In the wake of *Batman v. Superman*, there's been a great deal of discussion about who owns art and who, if anyone, should be its gatekeepers. To some degree, the same issues are at the heart of the recent controversies surrounding Gamergate and the Sad Puppies. Whether you're talking about an individual work or a genre or even an entire industry, people are asking "who does this belong to?" Is it the ardent fans? The would-be arbiters of taste? The inspired creators? The money-fueled studios? The diehard traditionalists? The boundary-pushing innovators? Who among these groups of individuals gets to decide what's acceptable and what isn't, let alone what's good, or great, or even art in the first place?

These are questions at the heart of Tim Burton's *Ed Wood*. The film centers Wood himself, a purveyor of schlock and the creator of, by acclimation, the worst movie of all time, who is nonetheless steadfast in his belief and commitment to the greatness of what he was creating. The film also spends a great deal of time focusing on his best friend, Bella Lugosi, a washed up former star of B-movie flicks who spends on his dwindling funds on drugs but yearns for the good old days when he was a star. Each of these men tries to create art, to do something they believe in, and faces the world's indifference or disdain for the fruits of their labors.

There's a Butters-like quality to the film's titular protagonist. Played with unrelenting zeal by Burton favorite Johnny Depp, he is endlessly optimistic, willing to face any setback or insult as a mere bump in the road to inevitably success. Wood is unfailingly chipper and convinced of the beauty of his art,. What makes the character is his sheer earnestness in all of this. From the opening sequence where we see him mouthing along the lines backstage in his little-seen play, to the final scene where he does the same sitting in the balcony in a packed house there to see his magnum opus, Wood *believes* in the work, without a hint of irony. It doesn't matter if what he's producing bombs; it doesn't matter that his girlfriend didn't understand it or that he has to make it on a shoestring budget. it's an earnest reflection of his soul and his vision, and by god that's more than enough for him.

At the same time, Lugosi (Martin Landau in arguably his finest hour) is a tragic figure, the fallen artist convinced of his own greatness and scornful of the world that refuses to recognize it. Landau infuses a divine pathos into Lugosi here, with a performance that highlights the way the veteran performer is both bitter and his losses but sympathetic in his affection for Ed, how he has both earned his current plight with his drug habit and yet is pitiable in the circumstances it's left him in, and how he can be a sad, even dangerous man, but also still shows the last gasps of a man who believed in his abilities and in his work just as much as Ed does. He is Ed's greatest ally, his entry to the world of filmmaking, and his continuing inspiration.

The heart of the film comes in a late scene shared between Ed Wood and Orson Welles. Their conversation is far from subtle, with Welles complaining about having to compromise and espousing the virtues of sticking to your vision, but it works. Burton draws an unexpected parallel between the two unlikely "visionaries" here. There is a beauty in artistic purity, he seems to be saying, whether it comes from one of cinema's most venerated auteurs or from it's most deluded-if-earnest creators of crap. The film posits that all art contains a piece of the author's soul in it, from cinema's highest highs to its lowest lows, and that connects everyone with the foolhardy impulse to try to make it.

*Ed Wood* itself is a tribute to the notorious director's vision. Filmed in black and white, the movie features the herky-jerky rhythms, grandiose introductions, and broad-yet-endearing patter that characterized the work of the real life filmmaker. From styles of blocking and framing that have fallen out of favor in the present day, to low shots and dutch angles that convey the disorienting quality of Ed's trips to visit Bella, Burton tries to honor Wood's vision by embracing his style. There's something charming about seeing these techniques employed in a major motion picture produced four decades after Wood's heyday, and it's as pure a vindication of the idea that there's something worth loving in Wood's art as any line of dialogue.

But there's another side to the question of who art belongs to and what makes it worthwhile that the film explores. When Wood makes *Glen or Glenda*, a film about cross-dressing that burns Ed's bridge with one ramshackle studio and makes him the laughing stock of another, he isn't discouraged but does have an uphill climb ahead of him. And yet in casual conversation, Ed's friend Bunny announces that he's going to Mexico to have a sex change operation, because this much-derided picture spoke to him, and he cannot help but take action in its wake.

At the same time, there's an irony to the scene where Ed is at the premiere of *Plan 9 From Outer Space*, and declares that this is what he will be remembered for. The irony is that it's true, but as a matter of infamy rather than praise. And yet, despite the laughable reputation and odd sort of fame Wood and his film would achieve, Burton makes clear that Ed and his cohort see the picture in a very different light -- as Ed's love letter to the deceased friend who so inspired him, by capturing his last little moment of beauty. The world may have written off Lugosi, or failed to recognize his achievements, but Ed did, and it changed his life.

And maybe that's all you need. When Ed's girlfriend lashes out at him in the midst of his belly dancing at the *Bride of the Monster* wrap party, she declares that they're all freaks and that the films Ed makes with this motley collection of souls are terrible. She's not wrong necessarily. By the end of the film, Ed has found himself as part of quite a group of misfits, odds and ends who don't fit into what one expects from Hollywood glitz and glamor. And history has deemed his pictures lacking in quality, if not in passion. The appeal of Ed's film, not to mention the band of people who find him and his work endearing rather than baffling or worthy of derision, is incredibly narrow.

