British postcard by Memory Card, no. 612 (Lobby card). Johnny Depp in Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton, 1999).
People are mysteriously beheaded
The story of Sleepy Hollow (1999) begins when scientist Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) tries to convince the court of justice in 1799 New York of his new, forensic methods of solving crimes. A method that meets with a lot of resistance, at a time when, even in the court of law, methods based on superstition and the supernatural are still highly valued.
To prove himself right, Crane goes to Sleepy Hollow, a settlement of Dutch colonists in the state of New York, where mysterious things seem to happen and people are mysteriously beheaded. After a long journey by carriage, Crane arrives in the village. There he is informed of the existence of the "rider without a head" who haunts the woods and occasionally comes to crush a villager.
Initially, Crane does not believe the story and sets out to find the real killer, until he discovers that the apparition does exist. The headless horseman (Christopher Walken) was once a Hes, a cruel Germanic mercenary in the American War of Independence who entered the war not for money but for pleasure. To look even more fearsome, he had sharpened his teeth to a point.
One day, however, he was chased into the woods of Sleepy Hollow and finally decapitated by his own sword. For some months now, the horseman has been resurrected, beheading people from the village and taking their heads with him. After some time, Crane begins to suspect that the horseman does not kill at random, but that he does so at the behest of someone, a person who owns his head and therefore has power over the horseman.
Eventually, he manages to eliminate this person and give the rider his head back. Finally, with the beautiful Katherine van Tassel (Christina Ricci), whom he has met in the village and with whom villager Abraham van Brunt (Caspar Van Dien) initially has a crush, he returns to New York.
British postcard by Memory Card, no. 605 (Lobby card). Christina Ricci in Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton, 1999).
British postcard by Memory Card, no. 606 (Lobby card). Johnny Depp in Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton, 1999).
A homage to various Hammer Film Productions
Development of Sleepy Hollow began in 1993 at Paramount Pictures. Kevin Yagher, a make-up effects designer who had turned to direct with the horror anthology television series Tales from the Crypt (1989-1996), was originally set to direct Andrew Kevin Walker's script as a low-budget slasher film.
Through his agent, Yagher was introduced to Andrew Kevin Walker. They spent a few months working on a film treatment that transformed Ichabod Crane from a schoolmaster from Connecticut to a banished New York City detective. Disagreements with Paramount resulted in Yagher being demoted to prosthetic makeup designer, and Tim Burton was hired to direct in June 1998.
Burton made Sleepy Hollow a homage to various Hammer Film Productions, including Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, and other films such as Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, various Roger Corman horror films, Jason and the Argonauts, and Scream Blacula Scream.
Johnny Depp was cast in July 1998 for his third collaboration with Burton. He did not wish to portray the character of Ichabod as a typical action star would have and instead took inspiration from Angela Lansbury's performance in Death on the Nile. Depp modelled Ichabod's detective personality from Basil Rathbone in the 1939 Sherlock Holmes film series. He also studied Roddy McDowall's acting for additional influence.
Sleepy Hollow also reunited Burton with Jeffrey Jones (from Beetlejuice and Ed Wood) as Reverend Steenwyck, Christopher Walken (Max Shreck in Batman Returns) as the Hessian Horseman, Martin Landau (Ed Wood) in a cameo role, and Hammer veteran Michael Gough (Alfred in Burton's Batman films), whom Burton tempted out of retirement. The Hammer influence was further confirmed by the casting of Christopher Lee in a small role as the Burgomaster who sends Crane to Sleepy Hollow.
Filming took place from November 1998 to May 1999. The film had its world premiere at Mann's Chinese Theatre and was released in the United States on 19 November 1999, by Paramount Pictures. It received generally positive reviews from critics, with many praising the performances, direction, screenplay and musical score, as well as its dark humour, visual effects and atmosphere.
Roger Ebert: "This is the best-looking horror film since Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula. It is not, however, titled "Washington Irving's Sleepy Hollow," perhaps because the story has been altered out of all recognition from the Irving classic. Perhaps not. No power on earth could persuade me to reread the original and find out. What it depends upon is Burton's gift for bizarre and eccentric special effects, and a superb performance by Johnny Depp, who discards everything we may ever have learned or thought about Ichabod Crane and starts from scratch."
Jason Buchanan at AllMovie adds: "Often cited as a homage to the infamous films of Hammer Studios, upon deeper investigation into the influences of director Tim Burton, it becomes increasingly clear that, while the film does indeed have much in common with the British horror classics, the majority of visual influence is instead derived from the lush, gothic films of Mario Bava. Bearing a striking resemblance to 1960s Black Sunday in particular, Burton's muted color palate, vividly splashed with abundant amounts of blood so unnaturally red it seems to drip from the screen, represents a masterful command of color scheme rarely seen since Bava's color-era heyday." The film grossed approximately $207 million worldwide. Sleepy Hollow won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction.
British postcard by Memory Card, no. 607 (Lobby card). Publicity still for Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton, 1999).
British postcard by Memory Card, no. 610 (Lobby card). Christopher Walken in Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton, 1999).
Sources: Roger Ebert (RogerEbert.com), Jason Buchanan (AllMovie), Wikipedia (Dutch and English), and IMDb.
1 comment:
A very under-rated film in my view. Walken is excellent in the part.
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