Wizard Of Oz Film Analysis

Film Critique of The Wizard of Oz The Wizard of Oz is a film created by MGM Studios in 1939, directed by Victor Fleming and starring Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale, Frank Morgan as the Wizard and Margaret Hamilton as The Wicked Witch of the West. The Wizard of Oz is commonly known as the classic film of American cinema and is loved by many people. It can be classified as a Family, Fantasy, Musical film due to the touching messages told throughout the film, the magical special effects featuredn and the beautiful musical numbers highlighted in the film. The Wizard of Oz follows the young Dorothy Gale running away from home, she decides to return thanks to a man (Professor Marvel) who tells her to go back home. On her way home a tornado is ripping

“There’s no place like home” could be considered the main message of the move. Dorothy has just spent all this time in Oz trying to reach the Wizard only to have the Wizard get taken away in the hot air balloon that was meant to take her home. Glinda the Good Witch of the North comes to the rescue and tells Dorothy to click her heels together three times and she will be home but before that, Glinda asks what she learned during her journey in Oz and Dorothy says that home is the most important thing, it 's where all the love is and where she can always turn to in times of trouble. In Robert Ebert’s review of the movie he specifically states why this message is so important; “For kids of a certain age, home is everything, the center of the world” (Ebert 6). Another message highlighted in the movie is the idea and importance of friendship. As stated, during her journey in Oz, Dorothy meets three friends: The Scarecrow, The Tin Man and The Cowardly Lion (whom coincidentally resemble her three friends back in Kansas: Hunk, Hickory and Zeke) these three men overall save Dorothy from the Wicked Witch, help her get to the Emerald City and in the end, home. Ebert also agrees with this point and does it by tying in the main message of “home.” “...touching on the key lesson of childhood, which is that someday the child will not be a child, that home will no longer exist, that adults will be no help because now the child is

The biggest and probably most memorable special effect of the movie is the transition from black and white film to color. The film starts in black and white while Dorothy is in Kansas then as soon as she lands in Oz the film magically transitions to color. This was extra unique because during the time it was made, most movies were strictly in black and white. “As a child I simply did not notice whether a movie was in color or not. The movies themselves were such an overwhelming mystery that if they wanted to be in black and white, that was their business. It was not until I saw ‘The Wizard of Oz’ for the first time that I consciously noticed B&W versus color” Here, Ebert expresses just how wowing that effect was to him and how it really added to the movie (Ebert 1). There are so, so many other special effects expressed in The Wizard of Oz like the house getting spun up in the tornado, trees coming to life and throwing apples or a beautiful woman in a beautiful dress traveling by bubble. Frank Nugent from The New York Times makes a comment on these effects “They are entertaining conceits all of them, presented with a naive relish for their absurdity and out of an obvious—and thoroughly natural—desire on the part of their fabricators to show what they could do” even though the gentlemen does almost mock the people in charge of these effects here, he does