Number 6 on Dave’s Strange World’s list of all-time favorite films is Tim Burton’s outrageous and loving biopic of the legendary “World’s Worst Filmmaker” Ed Wood, starring Johnny Depp as Wood. A lot of the films on the Sight and Sound list of World’s Best films (as well as my own list) center around the world of filmmaking.

Having a dream can be a dangerous thing.  In this country, they say if you work hard enough and persevere, you can achieve anything.  While hard work is essential towards achieving any dream, you also need talent and luck.  Wood had passion to burn, but lacked the taste and talent to become who he wanted to be: Orson Welles.

However, you have to have the dream first.  Granted, it helps if you know your limitations and are non-delusional.  But at some point you do need to have a leap of faith to potentially achieve the sublime.  Only those crazy and courageous enough to pursue their dream always go farther than those who never try.

Which is why I love this scene where Wood, frustrated after disagreements with the producers of his film (and wearing a dress, because that’s what made Wood feel most comfortable), storms off to a bar and runs into his hero, Orson Welles.  I imagine this encounter was the invention of the writers, but it’s still a marvelous scene.  Tellingly, Welles doesn’t flinch when he sees Wood dressed in drag and wearing a hideous mustache.  As Welles tells Wood, “Visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making someone else’s dreams?” Just because it’s being said to someone who probably never should have been a director doesn’t make it any less true.