The Wizard of Oz

[paa400]

I went to my local Target on Friday and an employee told me they did not carry the Target exclusive version. I found it myself. There were two copies left.

[Michael Kerpan]

Anyone heard anything about a general blu-ray release of this yet?

[perkizitore]

Yes!

[manicsounds]

So for the BD releases, are there any bonus materials that weren't left off from the previous DVD 3-disc edition?

[aox]

The 2009 BD is being discontinued this year in anticipation for the 75th anniversary in 2014 where the film will be remastered and rereleased.

Finally, this film is getting deserved attention.

[hearthesilence]

Unless they're doing something radically different like transferring a pristine IB tech print (highly unlikely, but something I'd actually welcome), I doubt it's worth the time.

[aox]

Unless they're doing something radically different like transferring a pristine IB tech print (highly unlikely, but something I'd actually welcome), I doubt it's worth the time.

I don't really see how much improvement can be made above the 2009 BD release. Unless they finally get those 250gig BD discs that can play on the current players and hold a 4K scan. And even then, I bet the difference would be negligible on a 46" screen.

[hearthesilence]

If we're talking about a digital restoration put together in the same manner as the last one (scanning the three-strip negative and digitally combining them), you're absolutely right, it's not going to look much better.

Which is why I mentioned something radically different, like an IB tech print. The overall look and color is not going to look the same - there's no way a color image put together solely with those materials and that equipment from that era is going to look anything like a digital composite from the last 5-10 years, it's physically impossible. Whether it's 'better' becomes much more subjective too. It wouldn't be as sharp, it may even look muddier or a bit 'brown' but the image would have a great bloom to it that can't be replicated using the same process as the last restoration or any digital restoration.

[zedz]

When you think back to what Warner were releasing just a few short years ago, their present endless, cynical recycling of the same half-dozen 'classic' titles is incredibly depressing.

[matrixschmatrix]

Honestly, I imagine they could just re-release the current print of Wizard, claim it had undergone additional restoration, and put that money towards something more pressing. I doubt most people would notice or care.

[Matt]

Warner Bros. now thinks it invented The Wizard of Oz.

[eerik]

I don't really see how much improvement can be made above the 2009 BD release. Unless they finally get those 250gig BD discs that can play on the current players and hold a 4K scan. And even then, I bet the difference would be negligible on a 46" screen.

I thought the current restoration was done at 4K from 8K scan. I don't see any reason for a new restoration. Current Blu-ray release could be improved slightly by new higher bitrate encode.

[Gregory]

I've been trying to decide whether I ever want to see this film again. I saw it several times as a tot, liked it fairly well, but don't think it'd be my cup of tea now, at least not enough to seek it out on blu and revisit it, but I may do so. So I was looking at list project threads to gauge what its reputation is like among those of us who have a serious interest in 1930s films, musicals, etc. and it seems like its stature has dropped, but it still makes a surprisingly strong showing. It started at an incredible #10 position in the 2004 '30s list, then dropped to #23, and then to #42 last round. Still, 42 is a pretty high ranking given my impression from peers here that it doesn't hold its own against the great films of the decade. And in the Musicals genre list, it ranked at #21, beating out great films by Demy, Hawks, Tashlin, etc. etc.

Another reason this is surprising to me is that virtually no one has praised it in any list project thread (or in this thread, really), and yet people are voting for it. I wonder if there's a kind of stigma about appreciating this film. Presumably some of the support, but not all, comes down to feelings about it from childhood. Would anyone like to boldly step forward and say what they like about the film now? I'd be interested in anyone's thoughts about why it holds up. And I'm not saying it doesn't. All I have are memories of seeing it something like 25 years ago.

[dx23]

Warner Bros. now thinks it invented The Wizard of Oz.

Unbelievable.

[triodelover]

Would anyone like to boldly step forward and say what they like about the film now? I'd be interested in anyone's thoughts about why it holds up. And I'm not saying it doesn't. All I have are memories of seeing it something like 25 years ago.

I never think about the film until I finally decide to watch it again and I'm always glad I did. I don't really think it's childhood, maybe it's the schmaltz factor..or Bert Lahr...or Ray Bolger.. or maybe it's this song.

[Matt]

Would anyone like to boldly step forward and say what they like about the film now? I'd be interested in anyone's thoughts about why it holds up.

