Dorothy: The Great and Powerful

For me, more than anything, Salman Rushdie’s analysis of the Wizard of Oz proved, or rather re-affirmed, that Rushdie is a very talented writer. He has a mesmerizing way bringing poignancy and vivid imagery to what could have been dull nostalgia.

            I found myself equally intrigued by Rushdie’s fascination with The Wizard of Oz as an “authorless text”.  Rushdie goes so far as to proclaim The Wizard of Oz to be a work of art, which begs the question as to who is the artist behind it. I’m firmly of the opinion that a good film must have an auteur behind it: someone with a clear, uncompromised vision responsible for ensuring that each choice made reflects the overall vision (this need not be the director).  It’s difficult to fathom that four separate directors, each having their own vision and style, could have produced a work as cohesively successful as The Wizard of Oz. I am continuously reminded of the famous aphorism that “a camel is a horse designed by committee”.  I do believe that no matter how many talented people are gathered as collaborators, there needs to exist a strong, visionary leader, or the result is inane. But perhaps The Wizard of Oz is the one exception. Maybe it is, as Rushdie says, a masterpiece made by accident (He points to the fact that Somewhere Over the Rainbow was nearly cut from the final film).

            Additionally, Rushdie’s point about Dorothy as the film’s soul shed new light on the character for me. He posits that Somewhere Over the Rainbow is what gives the film its heart. Apparently, the principal actors playing the three men Dorothy encounters complained about the lack of “acting” that was required of their parts. And they were right to do so. Yet, Dorothy’s song and the emotion it embodies, carried throughout the film by Garland’s performance, provides true humanism and emotional urgency to the fanciful fantasy that follows.  As Rushdie says, Garland’s performance is so accomplished for that reason; she carries the entire emotional weight of the film while at the same time acting at the “empty vessel”: the eyes of the audience as we move through the strange and unknown land of Oz. She is the subject and object of the film, which makes Garland’s performance all the more impressive.

            The final point, which Rushdie repeats throughout his analysis, has to do with his contempt of dull and dreary Kansas and the demeaning of Dorothy’s jorney by her family members. Rushdie’s point about Kansas is true; it is a dull grey, characterized by straight lines and sharp angles. Yet, what Rushdie seems to ignore is the power of family. Dorothy never really wants to get back to Kansas; she wants to return to her family, wherever they may be.  And although, as Rushdie points out, Glinda insists that the moral of the whole journey is that “there’s no place like home”, Dorothy saves the film from such a banal conclusion in her fierce insistence that what occurred was indeed real. She leads us to believe that no matter what her family says, the spirit of her journey through Oz will at least live on in Dorothy.