“The Wizard of Oz” is a beloved, classical movie among children and adults alike. The story is about a young Kansas girl who dreams of being picked up from her uncle’s farm in a storm; in the dream, she is carried away to a land different from anything she has ever seen. Along the way she meets new friends who all wish to ask something of the Great Wizard of Oz for themselves. Once they reach the great Emerald City, however, they find the city to be a fraud; the very thing each had been searching for was found within each of them. Historian Hugh Rockoff claims The Wizard of Oz contains numerous symbols of the political and social issues. His analysis is listed in the Journal of Political Economy. (Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 98, 1990, pp. 739-760).
Rockoff sees Dorothy as the everyday, average Midwestern citizen. Toto represents the Prohibitionist party; Prohibitionists were also called teetotalers, which was another part of this association. The cyclone is a picture of the economic panic 1893. A growing depression in Europe resulted in British investors selling their ...
The article first introduces how the image of home in 1930’s through 1940’s America was a part of the American Dream, and how small-town and family life was seen as the building block of the nation. Makey-Kallis explains how during the Great Depression, the home and this lifestyle was threatened, as financial hardship and rampant homelessness set in for the majority of the country. The author argues that The Wizard of Oz became a classic film because it catered to these cultural values and anxieties of the era. The author states that the scene where the tornado comes and lifts the house up into the air literalizes the uprooting of the home during the Depression. Over the course of the film, Dorothy constantly seeks to go home, which related to those who were displaced. The article at times compares Dorothy’s journey to the Hero’s Journey monomyth. Makey-Kallis likens her forced sleep in the field of poppies to Odysseus under the Siren’s song, and her time as the Wicked Witch’s prisoner when she watches her time to run out in the hour glass to the same hero’s journey into Hades. The author concludes the article with an observation of the film’s fantastical nature, and how it was a way for those who were displaced to imagine they could go home just as easily as Dorothy at the
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is more than just a mediated artifact it is breakthrough, said to be one of the most famous films ever made. The film was not a box office success, it only received 3,017,000 on a 2,777,000 dollars budget but it still receive a large amount of positive reviews and remakes (). This is important in terms of the audience it reaches because it was not just a children’s movie, or an adult movie, or a movie for teens, it was a movie for the entire family that targeted no specific audience. The Wizard of Oz has won critical acclaim by being nominated for multiple academy awards such as best picture, best original song and is often ranked one of the top ten movies of all time (). The creator Frank L. Baum is very much significant because this was not his first ball game. He was originally an author of children’s books but wrote many novels, sequels and made many attempts to bring his work to stage and screen (). He had a vision like no other and saw things in a different pe...
Scene: This scene in the film comes just after the house has been picked up in the twister. Dorothy's house has been lifted up into the sky and suddenly dropped back down to earth in the middle of the Land of Oz. In the scene itself, Dorothy leaves her home to see that she is "Not in Kansas anymore," and finds the new and amazing world of the munchkin city in front of her. She also meets Gwendela the good witch as her journey in Oz begins.
The Wizard of Oz is the 1939 film musical released by the studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that became a cultural icon defining family entertainment for decades after its initial release. Though it did not turn a profit until 1956 when it aired on television, it has been considered a wide success, spawning several re-releases and sequels. The Wizard of Oz set the precedent for visual effects, innovations Hollywood still utilizes today in an age of computer generated images. The film has stood the test of time with its special effects, paving the way for the future of movie magic.
I chose to watch Gone with the Wind for my epic movie. I really enjoyed the movie. Gone with the Wind is about a girl named Scarlett O'Hara is the daughter of an Irish immigrant who in 1861 owns a plantation named Tara in Georgia. Scarlett is infatuated with Ashley Wilkes, who, although attracted to her, marries his cousin, Melanie Hamilton. At the party announcing Ashley's engagement to Melanie, Scarlett meets Rhett Butler, who has a reputation as a rascal. As the Civil War begins, Scarlett accepts a proposal of marriage to a man who she does not love and later dies in war. After the war, Scarlett inherits Tara and manages to keep the place going. When desperate measures take place and Scarlett can’t get money to pay for Tara she marries a wealthy man who later dies attacking the men that assaulted her. After that Rhett confesses his love and they get married, but when things get rough and Scarlett’s true colors appear he packs up and leaves.
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The Wizard of Oz has many references to political symbols that I overlooked until now. According to Quentin Taylor, “In the late 1880s and early 1890s, Populism spread rapidly throughout the Midwest and into the South, but Kansas was always the site of its most popular and radical elements. In 1890, Populist candidates began winning seats in state legislatures and Congress, and two years later Populists in Kansas gained control of the lower house of the state assembly, elected a Populist governor, and sent a Populist to the U.S. Senate. The twister that carries Dorothy to Oz symbolizes the Populist cyclone that swept across Kansas in the early 1890s.” Dorothy’s silver shoes are a major symbol in the story, representing silver coins.
