Annie StM
April 1, 2010
6th Period
Sleeping Beauty
“A pleasing land of drowsy head it was…” is among the first lines read of Washington
Irving’s Sleepy Hollow. The quote is an accurate description of the town:“ready or inclined to
sleep” and “empty.” Tim Burton, however, directs a different version of this story and creates a
setting in a town whose inhabitants are far from pleasant, even though the same line appears in
the beginning of the script. I preferred Irving’s original version for his exquisite characterization.
The main character in Sleepy Hollow is the village’s new school teacher, Ichabod Crane.
Crane who is astutely, yet humorously, described to resemble his surname. “He was tall, but
exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of
his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung
together” is just a taste of the fine phrasing used to illustrate Ichabod Crane by Irving.
The author cleverly narrates the entire story utilizing food related terminology to stress
the importance of nourishment to Ichabod Crane. This main character is easily visualized as a
result of Irving’s characterization.
In Tim Burton’s version, Constable Ichabod Crane enters “handsome, eyes piercing” as
stated in Burton’s script. The actor playing the man, who was meant to resemble a bird
characterized by long legs, bill, and neck, is the famous Johnny Depp. Girls woo over the dapper
actor and Burton knows this all too well as he casts Depp as the part of Crane. The story Burton
creates hardly resembles Irving’s tale except for the town’s name which is also twisted around
for entertainment purposes. Ichabod Crane is not portrayed as the same man, which is
disgraceful considering he is the main role. The story progresses without a single mention of
food as well. His character is modified to attract a less knowledgeable audience who cannot
appreciate Irving’s authentic version of the character.
Tim Burton doesn’t do Washington Irving’s Sleepy Hollow any justice by transforming
the tone and most importantly, the characters into modern (allegedly more entertaining)
individuals. Washington Irving uses a colorful lexicon to create unique characters. All Tim
Burton is capable of doing is ruining the story with predictable characters ultimately composing
a predictable love story. Irving uses humor in his descriptions and is able to attract the more
accomplished readers to his fable while Burton grasps at attractive performers to captivate the
brainless.
The writing is wonderful. The prompt is sort of answered. This is an essay with wonderful
potential. It really needs to be expanded to achieve its goal, though.