Film: The Wizard of Oz
Director: Victor Fleming
Country: USA
Released: August 1939
Runtime: 101 minutes
Genre: Musical
Studio: MGM
Influenced: Powell & Pressburger, David Lynch, Derek Jarman, Coen Brothers, Jon M Chu
There were three films released in 1939, in what was a banner year for cinema, which explored the role of women in society through the prism of fantasy and escape. Ninotchka (Ernest Lubitsch) parodied communism with a sharply funny script written by Billy Wilder and a starring role from Greta Garbo, while Victor Fleming had the directing credit for the two other films, The Wizard of Oz and Gone With The Wind, both of which focused on the life of young women (Dorothy and Scarlett O'Hara) grappling between the lure of an idealised view of the world and the reality they must face.
The Wizard of Oz is my pick of the three, mainly because its legacy is the most enduring. Gone With The Wind has rightly been criticised for its depiction of black people (the only saving grace was Hattie McDaniel becoming the first African-American to win an Oscar), and its runtime at nearly 4 hours is excessive. That said, Gone With The Wind producer David O. Selznick deserves credit for creating moments of rare romantic and dreamlike beauty. Likewise, Victor Fleming – thanks to the wonderful performance of Judy Garland – also achieved similar fairy tale moments in The Wizard of Oz.
A 2018 study published in Applied Network Science established The Wizard of Oz as the most influential film of all time, ahead of Star Wars (Lucas) and Psycho (Hitchcock). Becky Sharp (Rouben Mamoulian, 1935) was the first truly colour film, and Disney had filmed several feature-length animations in colour, but Wizard of Oz is notable for its sudden, magical use of Technicolor when Dorothy arrives in the Land of Oz. Technicolor was expensive, necessitating customised cameras and three times as much film stock as black & white films, but its successful use in Gone With The Wind and The Wizard of Oz meant that Hollywood remained committed to it for some time. However, due to The Wizard of Oz's high production and marketing costs, it actually lost about $1mn at the box office despite its success.
Another of the film's legacies was to make a star of Judy Garland, with Dorothy her breakthrough role with audiences. Garland was 17 at the time The Wizard of Oz was filmed, so her figure had to be hidden beneath constricting bindings and a farmgirl's gingham dress. Her vocal performances make the film shine, capturing all that longing for a perfect life untouched by heartache in Somewhere Over The Rainbow, but ultimately the film's message is quite conservative – there's no place like home.
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