Film Analysis Essay 1 The Wizard of Oz (1939)
The little girl named Dorothy lives with her aunt and uncle on a farm in central Kansas. One day, the tornado hit, in order to find her beloved dog, Dorothy was not able to hide in time. A powerful tornado swept Dorothy’s cabin into the air. After some time, the hut finally fell to the ground and killed an evil witch. Below the guidance of kind-hearted north witch, Dorothy and her dog set out for wizard oz the emerald city that lives, pray he can help him go home. On the way, Dorothy meets a scarecrow, a tin man and a lion who have no brains.
This film is one of the most popular musical adventure films in MGM. One of the most important reasons why this movie is a classic is that it shows a kind of rite of passage. And it was played every year at Christmas and Easter. Despite the technological backwardness of the 1930s, this fantasy film is a timeless classic. The reasons are as follows:
- The rare color film in those days. For us to create a magnificent fairy tale world.
- The beautiful music and Judy’s rich infectious voice. The song “Over the Rainbow” has been covered many times since, but I can’t think of any other version that compares to Judy’s original.
- “classic educational story. “There is no place like home.”
In addition to the comparison of characters and scenes, the constant repetition and variations of music theme always emphasize the changes of Dorothy’s emotions, and the same music theme also helps to unify the story in a unified style.
In terms of content, characters Dorothy met representing different meanings, such as the lion without courage, the tin man without heart, the scarecrow without wisdom, and the witch of the east with love and the witch of the west with evil. Dorothy is determined to run away from home for her dog, away from the aunts and uncles who raised her, ignoring the fact that she has a warm home and wants to go to a more perfect place. But every corner of the world where there will be a perfect place to send the existence. Oz, although there is a full of love little person and love the witch, but she also met a defective lion, tin man, scarecrow, she was in love like to go to the mage with three to get the courage, heart, wisdom, but they are not all the way all goes well, there will be full of evil witch to rock the boat, although they upset their lack of wisdom has the courage to love, but when Dorothy was a witch, when to go to catch them in order to save Dorothy, but showed remarkable courage, wisdom and love.
The mainframe of the story is that Dorothy dreamed that she was transported to Oz by a whirlwind. After meeting many friends on her way home, she solved some difficulties and successfully returned to her home in Kansas, only to find that she was just having a dream. That story is the standard of A – B – A – oz – Kansas (Kansas) type structure, the change of the color (black and white – color – black and white) also shows that this structure, the black and white (Kansas) and color (oz), the specific content of the story are filled in the framework of this big, thus creates A complete story.
https://www.filmsite.org/wiza.html
https://daily.jstor.org/consumerism-and-the-wizard-of-oz/
https://www.ahschools.us/cms/lib08/MN01909485/Centricity/Domain/818/Grade%2012%20Economics/oz.html
Hi SHENGQI:
This is a nice analysis of the film The Wizard of OZ. I feel that most of the viewers of this film would be impressed by the dreamy and fairy settings of the story that the green color seems to dominate the whole color of the movie. Also, it’s interesting to notice the rhythmic editing of of the shots along with the constant and variations of music and I feel that has highly enhanced a continuity from shot to shot.
Ooo interesting. Both of our films have the interesting choices of opting for black & white or color although Wizard of Oz was catering to the popular’s appeal. However, I’m sure there is a deeper reason as to why the switch though. Is it merely to placate the tone, transition, or optics?