The Wizard of Oz (BFI Film Classics)

By Salman Rushdie

The Wizard of Oz 'was my very first literary influence, ' writes Salman Rushdie in his account of the great MGM children's classic. At the age of ten he had written a story, 'Over the Rainbow', about a colourful fantasy world. But for Rushdie The Wizard of Oz is more than a children's film, and more than a fantasy. It's a story whose driving force is the inadequacy of adults, in which 'the weakness of grown-ups forces children to take control of their own destinies'. And Rushdie rejects the conventional view that its fantasy of escape from reality ends with a comforting return to home, sweet home. On the contrary, it is a film that speaks to the exile. The Wizard of Oz shows that imagination can become reality, that there is no such place like home, or rather that the only home is the one we make for ourselves. Rushdie's brilliant insights into a film more often seen than written about are rounded off with his typically scintillating short story, 'At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers, ' about the day when Dorothy's red shoes are knocked down to $15,000 at a sale of MGM props. In his foreword to this special edition, published to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the BFI Film Classics series, Rushdie looks back to the circumstances in which he wrote the book, when, in the wake of the controversy surrounding The Satanic Verses and the issue of a fatwa against him, the idea of home and exile held a particular resonance.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1844575160
• ISBN13: 9781844575169
• Release Date: September 2012
• Publisher: British Film Institute
• Length: 80 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.4" x 0.3" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

A gem

I first read this via the New Yorker version. For the first time I understood why this film, underneath its surface glitter and sentimentality, is haunting, bleak and beautiful. Read it and see the film again as if for the first time.

Quite Nice

It's impossible to separate The Wizard of Oz from the deep emotion it inspires. The movie rapidly plunges a viewer back into childhood fears/dreams and the context in which one first saw it. But by handing this topic to the improbable figure of Salmon Rushdie, an essay follows that persaudes open minds of how deeply personal and specific a movie becomes after one cathects it. For that I found the piece to be a revelation; as a way of opening a topic one thought as so general as to reject non-approved non-mass narratives; the deeply personal nature of a reading of a film; and the beauty/value of film writing to offer readers thoughtful personal associations. It changed the way I wrote about film. This is the exact opposite of bad film-writing in which some self-christened film snob sits on his throne, beknighting utterly safe products because of their good taste and high production values, while appealing to some non-existant "objective" set of criteria. Inevitably the jackass will use the word "masterpiece" which is how you know he's a bad writer; Whenever you see the word in a review, just substitute "Don't question me, or my inability to use language to persaude you of this film's merit!" P.U. You can keep the ninety percent of film writing that issues from that horrid, unpromising foundation. Rushdie's reminiscences go back to his childhood in India, which is both the last place you'd imagine a strong reading of this most American film to come from, and miraculously, yes, a vivid, strong analysis of The Wizard of Oz.

Really great

I stumbled accross this by accident in a video rental store a few years ago, with no prior affinity for Rushdie.The book is an insightful and unpretentious short essay that explores what makes The Wizard of Oz emotionally important to viewers. It's written in a personal voice: Rushdie retraces how the various characters and scenes struck him at different times in his life, how certain things made sense and others never did to him. It's very unusual and one of my absolute favorite pieces of writing on any subject.

Rushdie at his best - an essential guide to the Wiz

The Wizard of Oz is a central piece of Twentieth Century mythmaking. It's hard to imagine the history of cinema without it. And yet I have often told people (adults, that is) it's one of my favourite films, only to be met with blank incomprehension or wry amusement. After all, what's an adult doing admiring a film so obviously aimed at children?This short book by Salman Rushdie (author of Midnight's Children and The Ground Beneath Her Feet) goes a long way towards showing exactly why The Wizard of Oz is so important to our culture. I particularly liked Rushdie's analysis of Dorothy as a migrant in a strange land - the quintessential experience of so many 'new' Americans.He is also excellent on the juxtaposition of colour and black & white, and on the nature of good and evil in the film. There is plenty of fascinating film 'trivia' here too, enough to make this book a must for film buffs. In fact it's a paragon of film criticism. I can recommend the other books in this series from the BFI, but none are as essential as this one.

Wonderful

I didn't realize until now that this was an actual book and I haven't read the entire work, but I did read the "New Yorker" essay which I'm assuming takes excerpts.Until reading that piece, Rushdie had only crossed my consciousness because of the death sentence and reading this essay was a revelation.It is warm, passionate, witty, and filled with the sense of fear and wonder that are the gift of great movies. If you are like me, you will leave this work with an appreciation for why you were right to love the Wizard of Oz and an even more passionate desire to read more of Rushdie's novels and essays.