The Wizard of Oz
Categories: AFI Reviews, Featured, Movie Reviews
Written By: Eric Jensen
Rating: 
AFI puts The Wizard of Oz at number six. While I’d rate it even higher (number three, perhaps even number two), at least they gave it a spot in the top ten. While some may object to the inclusion of a children’s fairy tale so high on the list among films of deeper meaning and greater importance, that is a mistake; The Wizard of Oz is the ultimate example and perfect realization of “movie magic.”
It will not surprise you to learn that The Wizard of Oz is the story of a Kansas farm girl who travels via cyclone to the marvelous land of Oz where she has a Grand Adventure and learns an Important Lesson. By the time you’re old enough to have learned to read these words, you’ve already seen the movie, probably more than once. But this long-term (the film fast approaches its seventieth anniversary) near constant exposure has not caused it to shine any less brightly—it may, in fact, have made the movie even more relevant, as it paints a picture of innocence and purity of heart we often feel we’ve lost, acting as a sort of oasis of wholesomeness in morally bankrupt times.
Is it even possible to watch this movie and not be enthralled? I submit that it is not. Even after probably a hundred viewings, The Wizard of Oz has lost none of its luster. When Judy Garland as Dorothy takes those first tentative steps out of her sepia tone farmhouse into the visual splendor of the three-strip Technicolor land of Oz, I’m still awestruck every time. I truly feel Dorothy’s fear when she first encounters the Wicked Witch and her anguish when the Wizard dashes her hopes by refusing to immediately grant her request. When the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman and Cowardly Lion have their wishes fulfilled, I’m every bit as delighted as they are (even though I know they really had those things all along). I sing along with every song and I cheer when Dorothy returns home safely at journey’s end.
And then there’s “Over the Rainbow.” There is not nor can there be a more perfect combination of song, performer, arrangement, setting and cinematography. It’s almost impossible to even describe what happens to you emotionally as you watch this sequence. You feel and relate to the longing in Dorothy’s heart, yes, but there’s more to it than that. As you hear the song and see the way she sings it, you start to fall in love—not in a creepy, attracted to fourteen-year-old girls way, but in love with the child within you that she represents, with all the innocence, wide-eyed wonderment, belief in the possibility of all things and optimistic view that a better world awaits you that goes with it. And to think the song almost never existed! First the people at MGM felt it was undignified for one of their starlets to sing in a barnyard, then the song was almost cut when studio executives felt it slowed down the beginning of the movie. We should all be glad that wiser minds prevailed, because “Over the Rainbow” is perhaps the finest moment in all of cinema history.
We shouldn’t overanalyze the film (although it’s been done time and again) because to do so is to rob it of some of its spark. It’s enough to just watch the movie and let the wonderful journey unfold step by magical step, and in doing so to lose yourself in the world it creates and be a part of the story with all the other characters. What more, then, is there to say? The story of the suicidal stagehand is too absurd to consider and the synchronicity between the movie and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is merely an unremarkable coincidence. They do, however, point to one key thing about this movie: the fact that these stories exist and persist is just proof of how deeply entrenched in our cultural consciousness The Wizard of Oz has become, in that people are always looking for a new reason to talk about it, even if only through silly rumors.
Before I go, I’ll confess to you an embarrassing secret about my own personal history with The Wizard of Oz. It’s common knowledge that Hunk, Zeke and Hickory, the farmhands in the Kansas sequences, are the same actors who portray Dorothy’s decidedly more fantastic friends in Oz, explaining why Dorothy remarks that she feels like she’s known them all her life. It’s plain from the context of lines like these, from Hunk’s talk of brains and Zeke’s courageous acts and of course from the appearances and voices of the actors that the three farmhands and the three traveling companions are of a kind. Now, I’d like to consider myself to be a pretty smart fellow, but I was thirteen and had seen the movie dozens of times before I picked up on the connection. (And if you think that’s bad, consider that I didn’t realize until I was seventeen that, in Winnie the Pooh, the broken sign in front of Piglet’s house reading “Trespassers Will” was a joke and not really the name of Piglet‘s grandfather.) Now you know my secret shame.
And in conclusion, just remember: There’s no place like home.
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