'The Happiest Movie Ever Made' is how The Wizard of Oz was originally advertised in 1939. Totems, symbols and motifs from The Wizard Of Oz have been regurgitated into so many movies by directors such as John Waters, David Lynch, Guillermo del Toro, and now new filmmakers such as underground director Fabrizio Federico. This classic fantasy film has enbedded its self into the encompassing cinematic language for all time, and has become ubiquitous with pop cultures lexicon, and a paradigm of perfect cinema. Dorothys look of wonder when she sees Oz has been embedded into every childs psyche, and gives off an apex of feeling that tugs at the audiences heartstrings. The journey and lessons of this film are universal, such as, whether to grow up or be a kid forever, but also realizing that by growing up change can be a beautiful thing. But because we have all seen the Wizard Of Oz as kids (especially filmmakers) in a sense we are all either subconsciously living or making the story of the film (if you're a movie director) because it lives rent free in our minds. Even its darkness has touched us deeply. We re-explore, re-investigate, re-contextualize, re-everything about this classic movie. Looking to the past while also looking to the future. Some have said that all that happens in the film is the characters are ''just walking'', but that is the films greatest message, to move forward. In the field of relativity the trick is to find your way home, while wearing ruby red shoes, ''There's no place like home'' indeed.
One of the films most similar to Oz is 'It's A Wonderful Life', they share the same story, beats, the same trajectory, and they were both flops. The films start off with the main character wanting to explore and see the world, but by the end they just want to go back, to go home. Oz is the quintessential fary tale movie. Welcome to the world of movies. Even 'O Brother Where Art Thou?' (2000) steals from Oz, i.e the scene when Clooney and his gang watch as the KKK hold a wizard ceremony, in Oz their gang watches the guards march around the courtyard and then they both sneak down in disguises. Or how the screen goes from sepia to colour in 'A Matter Of Life & Death' (1946) like a candy coloured world. Or how in the middle of certain movies the main character will suddenly start to sing a song, i.e Nicholas Cage singing Elvis in 'Wild At Heart'. Or how the symbolism of the red shoes and curtains crop up in 'Twin Peaks' & 'Blue Velvet'. Consciousness and transcendence are at the heart of every David Lynch film, and he embodys Oz more than any other filmmaker, but Oz has many acolytes.
At the base source of thought is this consciousness. Even Dorothy, she transcends and goes to this other world called Oz, where she finds herself and her power. Same thing happens to Neo in 'The Matrix'. Trauma sends them on a journey to find stability. In her case surviving a near death experience from a tornado.
Even the use of wind in the film is symbolic. The winds of change. It defines the whole film. When the house finally lands on the wicked witch the soundtrack finally goes silent for the first time and it clears the palette for the audience. Then we hear those human voices replicating the sound of wind. Wind equals mystery, ''put more wind into the performance'' Lynch would tell his actors. Rooms filled with the sound of wind. Wind will put you somewhere new. It will send you somewhere beautiful but you need to watch your back, like a flower filled with poison in it. Dont take things at surface value. Like when the apple trees come alive and grabs Dorothy, theres violence below the surface. Oz is actually quite violent. Dorothy enters Oz by killing the Wicked Witch of the East, and later she melts the Wicked Witch of the West. The message is nothing should be taken for granted, and nothing is what it is. Theres a deep truth inside all of us to be 100% awake. Also that you should move through the world like a child with a complete lack of cynicism like Dorothy. When people are kind she's greatful and when they arent she calls them mean. Mainly she is curious and adventures cant be planned, and with the right attitude she is victorious, the way life shoul trully be.
Curtains are another reacuring symbol. They are a gateway to magic, like in movie theatres or with magicians, so when you see a curtain you know its not going to be real life, but fantasy time. Curtains are welcoming because they are easy to pull open, but once you see behind the curtain the secret is gone, the craft has been exposed. Nothing can live up to it, its top secret. Lynch uses Oz as a symbol and a movie arc. Like when the fairy in her bubble comes down in 'Wild At Heart', or when you seen the evil mother dress as the wicked witch on a broom stick, it give it a parallel and shorthand for a feeling he wants to communicate, and you know their motivations, almost as a shortcut to thinking because you've seen it already in Oz. It's a shared language and it shakes your hand. Even 'Back To The Future's' story resembles Oz, like how Michael J Fox meets his dopplegangers from his past. Its because 'The Wizard Of Oz' is a very sturdy cinematic template for basing a story on, many life lessons can be attached to it. Marty even comes back to the present having changed his future life. But danger and harmony can co-exist.
