Perfecting Baum's vision

Rating: 10/10 (24 July 2009)

A book I was once reading referred to Frank Baum's use of a dream as a narrative device--revealing the author's ignorance that Baum's novel depicted Oz as a real place, not a dream. The idea that it was a dream was an innovation of the 1939 movie. I'm always amazed at how many people haven't read the novel and make mistakes like that. It's one of the most popular and enduring stories of modern times, yet it's remembered mostly through the 1939 film.
Ironically, Baum disliked the "It was all a dream" convention in literature. I agree with him. It's a convention that usually seems contrived. "Wizard of Oz," however, is a a rare example of a film that makes it work. One of the movie's secrets, I believe, is that it keeps the idea in the background most of the time and doesn't dwell on it. Dorothy's Oz experience is far too coherent and stable to plausibly represent a dream. It isn't like "Alice in Wonderland," a meditation on absurdity. Since it's adapted from a straightforward fantasy, the events are impossible but not absurd, magical but not nonsensical.
That's why it works so well. Too many filmmakers today think they have to present dreams as, well, dreamlike, full of weird and disconnected imagery. That may be realistic, but it doesn't make for good storytelling. As a result, movies about dreams usually range from turkeys like the John Candy comedy "Delirious" to bizarre tours de force like Richard Linklater's "Waking Life." Few movies treat the subject in a nonchalant, offhand fashion, the way "Wizard of Oz" did.
Granted, occasional scenes in the 1939 film do feel a little dreamlike. There is, for example, the "lions, tigers, and bears" sequence, where as soon as Dorothy thinks a frightening thought, it immediately happens. Then there's the scene where Dorothy can't remember why Scarecrow and Tin Man, both versions of workers from her Kansas farm, seem so familiar to her. Fortunately, however, the movie avoids anything strange or off-the-wall. We can take the story at face value even as our knowledge that it's a dream gives it an added psychological dimension.
The Oz sequences are broadly faithful to the book, though they do not include some of Dorothy's later adventures. Partly as a result of this trimming, the movie feels less episodic and more focused, with a certain depth the book lacked. Glinda, a composite of two relatively minor characters from the book, has a godlike, deus ex machina quality here, and there's a sense that she is watching over Dorothy the whole time. By placing Dorothy's final confrontations with the Wicked Witch and the Wizard near the end of the story rather than the middle, the film draws greater attention to their significance.
Most important, the movie creates a whole new storyline for the Kansas section. All these early scenes--Dorothy's feeling unloved by her caretakers, Dorothy's hanging out with the three farmhands, Dorothy's attempting to rescue her dog Toto from the ghastly Miss Gulch--were invented for the film. Yet they provide the setup for Dorothy's Oz experience, where she will meet versions of the people she knew in Kansas. This not only fleshes Dorothy out as a character, but adds meaning to the Oz sequences. She yearns to be taken away to a faraway land, only to discover that once she's there she faces simply a fanciful version of the problems she was running away from at home.
The book, in contrast, gave hardly any detail about Dorothy's Kansas life. Baum's Dorothy was consequently a more passive character, victim to circumstances beyond her control, and her journey to Oz was merely a random, insane event with no bearing on anything other than that it made for an entertaining tale. The movie gave her a will and purpose that Baum's protagonist never had. When she mournfully longs to be sent home, it resonates more strongly than in the book because we know the real cause of her separation wasn't the tornado but her own actions.
Adapting the book to the screen thus involved a bundle of wise decisions, made all the more impressive because when you read about what was happening behind the scenes, you're struck by how much could have gone wrong. The film went through no fewer than five directors. Judy Garland was first told to play Dorothy with a blonde wig and baby-doll makeup. "Over the Rainbow" was almost cut from the film. Margaret Hamilton suffered severe burns from a scene where she disappears in a cloud of smoke, the original actor to play Tin Man had to quit when his face paint made him ill, and the dog playing Toto had to be replaced after an actor stepped on the animal. These stories, which have been part of Hollywood lore for many decades, make the filming of "Wizard of Oz" sound more like a comedy routine than the creation of a classic.
As an expensive, high-tech production for its time, the movie could easily have lost sight of its spirit, as so many big-budget spectacles today do. Instead, it not only remained true to Baum's vision but infused it with additional layers of meaning that speak to people of all ages, in all generations. If you've never read the book, I encourage you to do so, if for no other reason than to gain a greater appreciation for what the movie accomplished.