I don't know if I'm the best person for the job, but some of my reasons for loving it as an adult:

• It's unofficially the first film of MGM's legendary Arthur Freed unit, and it sets the visual style for the films to come out of that unit for the next two decades.
  The production design, costumes, make-up, and all other technical achievements, are exquisitely detailed and state-of-the-art for the time. And they lend the film a timeless air, particularly when you compare it with so many other films from the time that feel like holdovers from the 19th century.
  The Harold Arlen songs, though we are all overfamiliar with them, are peerless. If you just listen to it, "Over the Rainbow" is an extraordinarily beautiful song.
  I never get tired of Bert Lahr's comedic performance (though I would have vastly enjoyed Buddy Ebsen as the Tin Man more than I do Jack Haley, who is kind of prissy).
  I am a die-hard Judy Garland fan (completely unironically, I might add, though not quite a Queen), and this is Judy's Ur-text.

Those are not all my reasons and they may not be the kind of reasons you're looking for, but I feel this film earns its status as a received classic more than most.

[Matt]

I did prefer it as a once-a-year treat on CBS that the whole family would watch than I do the endlessly-recycled Home Video Event it's become, one of Warner's Ten Classics You Must Own, Preferably in a $79 Box Full of Cheap Tchotchkes. It's cheapened the film.

[zedz]

This is going from rusty memory, but I believe its showing in the Lists Project round before last (you'll have to check with swo for the details of last time) was primarily from a number of middling to low rankings from some forum regulars and high rankings from several unfamiliar people who rarely post(ed), which might account for the lack of enthusiastic defence. And, as is usually the case with these things, the more people there are voting, the more the list is going to skew towards the films that everybody has seen, even if nobody seems to be especially passionate about them.

For my part, I never saw the film as a child (though I devoured the Oz books and would have loved to have seen it - but it was never the seasonal TV fixture it was in the US). When I caught up with it in my teens, it was terribly underwhelming, and I've always found it clunky and charmless for the most part.

[swo17]

Looking back at the last '30s vote, it didn't get a ton of mentions, but those who did list it tended to place it very high. Only a couple of the votes came from forum regulars, one of whom was none other than the alter ego of Nothing.

[scotty2]

I recently kicked off my cultural history of the Great Depression class with the film to get history students thinking about responses to hard times. The Vidor-sepia sections evoke the documentary photography current at the time (think Lange especially and also Vidor's own Our Daily Bread) while Fleming's Technicolor fantasy codes the escape Hollywood was so good at providing during the decade (more films made in Hollywood in that decade than any other). There is much more that students identified or that I presented as Depression-resonant, from "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"--lyrics by the same Yip Harburg who penned "Brother Can You Spare a Dime" a few years before--to speculation about the Wizard's meaning (FDR? Huey Long? Father Coughlin? Fascists from across the sea? All of them media manipulators to one degree or another), the tornado as a stand-in for the Dust Bowl, the terrible floods and other disasters of the 1930s, and the idea that the qualities the characters seek are precisely those needed to make it through the Depression: a brain (FDR's braintrust with its New Deal ideas), a heart (empathy: think Farm Security Administration photographs), and courage (FDR's inaugural: "we have nothing to fear but fear itself"). Obviously there is a lot going on in the film as a musical, as one of Hollywood's great technical achievements in the ultimate golden year of 1939, Judy Garland, Freed getting going as associate producer, the concerns of the source text itself, etc. But these are some things that situate the film in its own time, something I almost never see in discussions of it and an angle that may in fact be more interesting than the "timeless" pop-culture joke it in many ways has become. All but one of the 24 students had seen it before but none had thought of it as an artifact of the Great Depression. They were seeing it anew through that lens.

[Brian C]

I actually grew up thinking - in what I imagine was a not-uncommon belief for someone my age growing up (I'm 33) - that it was the first color film. The way it transitions to color, with Dorothy opening the door, makes it feel like something so new, that the filmmakers felt like they had to show off. So for me, part of the appeal is probably due to the residual power of that mistaken belief, because even as a small child I always found it so easy to imagine myself back in old times, watching the amazing splendor of color unfurl in front of me. Even though I know better, I still think about that when I watch the movie.

