Warts and All, Remarkable

Rating: Null/10 (10 November 1998)

Had the great pleasure of seeing WOZ at the Uptown Theatre last weekend. No other film in my recollection has "evolved" with successive viewings like this has: from my first time seeing it on black & white t.v. in 1967 at age 5 (a REAL journey, much longer than a mere two hours!); the realization nearly ten years later that 80% of the picture is in C O L O R; up through a couple of years ago, watching it needlessly truncated on commercial t.v. on a non-Easter Friday night (when the two hours felt like 20 minutes, if that). So I was ready for the "genuine" widescreen, three-strip Technicolor movie-theatre experience.
The result: well, it was like having known about "the man behind the curtain" but not accepting it until now. I'm old enough to see the poor continuity (the Tin Man's funnel-hat handle switches sides at least once), the primitive make-up, the once-magical backgrounds that are now clearly movie sets, that Dorothy had quite a rack for a twelve-year-old;-),and so on. And as for "Munchkinland," we won't even GO THERE.
But it doesn't matter. Oh, the COLORS: the burnt fuschia of the hourglass sand, the genuine ruby of Dorothy's slippers, the repulsive green of the Witch's skin versus the entire green spectrum in the Emerald City. And there's nothing like seeing it with an adult audience: old enough to know all the lines and all the lyrics, booing and clapping and cheering right on cue (and laughing heartily where we never dared laugh before). WOZ may be one of the very few things this culture has produced that allows you to enjoy it as both a grown-up and the kid you once were -- and maybe still are -- without feeling the least bit self-conscious about it. May it never change.