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein, in as much as Edward is an artificially created man; however, such similarities to the novel are limited.

For example, both Edward and Frankenstein's monster are "monstrous", yet Edward's Creator adored him and wished to give him all he desired. This stands in contrast to the case of Shelley's Frankenstein in which the creator abandoned, despised, and hated his creature.

Instead, the film bears closer similarities to later adaptations of the original Frankenstein story. In particular, Edward's appearance, with black clothing, shambling, almost mechanical gait, and pale, scarred face, resembles that of the Frankenstein monster in the 1954 Hammer Films version. Additionally, the plot roughly follows that of the 1931 motion picture Frankenstein in that Edward, a creature without malice or knowledge of deception, is naïve to the selfish, malicious, deceitful, and fearful nature of his human hosts. As a result, Edward's innocent mistakes are interpreted as malicious acts by the people of the neighborhood leading to his ultimate downfall in which those who Edward had trusted and loved reveal their underlying fear and misunderstanding along with their selfish motivations for befriending him (such as availing themselves of his artistic abilities).

As well, the final scene involving the confrontation with townspeople at Edward's castle is undeniably an homage to the original 1931 Frankenstein.

In the book, Frankenstein, the monster's maker pursues his creation into the arctic wastes of snow and ice to an unstated and therefore ambiguous end, which is echoed in Edward's retreat to his father's house, where he works ice into snow, presumably forever.

[edit] The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

The appearance of Edward resembles that of Cesare from the 1920 movie The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

[edit] Beauty and the Beast & The Phantom of the Opera

Similarities and common plot developments are also seen between Edward Scissorhands and the classic story Beauty and the Beast; in both, a misunderstood and visually frightening (but nonetheless emotionally sensitive) "beast" earns the affection of the lead female character (in these cases also an ingénue) while becoming the object of the townspeople's derision and hatred. From there, it is easy to find a parallel between Edward Scissorhands and Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical version of The Phantom of the Opera. Though Erik the Phantom is a considerably less benign character than Edward, the climax of Edward Scissorhands, in which Kim breaks a scissored implement from one of the inventor's machines as proof to the lynch mob of Edward's "death", bears a striking resemblance to the final moments of The Phantom of the Opera, in which the character Meg Giry produces the Phantom's mask when announcing to the assembled mob (and the audience) that the unhappy man is not gone forever, but to live in isolation away from the rest of society.

[edit] Struwwelpeter

Edward Scissorhands was apparently inspired in part by the 19th Century German children's nursery character 'Shock-headed Peter', from the book Struwwelpeter authored by Heinrich Hoffman. Struwwelpeter was a moral fable about the benefits of good grooming. Peter is a slovenly child who refuses to wash or allow his nails to be cut or his hair to be combed. Peter's frightful appearance is mirrored in the plight of the feral Edward Scissorhands, unable to groom himself due to his predicament, and having similarly messy hair and sharp scissors where Peter had untamed fingernails. Another tale from Struwwelpeter, The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb, features the Scissorman, a sort of Boogeyman in the form of a tailor, who uses his shears to cut off the thumbs of children who suck their thumbs.

[edit] Adaptations and memorabilia

In 2005, choreographer Matthew Bourne staged a contemporary dance interpretation of Edward Scissorhands at Sadler's Wells, London. The production is currently on tour in the US and Canada. In Bourne' version Edward is the result of a boy who was struck by lightning while playing with scissors and his subsequent Techno-Corporeal reanimation by his scientist father. Despite these changes, Burton gave his blessing to Bourne's version.^[4] The ballet has received positive reviews.^[5][6]

In terms of memorabilia and collectibles, numerous action figures have been designed in commemoration of Edward Scissorhands with its rise in nostalgic popularity. McFarlane Toys produced a realistic and highly detailed Edward Scissorhands figure in 1999 as part of its third Movie Maniacs series. That same year, a Japanese company released its own Edward figure. Mezco has also released a stylized, four-figure Mez-Itz box set as well as two 9" rotocast figures in 2005 and 2006.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Edward Scissorhands at the Internet Movie Database
• Edward Scissorhands at Rotten Tomatoes
• Edward Scissorhands at Metacritic
• Official website for Matthew Bourne's adaptation
• Official website for North American tour of Matthew Bourne's adaptation
• Reactionism to Progressivism: "Edward Scissorhands" — comparison to Shelley's Frankenstein for Appreciating Great Trash