Dreams. In these films when you cross over thats where the danger lies. You meet the dark characters who drag you through hell, then returns to their family knowing new worldly things after having liberated the people that they met on the dark side of the tracks. An innocent character moving between different worlds, like how 'The Elephant Man' goes from circus folk to the upper class. Finding your own Kansas and its kindness. Oz inspires and allows and helps parse out a filmmakers story, to tie in particular elements of a films trajectory. New worlds and new sensations is what an audience wants to experience and see, dragged into a hell against our wishes, like Neo in 'The Matrix' or when Forrest Gump is sent to Vietnam, and 'Lord Of The Rings', but you must return safe to your home. In dreamland you can have multiple faces and avatars, be playing different characters like they do in Oz, which is a great metaphor for a dream world. The fish out of water, like Axel Foley in 'Beverly Hills Cop', he learns some lessons and that theres less difference than you might think at first glance, and then he goes back home. Extending yourself beyond your comfort level. Or 'Crocodile Dundee', 'Star Wars' & 'Splash'.
In the film 'The Miracle Worker' (1962) theres a dinner table sequence, which is both comical, horrifying and a little sad. But as a contrast it is dreamy. Then theres the scene when Annie watches Helen through the window and has a flash back to her days at a school for the blind, and Arthur Penn uses a double exposure dissolve that lasts a long time. But Lynch does it all the time to evoke ghosts from the past, and you cant tell which layer of reality they are in. We see that in Oz when the Lion and Scarecrow are in the field of poppies and the good fairy appears as a double exposure over them. It evokes a nostalgia for a perfect world or a world from the past that only existed in your mind. Oz has baked its self into many filmmakers subconsciousness. Oz is basically the story of a girl who moves between parallel worlds, simulation theory too. But which world is the real one? Even in 'Nightmare in Elm Street', and 'Mullholand Drive', certain characters influence can travel between worlds. Dreams can come true and then it can become a nightmare, a marble prison, like death. Which reality will you land in? Strangeness can cross into reality. Strange timings baked to the bones of certain scenarios.
Transcendental Meditation is a technique to experience a thought in its most infant states of development until the conscious mind taps the source of topic. A thought moves so it has energy to make it move, and due to intelligence it takes a direction. So the source of thought needs to be clensed. Concentrate on a word without meaning (mantra) transfer the attention to a thought without content. Concentrate on the sound of the word. The source of the energy. As the mind goes deeper into the subtle levels of thought the breathing becomes less, as ur body enters into a lower field of activity, one breaths less. TM takes the mind from the surface level of thinking to the inner field of being and explores the foundation of life.
Being is the basis of thinking, and thinking is the basis if action.
In Oz another aspect that has become standard fare is the villain. In this case the Wicked Witch of the West. The director is a puppet master and the villain is always one of the fav puppets, they are better characters, they have cooler costumes, you just remember them. Examples such as Captain Hook, Cinderella's step mom, the girl from The Bad Seed. Margaret Hamilton embodied the witch and gave her a campy evilness, she even signed her autographs WWW. Even the scene where the Wizard demands for Dorothy to bring back the witches broomstick, for in exchange a reward, has been copied in other films. Loyalty to the King/Queen will grant you your requests. Plus theres the Munchkins who make up the little weird town, even that has been copied in other movies, such as 'The Outsiders' and the 'canteen scene' in 'Star Wars'. Its a familiar movie structure and motif. Oz cliches are all over John Waters movies too. He even made a short film called 'Dorothy The Kansas City Pothead' (1968) and in 'Mondo Trasho' (1969) his main character clicks their shoes three times, then disappears. In his films the villains are the judgemental parents, jocks, and the stuck up rich snobs, but the cool characters are the loose girls, the weirdos, and the outside greasers. The moral of his stories is ''mind your own busines.'' Turn and exaggerate what people use against you, turn it into a style, and win! John Waters practically uses this theme in every one of his movies, usually set in the 1950's surrounded by judgemental, conformist parents and neighbours. People just want to feel at home. The land of Oz is a very disorienting place to live. Lynch even said ''I love, writing, editing and filming. But then you release the movie and thats when the heartbreak begins.''
