Salman Rushdie Brings Fresh Eyes to a Hollywood Classic: The Wizard of Oz

"Now find yourself a place where you won't get yourself into any trouble."
--Auntie Em

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To my surprise and delight, this week I acquired a copy of Salman Rushdie's little volume about The Wizard of Oz, one of many great books written by various writers for the British Film Institute (BFI). The Nobel laureate begins by declaring this movie to be his very first literary influence, prompting him to write his first short story at the tender age of ten.

I've always know that for many of my generation the story of Dorothy's adventures in the land of Oz are interwoven in various ways with many of our personal life stories. The 1939 film classic did so-so at the box office that year, but with the advent of television in the 1950s it became an annual favorite in a nation filled with young families during the post-war years. As a youth it was a family tradition to watch Saturday Night at the Movies, with many film classics being in the rotation year after year.

Television sets were only black-and-white then, so most of us missed the most amazing feature of the film, the c0ntrast between Kansas -- dusty shades of grey -- and Oz, an explosive pallet of color. Only later, with the advent of color TVs, did we experience the full effect of this magical story. When I went to see it in a theater in college it was a most memorable occasion.

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When Rushdie was contacted to select a film to write about for the BFI Film Classics series, choosing this one was an easy decision, based on the impact it had on his own life. To prepare, he not only studied the film itself and all the anecdotal legends surrounding the making of the movie (eg. Buddy Ebsen, who later became Jed Clampett in The Beverly Hillbillies, was the original scarecrow.) he also read all the L Frank Baum book that the film was based on, and its host of sequels.

A central premise of Rushdie's essay, which in my opinion he successfully defends, is that a driving force of the story is "the inadequacy of adults, even good adults."  Despite Dorothy's anguish regarding the threats of the spinster Miss Gulch, whom we re-encounter in Munchkinland as the Wicked Witch of the West, she's unable to feel safe or at peace because Auntie Em, Uncle Henry and the farmhands (the adults) are taken up with farm business. Her fear of losing her dog Toto impels her to seek refuge elsewhere. At which point Rushdie notes one of the striking insights I'd not considered before. 

At various times throughout my life I've reflected on the incantation Dorothy makes while clicking her ruby slippers at the climax of The Wizard of Oz. "There's no place like home, there's no place like home..." I've even written about this longing for home that resides in most of our hearts. But Rushdie delivers a contrarian pitch, which appears five minutes into this bigger-than-life story. 

Auntie Em has just told Dorothy to find a place where there isn't any trouble, and Dorothy ponders what kind of place that might be. This becomes the backdrop for the most famous song from this most famous movie, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

The song speaks of a place where dreams come true and "troubles melt like lemon drops." It ends with the wistful question, "If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow why, oh why, can't I?" 

 

Dorothy sings this song at a time of trouble in her life. The threat of losing something she loves, her precious dog Toto, looms over her. Life doesn't seem fair, but she feels powerless in this situation and decides to run away. 

The National Endowment for the Arts voted "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" as the greatest song of the 20th century. It's not hard to understand why. The song Judy Garland sang as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz resonates with another of our deepest longings, quite contrary to the longing for home: this world is not my home, my truest home is somewhere else.

"At its beginning, the weaknesses of grown-ups force a child to take control of her own destiny (and her dog's). Thus, ironically, she begins the process of becoming a grown-up herself," Rushdie writes. In short, the movie is a "coming-of-age" genre film, though both spectacular and surreal. 

I was recently reading about the origins of the surrealist art movement of the 1920s and the Surrealist Manifesto by Andre Breton. A significant feature of this movement was its attempt to dive below the surface of the conscious mind into the ethereal subconscious, inspired most significantly by Sigmund Freud's work. Freud purposely published his Interpretation of Dreams in the year 1900 as a means of kicking off the new century with new understandings of the inaccessible deeper layers of the mind. Breton wrote about automatic writing and other techniques to achieve this. Dali's vivid paintings were intentional embodiments of this nether world.

Though there is no evidence that L. Frank Baum's Oz was influenced by Freud, it feels easy to connect the Hollywood version of the story to the notion that Oz may have been a concussion-dream, recycling Kansas faces as Oz characters, especially since it begins and ends in a bed. 

 

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I've never read the original Oz books, so Rushdie's inquisitive examination of the source material is insightful. For Baum, Kansas is a depressing place. Everything is grey as far as the eye can see. This grey wasteland has taken the sparkle out of Auntie Em's eyes, cheeks and lips and left them a sober grey. Uncle Henry never laughed and was grey, too. What's interesting to me is that Baum's books were written in the first decade of the century, whereas the film was released at the tail end of the Dust Bowl years which coincided with the Great Depression.

It's against this backdrop that Dorothy sings her poignant lament of a place where dreams come true and "troubles melt like lemon drops." It ends with the wistful question, "If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow why, oh why, can't I?" 

No wonder this song became so epic. Who has not, at one time or another, felt this sensation in which fear and hardship prod us to seek escape. (Another digression could be inserted here about the world's migrants who long for freedom and safety, who have envisioned America as such a place. Visit Ellis Island sometime if you are able.)

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For such a short volume Rushdie's book is packed with anecdotes, insights and thought-provoking observations. Part one, the first sixty pages, features the film itself. There is also a second essay, part two, that describes Rushdie's experience at an auction of Dorothy's ruby slippers.

Of all these things much more can be said. And if able, in another blog post I would like to touch on the significance of Judy Garland at the center of this film. Did you know that Shirley Temple was seriously considered for the role of Dorothy? Did you know that Judy Garland was born in Grand Rapids here in Northern Minnesota as Frances Ethel Gumm? 

To Be Continued

"Somewhere Over the Rainbow."