But so what? Burton connects Wood's filmmaking with his crossdressing, with the idea that he is at his most fulfilled when he can be his most open and unvarnished self, on the screen, in the bonds of friendship, and in romance, with acceptance rather than judgment. There's a profound jubilation in that dancing scene, where after wrapping up another outing of doing the thing he loves most, Wood surrounds himself with people who are on his wavelength, who love and appreciate his talents and his work, and whom he can feel comfortable expressing his true self with, regardless of his sartorial or directorial choices. That is a wonderful, joyous thing. And by the same token, *Ed Wood* suggests that there must be merit in anything that comes from such a place of truth, of happiness, of liberation, and of earnestness, no matter what it lacks in technical or performative skill, or how small it's audience.

I don't necessarily love *Ed Wood*. As fun and sweet and as heartbreaking as the can be, it runs a bit long, indulges a bit too much here and there, and repeats the same beats a little too often. But I do love what it stands for -- the idea that art comes in all shapes and sizes, and if it can still move people, if it can still make even one person happy, then it has a place in this world, no matter what you or I or anyone else thinks of it. Art doesn't belong to the creators, or to the devotees, or to the tastemakers, or even to the man writing the checks. It belongs to anyone who loves it, to anyone who can wring that kind of joy from it, regardless of whether it's pretty, or clean, or even good.

**A sincere tribute to the man and his work, full of bizarreness, humor, artificial octopuses and angora.**

I've been wanting to see this for a while now, and the opportunity finally came. Very intelligently directed by Tim Burton, it is a brief biography that honors Ed Wood, reckoned as the worst director Hollywood has ever known (although that title is disputed by other more recent directors).

I already knew Ed Wood's work, I've seen one or two of his films, and I can guarantee that his fame is justified: the films are the most amateurish imaginable and the number of errors and problems is such that even the general public saw the director's inability and naïveté. I won't dwell on this point, just add that this film covers the filming of “Glenn or Glenda”, “Bride of the Monster” and “Plan 9 from Outer Space”. As is typical of Burton's films, there is a certain amount of bizarreness which makes the most sincere homage to Ed Wood's work. One notices, implicitly, a certain sympathy or admiration for the director, who never achieved fame (at least, positive) and to whom success has eluded. He is a man with a vision and a dream, but without any ability to achieve it and who, even so, never gave up.

Johnny Depp was a smart choice for the protagonist. The actor likes unusual roles and portrayed Wood in a very faithful way, emphasizing his incorrigible and absolutely blind optimism, as well as his habit of dressing like a woman and the problems that caused him in being taken seriously. There is, in the character, a certain bizarre fetish about angora fabrics that I don't know if it was real, but it fit very well. I also really liked Martin Landau, a very respectable veteran who fit wonderfully into the role of Bela Lugosi, the mythical horror actor who was forgotten by the industry towards the end of his life and succumbed to morphine addiction and depression, and Lisa Marie, who played Maila Nurmi, Finnish actress famous for her character Vampira. Sarah Jessica Parker also did an impeccable job as Wood's girlfriend. Jeffrey Jones does a good job as Criswell, a fake psychic famous for his TV appearances. Bill Murray appears little, but does a decent job whenever asked.

The film was very well shot in black and white, and I believe this fit better with the spirit of the film, and the way it was designed. There is a beautiful limpidity and the cinematography is very crafted and stylistically rich. The film plays a lot with the difficulties that Wood encountered in filming and promoting his films, and the total amateurism with which he did so, and this is funny and, at the same time, moving. The sets and costumes are excellent, convincing, and the reproduction of the films was well done and honors the originals. The soundtrack, written by Howard Shore, does the rest and gives the film a bizarrely delicious tone. Finally, a word about the opening and ending of the film, in a style magnificently suited to cheap horror productions of the time.

A big hearted, quick-tempo biopic with as many personality quirks and oddly-charming eccentricities as the subject himself. Ed Wood, widely regarded as the king of the pointless, meaningless, hacked-together nonsense picture (aka the worst director who ever lived), is both blessed and cursed to not comprehend the depths of his own awfulness. Forward he endlessly marches, procuring has-been celebrities and clueless investors through sheer force of will and personality, all in the quest to become the next Orson Welles. Which, of course, is like buying a can of bug spray and expecting it to serve as a dessert topping.

Johnny Depp is a great, big, overinflated bag of optimistic energy in the title role, half carnival barker and half renaissance man, but he's overshadowed by a heartbreaking turn from Martin Landau as a struggling, drug-addicted, late-life Bela Lugosi who somehow gets wrapped up in Wood's little world. Landau won a surprising Best Supporting Actor award for this take, well-deserved as he projects all manner of emotion to an unsuspecting audience and towers over every scene in which he appears. Bill Murray is also fabulous in a very small, nearly-pointless role, which surely deserved further exploration. Alas, at just over two hours, there wasn't time to get to everything.

One of Tim Burton's best, most restrained films, bubbling and churning with his own brand of black, twisted humor, but also much more controlled and traditional than his more definitive films (say, Beetlejuice or The Nightmare Before Christmas). Energetic, entertaining, funny and poignant and tolerant, it touches a whole lot of emotions with impressive delicacy, and its deep ruminations on acceptance remain particularly relevant in a modern setting.