Edward Scissorhands Movie Analysis

In Tim Burton’s genre bending film Edward Scissorhands, Jim, a main antagonist, dies in a dramatic way. Edward stabs Jim through the heart before pushing him out of the mansion window and the combination of a stab wound and such a high fall meant the end for our Jim. Edward was in a fight with Jim in the Gothic era mansion that Edward came from. As Jim was on top of Edward and easily beating him, Burton used a high angle shot on Edward to show how in that moment he was weak and inferior against the bigger and stronger Jim who was punching him. Then after Edward stabbed Jim and he fell out the window, another high angle shot was used on Jim to show that as he was dead, he was the inferior out of both of them. Burton deliberately shows the dramatic and painful stabbing, complemented by the suspenseful and dramatic soundtrack, as being a moment that the audience has waited for for the duration of the falling action. The final take of Jim’s crippled body through the high angle shot symbolizes that there was no-one to blame for Jim’s downfall but himself. Burton uses many genres in this movie, but this scene is more horror than anything else. Tim uses dark lighting, and dramatic music with a build-up before Jim falls creating tension among the audience. The setting is Edwards’s mansion, which contains an abundance of symbolism and is a perfect background for this event. The Mansion itself is very gothic and eerie and has a past of death with the inventor. First the inventor, now Jim the mansion seems to house a sort of ghostly, otherworldly presence.

For all characters to move on, it was necessary for Jim to die, and his death symbolises the ending to the majority of both Edward and Kim’s torment pertaining Jim and the town.  Jim was always a wayward and dangerous man. He controlled his girlfriend, Kim, and his other friends. One moment in particular is when he forces one of his friends to drive while drunk and he almost runs Kevin over. Edward saves him but instead of Jim being reprimanded and blamed, it was Edward who took the fall. Another situation involving Edward is when Jim used Kim by practically forcing her to ask Edward to rob Jim’s house with them because he’s good at picking locks. He does this because Edward would do anything Kim says. When Edward gets caught by an alarm, Jim locks him in a room and runs away so again, Edward takes the fall. Overall, Jim has caused nothing but trouble whether committing petty theft, shooting Edward in the chest or being possessive of Kim, he was always making something go wrong for the protagonists. If he hadn’t gotten stabbed by Edward, the audience would be left in eternal suspense about if he was going to try to kill Edward again or what he would do to Kim because a trademark of his character is relentlessness. 

The concept of Jim’s death is perfect, but the events following it could be improved. As far as we know, the town never finds out the real truth about how Jim dies. Kim tells the town both him and Edward were crushed by the roof, and I find that to not be a very satisfying ending. The town should find out how bad of a person Jim really was and how he was to blame for his own death. The town should have been allowed to bury him for some symbolism cementing an end to the story and Jim’s in particular. An alternative ending is that Kim could have told the town that while Edward was killed by the roof caving in, Jim survived but in the process of trying to get out, he accidently fell out of the window. That way Edward still gets to escape the town for good and they can also view Jim’s body and bring him home for a burial. This other possible ending makes everything much clearer for the audience and all the characters.