The Movie Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained) (2016)

IN CONTEXT

GENRE

Musical, adventure

DIRECTOR

Victor Fleming

WRITERS

Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, Edgar Allan Woolf (screenplay); L. Frank Baum (novel)

STARS

Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Margaret Hamilton

BEFORE

1938 Judy Garland stars alongside Mickey Rooney in Love Finds Andy Hardy.

AFTER

1939 A few months after The Wizard of Oz, Fleming’s Gone with the Wind is released.

1954 Garland stars opposite James Mason in hit musical A Star Is Born, her first movie in four troubled years.

Plenty of big movies from the classical Hollywood period have faded into obscurity. Other movies remain respected by the critics, but modern audiences struggle to connect with them. Then there are movies like Victor Fleming’sThe Wizard of Oz, which not only stands the test of time, but continues to entertain. The movie is discovered and embraced by each new generation as passionately as the previous one, and the story has crossed over into a global cultural consciousness. Even if they have never seen the movie, people can sing along to “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” and will understand the reference when someone taps their shoes and says “There’s no place like home.” The Wizard of Oz is now more than 70 years old, but it remains a key picture in the making of modern cinema.

A magnificent spectacle

The movie’s story sees Dorothy (played by the 17-year-old Judy Garland), a young girl growing up on a Kansas farm, caught in the eye of an impressively rendered twister and magically transported to the Land of Oz. Here, along with a ragtag trio of misfits—a Scarecrow, a Tin Man, and a Cowardly Lion—she must travel along the Yellow Brick Road, while avoiding the attentions of the Wicked Witch of the West. Her destination is the Emerald City, where the mysterious Wizard of Oz himself resides. The story is probably familiar, but what really sets apart The Wizard of Oz is not so much the “what” as the “how”. It is a movie in service of spectacle, a movie that sets out to test the limits of the newly born medium of cinema in every frame.

When Dorothy arrives in Oz, viewers see her open her eyes in faded, sepia-toned black and white, the frame crackling with the technical imperfections of the time. But as she opens the door and steps outside, they glimpse Oz and are overwhelmed with Technicolor. In 1939, when it was released, this would have been the very first time many audience members had seen a color movie. As the scene plays out, the director Victor Fleming is fully aware of this fact and he takes his time to pan around Munchkinland, lingering on the extravagantly constructed set as its wave of hallucinatory colors hits the viewer from all angles. Then come the special effects, a musical number featuring hundreds of actors, and a showdown with the antagonist, the Wicked Witch of the West (the scenery and costume designers were encouraged to use as much color as possible to take full advantage of the Technicolor format). The whole time, viewers are adjusting to seeing color for the first time. This is a movie with the approach that “if less is more, then how much more must more be,” dazzling with its no-expenses-spared production. In that sense, it is very much a forerunner of the modern blockbuster, with musical numbers in place of action set pieces.

"I would watch the movie every day when I was two. I had a hard time understanding that I couldn’t go into the film, because it felt so real to me."

Zooey Deschanel
in the documentary film These Amazing Shadows, 2011

When Dorothy first meets the Tin Man (Jack Haley), he is in desperate need of an oiling.

Character-led story

Although the story is crafted to be the perfect vehicle to show off the wonderful new toys Hollywood had at its disposal, it is nonetheless deeply rooted in character and emotion. While we discover a new world, we do so through the prism of a distinct framing device. Whereas most adventure movies feature a group of characters united by a common goal, here each of our heroes is searching for something they lack. Not fame or fortune, but a personal quality, something they believe will make them whole. Dorothy lacks a home, the Tin Man a heart, the Scarecrow a brain, and the Cowardly Lion his courage.

Each character in the magical world of Oz is introduced to the audience in a location where they are vulnerable, where they think the Wizard’s help is the only thing that can save them. All four of the travelers are on their own “hero’s journey,” and it is just as important to the viewer that the Tin Man should get a heart as it is to see the Wicked Witch defeated.

Although the movie marked a groundbreaking step in terms of technical achievement, its success also lies in keeping close to the principles of simple storytelling and in its universal appeal as a “quest” movie that follows the rite-of-passage trajectory. The audience sees the orphan Dorothy undergo a formative transition from a child protected in her home to navigating a new and dangerous world, relying on her trio of friends—symbolically, the emotions, intellect, and courage.

Critics have interpreted motifs and characters from the Wizard of Oz as symbolic of US political and economic issues.

Dream world

Throughout the movie, the action stays intimate even as it becomes epic, and each character is already strangely familiar. The Wicked Witch of the West is a dead ringer for Dorothy’s evil neighbor, Miss Gulch, who wants to have Dorothy’s dog Toto put down. The Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion all strongly resemble the farmhands from back home, while the Wizard of Oz appears to be Professor Marvel, a phoney fortune-teller. The most prominent characters in Oz mirror characters back home in Kansas, making it clear that this is Dorothy’s dream world.

The movie revels in spectacle, in witches and woods, in lions, tigers, and bears. Yet at its core, it is a tale of friendship and personal growth, and balancing the two may be the secret to its longevity. A memorable story, told with imagination and in vivid splendor, it is a movie that transcends its time.

The movie was a success on its initial release, but the cost of the production meant that it did not register a profit for its producers MGM until 1949.

Born in California in 1889, Victor Fleming was a stuntman before rising through the ranks of the camera department to become a director. His first movie, When the Clouds Roll By, was released in 1919. His greatest year was 1939, when he directed The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. He was hired as a last-minute substitute on both, replacing Richard Thorpe on the former and George Cukor on the latter. The two movies won several Oscars. Fleming never again reached those heights, but he went on to make the critically acclaimed Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and A Guy Named Joe(1943). He died in 1949, a year after the release of his last movie, Joan of Arc.

1925 Lord Jim

1939 Gone with the Wind

1939 The Wizard of Oz

1941 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

What else to watch: Pinocchio (1940) ✵ A Star Is Born (1954) ✵ Return to Oz (1985) ✵ Wild at Heart (1990) ✵ Spirited Away (2001)