SLEEPY HOLLOW on Disc

By: Steve Biodrowski
Date: Tuesday, May 30, 2000

Tim Burton's elaborate horror film, derived loosely from Washington Irving's 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,' may have some problems in the storytelling and exposition departments, but no one would deny the effective visual scheme that creates a fairy tale world in which the existence of the Headless Horseman is completely believable. The DVD presentation beautifully captures the visual and audio qualities that made the film a blockbuster hit, and adds some extras that help smooth over the weak points, emphasizing the film's strengths.

The presentation is relatively straightforward, without the glitzy animated menus that have become de rigueur of late. You get a widescreen presentation that captures the pictorial compositions and maintains the evocative feeling of the cinematography of Emmanuel Lubezki and production design by longtime Burton associate Rich Heinrichs, while the Dolby stereo captures the alternating thunder, delicacy and whimsicality of Danny Elfman's score, along with the menacing sound effects that emphasize the appearance of the Horseman. The nineteen chapter stops are useful, although fewer than really necessary to pinpoint all the film's highlights, and the chapter titles don't always indicate the exact moment when the chapter begins, forcing you to resort to the fast forward button to get to your favorite moments.

The disc includes several extras, beginning with two trailers (the first called a 'teaser' trailer, although it contains so much footage from the film and conveys so much specific information, that 'teaser' hardly seems the correct word). There are also cast interviews and information, a behind-the-scenes featurette, a French language option, English subtitles (for the hearing impaired, which means they spell out not only the dialogue but also the sound effects), and an audio commentary by Burton.


The featurette is a fairly standard preview-promo piece, but more informative than most, shot mostly on location and including snippets of interviews with Burton, Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Christopher Walken, Christopher Lee, Danny Elfman, and Rick Heinrichs. There are glimpses of Burton's preliminary sketches, intercut with corresponding shots from the film. Some special effects techniques are revealed, such as the mechanical horse used for shots of Walken riding, not to mention the blue mask that allowed ILM to remove the Horseman's head from the scene (the horseman's collar, which would have been obscured by the blue-encased head of the stunt man, had to be added digitally). Curiously, there are numerous shots of Lisa Marie as Lady Crane, but no mention of her name.

The cast interviews section includes material taped after the film's completion, apparently at a press junket. Fortunately, it does not repeat too much of the information from the featurette; in fact, it contains a few plot spoilers and should not be viewed until after you've seen the film. In one strange moment, Johnny Depp claims he obtained the restraining-torture device seen behind him in the courtroom scene near the film's beginning; we're left to wonder why he wanted it or to what use he puts it.

The cast biographies are mostly adequate, although Depp's is the most detailed, which is fair since he's the star. Unfortunately, some of the information is out of date and even contains minor inaccuracies. For instance, Walken's biography lists an upcoming film called 'The Rose Hotel,' which is actually New Rose Hotel, which was released last year.

As is often the case, the most interesting special item is the director's commentary. Burton turns out to be an amusing and jovial narrator, providing much enthusiasm and humor, while also giving us an insight into what makes him tick as an artist. Yet at the same time, this audio commentary is one that might have benefited from having an interviewer that could steer him to certain topics or at least make him reveal a few more details.

For instance, Burton mentions that the opening scenes gave him a chance to work with cinematographer Conrad Hall, but he never mentions why Hall shot these scenes instead of Lubezki (presumably because they were filmed in the U.S. during post-production, whereas the rest of the body of the film was shot in England). Later, Burton mentions that the flashback torture and death of Lady Crane was inspired by Mario Bava's Black Sunday and Roger Corman's The Pit and the Pendulum, but he neglects to mention the common link between those two films, star Barbara Steele. And details regarding the script and Burton's creative relationship with screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker (if any) are almost non-existent.

Despite these lapses, the commentary is filled with interesting tidbits. Burton mentions that Hall and Martin Landau (glimpsed in an unbilled cameo as a victim) had worked together on the Outer Limits episode 'The Man Who Was Never Born.' He reveals that playwright Tom Stoppard (Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead) contributed to the film's dialogue, enhancing its humor. And he marvels over Lubezki's ability to create an illusion of depth on interior stages portraying exterior locations, mostly through the use of copious amounts of fog to hide the rafters and lights.

Even better are Burton's amusing comments. He marvels over Jeffrey Jones' wig ('an image that stays with you, whether you want it to or not'). When Depp brandishes a pistol, Burton calls the scene '18th Century Starsky and Hutch.' During exposition scenes, he admits the film feels like an episode of Scooby Doo, Where Are you, and he wonders whether the whole costume-period setting isn't just reminiscent of a bad 'Merchant Ivory movie.' Best of all, he jokes that during the fight scenes he felt as if shooting an expensive Mexican wrestling movie, because the stunt man's blue mask made the Headless Horseman resemble Blue Demon (a Mexican wrestler and movie star from the '60s).

As nice a package as this DVD is, it comes nowhere near matching the extravagance of the boxed set laserdisc of Burton's previous A Nightmare Before Christmas. (Despite the overall superiority of the format, has any DVD really been so elaborate a collector's item?) Nevertheless, fans of Sleepy Hollow and of Tim Burton will be pleased, and older fans of Hammer Horror, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, will also enjoy hearing Burton acknowledge these influences. Burton clearly wanted to make a film in that tradition, and he managed to do it without simply producing a carbon copy. The result may not be a masterpiece, but its strengths may be enough to earn it a reputation as a classic.