Hello my Beautiful Watchers, and welcome to the November Nanos!
This is the month of the year that I dedicate to the books and movies that don't have quite enough material for a full-length episode
but I still feel are worth discussing at least a little.
Ah, Tim Burton.
Like many critics, I have mixed feelings about his highly stylized directing
and recurring cast members.
But I will say this for him:
At least you will always have a good idea of what you're going to get
when you see a film with his name on it.
Speaking of names, I'm afraid I'm once again forced to invoke the
"In Name Only" clause, which is a bit of an odd twist of fate in this case
because technically, if you take it out of context,
almost everything that happens in the book also happens in the film.
[jaunty piano tune playing]
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" was written by a man named Washington Irving way back in 1820.
Hailing from America originally, he was living in Birmingham, England at the time of its publication.
It's a very short book that's much more about the extremely poetic way that it's written
as opposed to any kind of plot. In my opinion, it's the kind of story that works best
being read aloud to a crowd by someone with a flair for dramatics.
That said, a brief description of the story it does have is as follows:
In 1790 in a Dutch settlement in America, a schoolmaster by the name of
Ichabod Crane is competing for the affections of a younger girl named Katrina
with another man, a local named Brom Bones.
After failing to woo her, he rides home after dark through the local woodlands.
A superstitious and nervous man, Crane can't help but think about
the local legends he was told that claimed the woods are haunted
by the ghost of a Hessian soldier who died during the Revolutionary War,
forever searching for his now non-existent head that was splattered by a cannonball.
Against all rational reasoning, he then comes across
the very Headless Horseman in question who chases him through the woods,
eventually hurling his own decapitated head right into Crane's face.
Crane is never seen again in the town, leaving behind nothing but a trampled saddle
next to a mysterious shattered pumpkin.
It's implied heavily that the horseman was Brom in disguise
who was attempting to either scare away or murder his love rival
so he could marry Katrina himself. The End.
Again, this isn't so much about what was written as the way it was written.
The 1999 film adaption is generally agreed to be a bit naff, though personally
I have some nostalgia bias towards it because I had a good time watching it with my friends
back when we were too young to be supposed to be watching it.
Starring one of Burton's "favoritest" actors, Johnny Depp as Ichabod
and Christopher Walken as the Horseman,
the story is now set in 1799,
and this time Crane is a police constable sent to the hamlet of Sleepy Hollow
to investigate a series of decapitations.
The town is under the somewhat superstitious impression that
the ghost of a Hessian mercenary who was decapitated nearby
some years before by American revolutionaries is behind the killings.
Crane is dismissive of anything so preposterous as a supernatural explanation,
but he then has to eat his words as he witnesses the Headless Horseman himself.
The next scene plays out exactly like the book,
with the chase,
the pumpkin to the face,
and it turning out to just be a bloke named Brom in disguise.
Though Crane doesn't disappear afterwards, obviously,
and it turns out the prank was in somewhat poor taste
as there is a genuine Headless Horseman out there lopping off heads.
After some shenanigans,
some sword fights,
a romance plot,
some high-speed chases,
a bunch of heads flying off as if people's necks were made of rice paper,
and Christopher Walken going "raaah" a lot,
it's discovered that the Horseman is being controlled by someone
who's using him to bump off anyone standing between her and a huge inheritance.
She's foiled and the Horseman goes back to Hell, dragging her with him.
As it's in name only, the changes are too numerous to count,
but the ones that really stuck with me are:
Ironically, the Horseman is now out to get everyone
*except* Ichabod Crane, the only victim in the book.
Similar thing with Crane getting the girl at the end and Brom being the one who gets killed;
it's like they're going out of their way to do the exact opposite of the book.
I also find it amusing that the Horseman was decapitated via a sword
instead of a cannonball, so that his head could play a part in the story from then on.
In summary, all I can really say is, this isn't really an adaptation at all, is it?
Even by "In Name Only" standards.
You can't even say that both versions of the story had a Headless Horseman
because the one in the book was an obvious fake,
while the one in the film is confirmed as a genuine killer ghost.
The use of Sleepy Hollow as a title is clearly more of a joke than anything else;
let's be honest, there was no huge fan base they were hoping to tap into with this 200-year-old story.
The tongue-in-cheek nature of this intentionally silly horror movie robs me of a lot of resentment
I might have had about them abusing a respected work of literature,
and there's dozens of more accurate and more interesting adaptations out there,
so it's not like this is all we have.
All in all, it's not an adaptation or a film worth getting upset over
or expending any real thought on whatsoever.
If you're interested in the book and haven't read it yet, because it's public domain
you can get it for free, or for like one or two dollars on Amazon.
Check it out.
Hey, Beautiful Watchers.
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Have a most pleasant day, and I will see you soon.