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Tim Burton
Sleepy Hollow
For Tim Burton Sleepy Hollow
was an opportunity to showcase his skills as a director of horror as
well as fantasy. He shot almost all of the movie on sets in England for
about $30 million. It proved a box office hit, raking in over $200
million. Let's look first at the original legend of Sleepy Hollow and
then at Tim's hit movie.
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Washington
Irving Sleepy Hollow
 The movie
by Tim Burton Sleepy
Hollow is loosely based on Washington Irving’s
short story, The Legend
of Sleepy Hollow. The legend, first published in 1820,
documents the disappearance and possible demise of schoolteacher Ichabod Crane.
In
Irving’s version, Ichabod goes to the New York town of Sleepy Hollow
to teach children at the local school. A practical but superstitious
man, he suffers no nonsense in the classroom, yet believes every myth
and legend he hears. He is particularly unnerved by the story of a
decapitated rider called the Headless
Horseman, who is said to haunt the town’s local woods.
One
night, after being jilted by his love interest, Katrina Van Tassel,
Ichabod takes to the woods on horseback. The Headless Horseman appears
and gives chase. And just when Ichabod thinks he’s escaped him, the
Horseman throws his severed head at the schoolteacher, knocking him off
his horse.
The
next morning villagers find Ichabod’s abandoned hat beside a squashed
pumpkin and assume he’s fallen victim to the Horseman. However, a
townsman called Abraham
van Blunt,
who competed (successfully) against Ichabod for Katrina’s affections,
wears a knowing look whenever Ichabod’s name is mentioned, leading some
to believe he had a hand in his disappearance.
Tim Burton
Sleepy Hollow
Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane in the 1999 movie
Sleepy Hollow
Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Directed
by: Tim Burton
Starring:
Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Sir Michael Gambon
Some
of the story elements, most notably the town of Sleepy Hollow and the
legendary Headless Horseman, appear in the movie. But most of the characters and places are different
to those in the original story by Washington Irving and the plot is entirely
new.
In
the movie by Tim Burton Sleepy Hollow is a dark town of nightmarish
possibility and Ichabod Crane is a police officer in New York City
with a passion for science. Ichabod’s superiors send him to Sleepy
Hollow to investigate a series of grisly murders - and to get him out of
the way, offended as they are by his promotion of scientific methods
such as fingerprinting and autopsy examinations.
On
arrival in Sleepy Hollow, Ichabod is keen to put his scientific theories into practice but
the townspeople assure him that the murders were not committed by any human hand. Ichabod is
skeptical of their supernatural claims at first but changes his mind after he
encounters the Headless Horseman.
Amidst the terror and gore, Ichabod manages to fall in love, with the daughter of the wealthy Van Tassel family, Katrina. He soon discovers that Katrina's stepmother has been summoning the Headless Horseman
to commit the murders, and that Katrina is next on her hit list.
In
a desperate attempt to save his one true love, Ichabod uncovers the
Horseman's grave and his entry point into this world and reunites the
Horseman with his severed head. Freed of the stepmother's control, the
Horseman returns to Hell, taking the stepmother with him. And so peace is restored to the sleepy town.
Unlike
the unfortunate Ichabod in Irving’s tale, the one played by Johnny Depp
wins
Katrina’s heart and returns to New York with her. Surely not even
Washington Irving could conceive of a girl turning Johnny Depp down!
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