Oz is very elliptically shaped in some ways. The structure and idea within the consciousness of a character, a dreamscape given a narrative life. Which in this case is two thirds of the film. Every character is always searching, dreaming and hoping. All the best characters do. Finding the best version, the most capable, loving and hopeful of themselves. We learn best about a character not from their reality but their dreams. But making movies in Hollywood is about staying in the game, and sometimes that means seeing your true vision die on the editing room floor. Lip syncing is also a reacuring element we see in many of these directors movies, and it stems from Oz. Even the close up's of the actors makeup, such as the Witch, Lion etc... theatrical artifice. Lynch does this the most. Then you realize that the conscious courage that the character has is expressed in their willingness to keep opening doors they shouldn't be opening. Spying and going to strange addresses, in the process they invite terror & chaos into their lives just like Dorothy does. Its the mystery that attracts them. The quotidian narrative trope of the detective is applied. Detectives of the metaphysical mysteries or cosmic, in some cases, to their peril. Thats what Dorothy is, with her dog and basket, being asked to go on this insane journey by the Wizard. Follow the Yellow Brick Road. Its the only way to go home. Its part of the American conciousness. Oz is the foundational text for all these filmmakers. Oz gives filmmakers the permission to think so big and wild, kind of like using the film as a Bible, you go back to it in order to consult the Bible of cinema, a foundational text. Theres so many films braided with gestures and moments taken from Oz, burned into your unconscious minds. Once you see certain images they are etched forever into your psyche, in your DNA. Keep singing infront of curtains, singing like a torch singer. But the meta story beyond Oz is the story of Judy Garland, her brilliance, greatness and the tragedy of her life. The story outside of the story is just as influential. Possibilities that died. You start off all naive & 'golly gee' but then mature and see the dark side of life. A central instinct to the best films is to see the multitudes of a character, how they can evolve and surprise us. There is so much more to all of us. To find the courage to go home, like Dorothy, to face our fears. She was frightened but her gang (Tin Man, Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion) had her back. In the end she becomes THE hero. Its an optimistic film. But we all have each one of those characters in us (cowardly, brave, optimist), including the sham Wizard.
Many directors have used the formula and the vernacular of 'the heroes journey' to tell their stories. Esentially the story of Oz, when the Wicked Witch melts or they want to meet the Wizard. Even the iconic ''Im Melting!" Has been copied. Oz touches on every genre possible like action, musical, comedy, sxi-fi, horror and drama. Even The Big Lebowsky copies Oz, including the cast of magical characters who give him secret knowledge that they always had inside of them. Suspiria is very Oz like, including Pans Labyrinth & The Devils Backbone, with their lead characters dreamjng of escaping their dull existence. Even After Hours by Scorsese borrows these dream like scenarios, where tasks need to be completed in order to succeed at life. Apocalypse Now has an Oz theme too, he goes on a mystical journey, meets a load of strange weirdos so he csn essencially find an evil wizard. The monolithic, all knowing, powerful Colonel Kurtz which everyone speaks abouth with reverance and fear, but this time hes both the wizard and the witch. The references are the cultural real estate of The Wizard Of Oz that belong in the publics consciousness. Theres a cultural currency to using certain universal Americana images from the past, like a post-modern popular surrealist.
Lynch is the king at weaving the visual and auditory language, the thematic and story language of Oz into his own work. He honours Oz and admires how the film allows us to dream in a cosmic way, talking to us in a deep way. In his film Wild At Heart you feel that Oz exists in the cannon and mythology of its world and they use it as the ideal of their own lives which they can never achieve. Oz also plays with counterparts & polorization i.e good vs bad, black & white vs technicolour, dream vs reality, good witch vs bad witch. Even the relationship between Dorothy & Judy Garland is highly analogous to heaven & hell. The American dream vs the American nightmare. Theres references to Dorothy & Judy all over Lynch's films, even her surname Garland is referenced. Judy is never found. Judy Garland even famously said in an interview ''I wanted and I tries my damnedest...to believe in the rainbow that I tried to get over and I couldnt! So what!?"
A funny thing about Oz is how it reverts back to sepia at the end, in a way telling us to stop dreaming and accept life as it is. To stop chasing the rainbow. A movie can give us a vivid perspective of the world around us, or take us to another world and then bring us back home. Each time we watch a movie we are transported. Make peace with a way to exist with the world as it is, like in Spirited Away or Peter Pan. The very concept of never growing up isnt as its cracked up to be, you have to be ready to grow up, a world where the rules do apply. The fantasy of no rules isnt as its cracked up to be. Beauty & The Beast has the same message, so in a way these films are revealing to kids that the disappointments and discimforts are necessary in order to function in the world apprechiate it. You dont have to leave that feeling behind though. Growing up can be just as magical through change. Oz is a fairy tale with bursts of happiness and a jolly ending, but the layers that can be extrapolated from it are vast. As a child you take it as face value, as a teenager your more cynical if you watch it, and then later you view it as a piece of history, that it might have not been a happy production. Look how the Pink Floyd 'Dark Side Of The Moon' myth and the dead dwarf became another strange angle to Oz, a shadow world to the happy myth. Everything goes hand in hand.
We look for darkness in perfection. The whole world family can see themselves in The Wizard Of Oz, just look up at the sky with a look of wonder to achieve an emotional apex as we work our way towards a crescendo of life tounderstand what matters to you. Look to the future.
