Blueprints: "Edward Scissorhands"
Thursday, December 21, 2017 at 10:39AM Happy holidays, everyone! Jorge takes a look at a beloved cinematic moment that feels like Christmas...
For this week’s “Blueprints”, a film that isn't so much about a particular holiday, as one that encompassed the feeling of it: flickering, warm, and hopefully lovely. So let’s see what Winona Ryder dancing under a stream of shaven snow looked like on the pages of the Edward Scissorhands script...
Edward Scissorhands
Written by: Caroline Thompson
[You can read the full script here. I will be talking about these pages and this scene.]
Tim Burton's 1990 classic is not a holiday movie per se, but its last third does take place during Christmastime. Last year, in one of my very first pieces for The Film Experience, I wrote about how the movie embodies what the holidays feel like: comforting and nostalgic, with the combination of old and new.
Edward Scissorhands is well-remembered for many things: the first collaboration between director Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, the pinnacle of the director’s signature Gothic sensibilities, and Dianne Wiest’s pitch-perfect Avon-selling suburban mom.
Arguably its most emblematic two minutes features Kim (played with wide-eyed naiveté by Winona Ryder), witnessing Edward turs a sculpture into snow. She finally sees his heart and soul and welcomes him fully into her life. Not with a conversation, or an embrace, but with a dance. On the script, this moment takes a little over a page. It has almost no dialogue. And it reads like the movie itself: descriptive, poetic, and lyrical.
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Screenwriter Caroline Thompson fills the action lines with flowery descriptions of the scenery (“Moving reverently down the row, she is entranced by the intricacies of each sculpture.”), the movements of Kim’s dance (“She takes it; steps, turns, kicks, follows with her arms.”) and detailed emotional sketches (“Unabashed glee and a kind of majestic gracefulness have been set free”).
However, the scene plays quite a bit differently in the page than it does on screen. This is not rare, as the filmmaking process tends to elevate and fill in the blanks of what the writer put on the script. But Edward seems to do the opposite.
While the screenplay is full with colorful descriptions and in a way depicts an intense love-making scene between two different creatures, expressed through dance and show, the final scene in the movie strips it all down.
The script describes an interplay: Edward is actively engaging with Kim as she sculpts the ice. He changes the speed and tempo of it to fit her dance. But the film seems to do it the other way around; Kim is the one getting to know Edward through the falling snowflakes, even if he is disengaged. But in the end, the sentiment behind both versions is the same: Kim and Edward are discovering each other, creating an intimate connection represented by shards of thin ice.
At first glance, this may not be the most Christmassy scene, or the most Christmassy movie, apart from its timeline and the imagery of snow. But it is a lovely moment between two outcasts finally understanding each other, and finding beauty in the simplest details. Dancing on your own while someone else makes it snow for you. Isn’t that what the holidays are all about?
Reader Comments (4)
Well said. Edward Scissorhands and Batman Returns are twins. Scissorhands is light, happy and EASILY Burton's most chaste movie and Batman Returns is Burton at his most dark, angry and sexual. Batman Returns is also the only studio action movie that makes itself ABOUT Christmas, tip to tail. Die Hard and Lethal Weapon, among others, might be set during that time, but Christmas isn't really the subject. But when your main villain (and, let's be clear, Max Schreck is the main villain and not either of the adapted super villains) is a department store owner? And your central theme is about how always falling for altruism and sap stories can lead to bad things? It's hard to argue that Batman Returns isn't ABOUT the holiday, even if it is so in a cynical way.
Beautiful. I miss the soulfulness of Tim Burton-Danny Elfman collaborations, Johnny Depp before he curdled, and Winona Ryder—inexplicably bad wig and all. The Ice Dance indeed.
I wouldn't doubt it if Burton himself admitted this to be his undisputed masterpiec'se. He has never molded such a pure vision for himself while also accessing each and every emotional pulse of the audiences' heart. I'd reckon he'd also agree it's the pinnacle of his designs as well; the castle on the hill, the garden sculptures, Edward's costume, the pastel homes all the same and yet all different...
That Elfman's greatest score for Burton was never even nominated for the Oscar, well, it goes without saying... They didn't know what they were doing.
Scissorhands is one of my all-time favorite movies, and Christmas or no, every single time Elfman's finale music starts playing, and Ryder delivers, "Sometimes you can still catch me dancing in it," as the music swells...
I'm a goner.
This is in the very heart of the holiday season, and will continue to stand the test of time.
Manny: Danny Elfman's treatment by the Academy is WEIRD. He got his first two nominations (Good Will Hunting and Men In Black) in 1997, when his peak years were all but over. Additional nods? Original Score for Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands (win) and Batman Returns (win) and Original Song for Nightmare Before Christmas (win), for a total of a VERY handsome nine nominations and three wins.
And to get those five additional nominations, I would cut:
1988: Rain Man, Hans Zimmer
1989: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, John Williams
1990: Home Alone, John Williams
1992: Basic Instinct, Jerry Goldsmith
1993: Any of the nominees for "What's This" (No one remembers ANY of those songs 24 years later, but there are people who can at least hum What's This.)