Film Analysis “Edward Scissorhands” - Katrin Dreher
“Edward Scissorhands” by Tim Burton is a fantasy story contrasting both fairytale and horror-imagery. Dominated by two controversial themes, it is a love story between a beauty and a beast as well as a dark parable about loneliness, nonconformity, and the intolerance and tyranny of suburban small minds.
The story is about an Avon lady named Peg Boogs who discovers the unfinished experiment of a mad scientist: a weird looking and shy man/monster called Edward living in the neighborhood’s old abandoned castle. The scientist died before replacing Edward’s large shears with real hands and so his creation is left unfinished and all by himself until Peg shows up. She attempts to bring Edward into her subarban uniform world to live among her skeptical family and gossipy neighbors where at first he experiences positive reactions when he transforms the neighborhood into a fantastical garden by coaxing beautiful topiaries from tress and bushes and when he invents new individual haircuts for all of the town’s women. He almost becomes somewhat of a celebrity. But it is hard for Edward to find his place within the superficial harmony and uniformity of suburbia and so later on we find him turned into the hated, mistreated figure of a weird and dangerous outsider and, in the end, he has to flee back to his own environment.
The thing that strikes you most about the film is the contrasting imagery of the fairy tale versus the horror theme. The predominant colors of black and white and the eerie opening music establish the relationship with the horror genre while the motif of falling snow, associated with Edward and used throughout the film, creates an atomsphere of tranquility and romance. The beginning scene which shows an old lady telling a story to a little child gives the film it’s fairy tale character. The kitsch pastel colors and uniform shapes of the suburban houses differ completely from the derelict castle which can be associated with the conventional horror film image of the`haunted house´. The suburban world is apparently perfect with its cloudless blue sky, spotless houses, well-kept gardens and sereotypical inhabitants who are contrasted with the imperfection of the unfinished Edward. And while scenes of Peg’s daughter Kim dancing in the snow in a pretty white dress next to an angel carved out of ice and Edward and Kim – who are a contrast themself – confessing their love to each other knowing that their won’t see each other again remind us of the sweet Disney movies, the several fights between Edward and Kim’s jealous boyfriend Jim and the scenes of Jim and his friends breaking into his father’s house as well as of the angry mob following Edward to the castle seem to be scenes which more likely would fit an action movie.
