Edward Scissorhands

Edward Scissorhands (1990) is Tim Burton's most personal film, and the idea goes back to his own adolescence: he drew a figure with scissors for hands during a period when he felt alien to everyone around him. An inventor builds an artificial man in a castle and dies before finishing him. Edward is left with scissors where his hands should be. Years later a cosmetics saleswoman finds him and brings him down to her pastel suburb. The subject is not Edward but the neighbourhood. The women take him in at first, have their hair cut, bring him tea. Then something goes wrong and they turn just as quickly. Burton's target is not the monster but the pressure to conform that produces one. The suburb is a real place: the houses of an existing Florida neighbourhood were painted in pastel colours. The castle was built on a stage, and the contrast between the two is deliberately harsh. Johnny Depp was a television actor then and the studio wanted a bigger name; he pushed for the part. He speaks 169 words in the film. It was Vincent Price's last significant role as the inventor. Burton had grown up on his horror films. Danny Elfman considers the score his own favourite work. It runs 105 minutes. Good for: modern fairy tales, Burton, and the cinema of the late eighties and early nineties. Less good for: there are some bloody moments, the ending is sad, and the pace is slow.