The Wizard of Oz is one of the most controversial movies in American history because there is no clear and cut meaning of the film. Everyone has a different interpretation of what the film Wizard of Oz really means. Some people believe that the movie has Christian religious symbolism or atheist symbolism, others believe that the illuminati was behind the making of the Wizard of Oz to brainwash people, others believe that there is a more political based meaning of the Wizard of Oz with a connection to what was going on in the history of the United States. During the 1800’s society faced many issues and although the Wizard of Oz can be interpreted in many different ways it is believed that the most significant meanings of the
The Wizard of Oz the movie demonstrated all three stages Joseph Campbell's theory of the hero’s journey. The first stage or known as the departure of the hero. The hero in the movie is Dorothy. Dorothy’s call to depart is to run away from home to protect her dog Toto from being taken away from her inferior neighbor. While running away Dorothy comes upon Professor Marvel, a fortuneteller. Professor Marvel tells her that her Aunt Em is in danger and needs her assistance back on the farm. When returning to the house a twister hits the ground. As the winds started to get heavier the hero’s house moved across the air uncontrollably, but then she leaves home and enters a new world of talking animals and colorful objects. In the new world of the Oz
What makes a film interesting? What makes it stand out from other films? What makes it unique? The visual design aspects of color and lighting in a film play a major role in giving the film meaning and depth. A lot of thought goes into what colors and lighting should be used that will help convey a mood and theme central to the film. You wouldn’t see dark colors and lighting used in a children cartoon, instead you see bright color and bright lighting. And vice versa; most horror films don’t focus on bright colors and bright lighting. In The Wizard of Oz (Dir. Victor Fleming, 1939) , the director uses bright colors and lighting to portray the moods of happiness, joy and innocence in Dorothy’s life. In contrast, dark colors and lighting that go hand in hand with the evil parts of Oz portray the
Within the book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling, characters and stories between Voldemort and Harry’s continuous struggle allude to stories from the Bible. Voldemort, who represents the evil in the struggle, fights against Harry Potter, who is the “good” representative within the book. In the fight against Harry, Voldemort has a pet snake by the name of “Nagini.” Nagini, at one point in the book, possesses over a good character in the book, Bathilda Bagshot. Bathilda is an author and a historian, who Hermione and Harry trust and visit. Bathilda eventually dies and the evil snake, Nagini, uses her body to attract Harry and Hermione. Nagini eventually reveals itself through Bathilda’s body and attacks Harry. However, Hermione
The Wizard of Oz is a fiction story written by L. Frank Baum. The story has two main settings. The first setting is, Dorothy’s home, the Kansas prairies. The prairies are described as dry and gray. The second setting is the land of Oz. Oz is opposed from Kansas, it is colorful, bright, and full of joy. The Wizard of Oz has a grate theme or message behind the story. The message is that we all have good qualities in us, but it is up to us to use them.
In the words of Michael O’Shaughnessy, ‘narratives, or stories, are a basic way of making sense of our experience’ (1999: 266). As a society and a culture, we use stories to comprehend and share our experiences, typically by constructing them with a beginning, middle and an end. In fact, the order that a narrative is structured will directly impact the way it is understood, particularly across cultures. This idea originated through Claude Lévi-Strauss’s concept of structuralism in anthropology which ‘is concerned with uncovering the common structural principles underlying specific and historically variable cultures and myth’ in pre-industrial societies (Strinati 2003: 85). In terms of media studies, structuralism’s inherent objective is to dig beneath the surface of a media text to identify how the structure of a narrative contributes to it’s meaning. Structuralism encompasses a large range of analytical tools, however, this essay will examine Joseph Campbell’s monomyth and Claude Lévi-Strauss’s theory of binary oppositions. Through analysis of Victor Fleming’s film, The Wizard of Oz (1939), it will be shown that although the monomyth and binary oppositions are useful tools with which to unveil how meaning is generated in this text, structuralism can undermine the audience’s ability to engage with their own interpretations of the film.
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.
Gone With the Wind, written by Margaret Mitchell, inaccurately portrays time period during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and Reconstruction Era (1865-1877). Set in Clayton County, Georgia and Atlanta, Mitchell falsely depicts the rise of the feminism through Scarlett O’Hara, for it did not exist at the time. In addition, although she accurately maintains the historical background of the novel by providing details about the war and important figures, the portrayals of several key characters in comparison to those who lived in the actual time period are not realistic. Overall, especially because the novel is written in a biased point of view of