Edward Scissorhand

In the film Edward Scissorhands, directed by Tim Burton, an important conflict that happened was the discord between Edward and Jim. This discordance escalated throughout the film, with the support of visual and verbal features, viewers understood the importance of this conflict. Jim despised Edward because he was a ‘freak’ and was not normal. Edward felt Jim had been mistreating Kim for a very long time and he loathed him for it. Edward Scissorhands, a fairytale like story about a half-man, half-machine creature who had scissors for hands and his appearance into the suburbia as a novelty caused fascination, love and revulsion.

Jim simply did not like Edward; in the ‘mocking scene’, Jim sarcastically said to Edward, “Eddie, She’ll be waiting for you.” while picking Kim up in his arms. The mid shot showed the way Jim was carrying her, it showed how he treated her as an object and that he has the ownership of her. The dialogue from Jim showed mockery and intimidates Edward that he is not welcomed here. Through the film, Jim started to show his true nature, the darker side of him and to add to the effect, his costume darkened too. In the scene ‘Ice Angel’, a low key lighting obscured over Jim’s face, a mid shot showed Jim frowning and aggressive with his stance. The music was loud, fast paced with drums crashing which added to the intensity of the dark mood. He pushed Edward and yelled, “Get the hell out of here …freak.” From here, it is obvious that Jim’s hate and aggression has increased because Edward had won Kim’s heart. The climax of this conflict was the final fight scene. The music was thunderous, drums rumbling, showing Jim’s hatred and frustration. A high angle shot was used on Jim to show the advantage he had in the fight as he had a gun. Edward was in a low angle shot which made him look small and vulnerable. When Edward killed Jim, the music softened as to show the tension was over and the bad guy was gone. Tim Burton did this to show how much Edward loved Kim, and would do anything to protect her, in result he killed Jim. The audience can relate to this as we are used to seeing the good winning over the evil and knows that love can make you do anything.