I also remember, even as a small child, being impressed by the blatant artificiality of all the sets. From time to time someone will use the movie as an example of why you don't need complicated special effects for the "suspension of disbelief", but to me that misses the point. I'm tempted to say it's like a dream, but that's not quite right. Instead, I'd say that the movie looks like how a kid would imagine it, with finite horizons and an emphasis on current surroundings to the exclusion of all else. Because after all, what does a kid know about forever? If it's not right in front of you, it doesn't exist.

Which, actually, probably sums up the movie in a way. Basically, the experience of watching it never changes for me. With other movies that I remember watching as a child, when I watch them now I see them through the eyes of an adult. What this means is that I've either outgrown them or I appreciate them now in a much different way. But The Wizard of Oz just never seems to change. I can see why people might push back against that, or why someone who didn't know it as a child would reject it. I'm not even particularly nostalgic by nature, but I find it a valuable reminder of how the world looked and felt when I was a child.

[Roger Ryan]

I didn't think I would have to defend the film on this forum, but THE WIZARD OF OZ manages to do almost everything right despite having too many hands involved (by comparison, GONE WITH THE WIND has trouble overcoming MGM's factory approach). Perhaps it is Freed's strong influence, but OZ maintains the light vaudevillian tone that I imagine the successful stage production(s) had done twenty years earlier while delivering the high production values MGM was known for. I was charmed by the film as a child, but there are many things I appreciate now as an adult. Namely, the Arlen/Harburg songs are just great and I especially love the wacky wordplay and cock-eyed rhymes ("If I only got to thinkin', I could be another Lincoln") that seem just right coming out of the mouth of a talking scarecrow. The performances are pretty strong throughout and I think Frank Morgan was never better. Note how his portrayal of the title role is an exaggerated take on the "professor" that Dorothy encounters in the real world; both are lonely con men who use misdirection to deflect scrutiny.

Much has been made of the idea that the Emerald City appears to be MGM studios itself and Dorothy is the wanna-be starlet who, ultimately, is being encouraged to stay home. Some of this does seem to have found its way into the text as does the Depression allusions "scotty2" mentioned. The intrusion of the darker aspects of the real world hold greater resonance with me as an adult viewer. With each passing year, those flying monkeys look more and more like air raid bombers. Certainly there is a reason why the phrase "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" stays with us. Breaking through the illusion and understanding what drives ourselves and others is still heavy stuff and goes beyond what we would expect from a mere children's film.

[Feego]

I really have to echo what Roger Ryan, Brian C, scotty2, and Matt have already said. I guess I can see why many people now reject Oz, as -- like Casablanca and Gone with the Wind -- it's a film that has been so shamelessly pushed in our faces by the studio (Warner for all three) as a TIMELESS CLASSIC we must run out and buy every three years. This attempt at manufacturing memories is distasteful and is enough to put off even genuine fans.

There are a great many movies and shows I grew up watching and loving, and I do consider myself a rather nostalgic person. But when I watch those movies today, I often find myself cringing and wondering what I ever liked about them, thinking that if I had children, I would never expose them to such junk. That doesn't happen with Oz. While I don't watch it often, when I do, I become genuinely caught up in it, moved by Judy Garland's emotion, enamored with the music, and still exhilerated by the witch (she gave me nightmares for years). I never cease to be impressed with Margaret Hamilton's performance for its no-holds-barred outrageousness and (something I only now see as an adult) for her ability to actually draw some sympathy. I must say I feel a bit sorry for the old biddy Miss Gulch who takes out her social/sexual frustrations on a little girl's dog. As the witch, Hamilton explodes into something much bigger and troubling -- adding to the political interpretation, she does come off as a Fascist leader with her army of stormtroopers. We take for granted today that our collective notion of a classic Halloween witch owes everything to Hamilton.

I have also long thought of The Wizard of Oz as a celebration of film escapism, especially considering how important that was during the Depression. This farm girl, trapped and stifled by her grim surroundings, is literally carried away for fantastic Technicolor adventures, engages in musical numbers, fights an evil villain, and saves the day. In the end, she must return to the real world, but she comes back richer for her experience in the Dream Factory.

OK, I really am just an unabashed fan of this movie. And for the record, I HATE High Noon and LOVE Ford and especially Hawks.

[Matt]

The Wizard of Oz Fantasy Glamour Dorothy Barbie Doll

[see also Lee Meriwether/Julie Newmar Catwoman Barbie Doll, which is actually kinda cool]

[domino harvey]

Starring Olivia Wilde as Judy Garland. It's the role she was born to play!