169. The Wizard of Oz

Song - Heart of Gold (Neil Young)

Movie: The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)

There are many classic films I haven't seen, simply because I never got to them. The Wizard of Oz is one I've actively avoided. Whimsical wholesome (children's) fantasy is a genre I am quite allergic to, especially if it also involves fantastic creatures and simple moral lessons packaged in needlessly elaborate metaphors. Few things in popular cinema have alienated me more than the enduring success and popularity of the Lord of the Rings films. So it may seem like faint praise that I enjoyed The Wizard of Oz more than The Lord of The Rings, but I genuinely liked the film, if only because it's cool to see how much of modern popular culture is influenced by it. I knew about Over the Rainbow, did not know that 'The Yellow Brick Road', 'Ding, dong, the witch is dead!' and 'Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain' also come from it. And I just can't remember where I've heard/seen 'Surrender Dorothy' before, but I definitely have. 

Additionally, while I may not be a fan of this particular brand of fantasy, I do like movies that accentuate their own fakeness. It is a loss for modern movies that nobody anymore makes use of matte paintings to present a background or a space. The Wizard of Oz uses them in an even more interesting way than most classic movies; they make its world seem more constructed and artificial. Same goes for its use of colors. Things look more green, yellow and red than is realistically possible and you should not expect realistic looking leaves, grass and water either. In fact, the 'plasticness' of all these elements is made explicitly obvious. It makes the film look odd and weird, and even though 3/4 different directors contributed to it, it gives you the feeling that you are watching a personal, idiosyncratic vision, filled with imagination and some stunning shots. The tornado sequence transporting Dorothy to Kansas, while out of her window she watches all the important people in her life pass by is spectacular. So is the scene in which The Witch (in color) watches Dorothy's aunt (in black and white) through her crystal ball. This is followed by The Witch's flying monkeys starting their flight, reminding of attacking war planes in formation, an image that (I think) only became commonplace in movies after the Second World War. 

I did not care for much of the songs (with the exception being the song the Munchkins sing for Dorothy after she kills the The Wicked Witch of the East) and found the performance of Judy Garland a bit too saccharine/childishly ingratiating for my taste. But her interactions with the Tin Man, the cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow are funny, the Lion gives a wonderfully over the top 'diva' performance, and the action sequences are exciting, hold up much better for contemporary audiences than you'd perhaps expect and would be more at place in an Indiana Jones film than in Narnia. Yet unsurprisingly, my favorite moment of the film is the joke involving the Wizard's doorbell. 

Finally, it's interesting that the film's ultimate 'moral' contradicts its most famous song. The fakeness of Oz is not just a nice artistic construct, especially not in comparison to how Dorothy's farm in Kansas is depicted. It communicates visually that there indeed is "no place like home" and that you don't need to leave Kansas to find 'real' education, love and glory. Can't think of many recent films that have been either willing to express/explore that sentiment, or that have expressed it with as much nuance (Dorothy and her friends only learn the value of 'home' after crossing 'over the rainbow') and elegance without condescending to either the 'coastal elite' or the American heartland.