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Ed Wood so loved this script that, along with his typewriter, it was one of
the essentials he would grab in case of fire, according to I Woke Up Early
the Day I Died star and producer Billy Zane.
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Zane provided background to the late scriptwriter Wood and the production of
I Woke Up Early the Day I Died at a screening of the film at the
Noosa Film Festival, and at a media conference which followed. Sent to him
"while I was in the final throes of Titanic in Mexico", Wood's
crackpot script provided Zane with "the perfect antidote" to the mood of
James Cameron's epic.
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Zane plays the central character, known as The Thief, in a silent movie
littered with typical Wood characters and stylistic features. Even if film
fans weren't warned in advance that I Woke Up Early the Day I Died
sprang from the mind of Ed Wood, they would soon grasp the picture from
hints such as the use of black-and-white stock footage and earnest
voice-over narration, and by means of comparison with such Wood opuses as
Glen or Glenda (1953) and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959),
with their solemn documentation of the effects of childhood traumas, angora
sweaters, or comic relief by means of making stupid cops bumble around a
graveyard.
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For insight into Wood's screenwriting methods, Zane gave an example of the
author's recognition of production difficulties. Often not so much a script
as notes to his crew, a Wood screenplay would typically include a direction
something like, "a hot number sashays from a Buick in a maribou negligee -- or
a negligee of comparable material".
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Wood's economies extended in spirit to the cast of I Woke Up Early the Day I
Died, with the players abandoning their usual fees. Zane managed
to assemble the collection of famous faces in his cast because everyone
wanted to be in the fun: "It was a party invitation. Everyone did it for
cost. They wanted to make a silent film, they wanted to make an Ed Wood
homage." So great was the project's appeal that "we had to turn people
away. If you've got something that's pushing the envelope, you'd be amazed
who you can get to play in it."
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Zane said he and his business partner Chris Hanley came to the Noosa Film
Festival with a dual purpose, to show I Woke Up Early the Day I Died,
and cover the festival for the website they have started in
association with Humanicom, http://www.gnnow.com. What they are calling a "Good
News Network" would be "a relief from the traditional sources of
information," Zane said, where "if it bleeds, it leads", and would aim at
accentuating the positive in world and local events. The good news site
will invite contributions from interested writers, presenters, celebrities,
and "students of life".
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Details
I Woke Up Early the Day I Died, by Cinequanon Pictures International 1999.
Director: Aris Iliopulos.
Screenplay: Edward D. Wood, Jr.
Cinematographer: Michael F. Barrow.
Production Designer: Maia Javan.
Cast: Billy Zane, Ron Perlman, Sandra Bernhard, Tippi Hedren, John Ritter, Christina Ricci, Will Patton, Eartha Kitt, Andrew McCarthy, Rick Schroeder, Nicolette Sheridan, Karen Black.
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Citation reference for this article
MLA style:
Shane Lewis. "Ed Wood Lives: 'I Woke Up Early the Day I Died' (NFF #2)." M/C Reviews 16 Sep. 1999.
[your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/screen/wood.html>.
Chicago style:
Shane Lewis, "Ed Wood Lives: 'I Woke Up Early the Day I Died' (NFF #2)," M/C Reviews 16 Sep. 1999,
<http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/screen/wood.html> ([your date of access]).
APA style:
Shane Lewis. (1999) Ed Wood lives: 'I woke up early the day I died' (NFF #2). M/C Reviews 16 Sep. 1999.
<http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/screen/wood.html> ([your date of access]).
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