L Frank Baum’s children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which first appeared in 1900, had already assumed a mythical mantle when the 1939 MGM classic cemented Judy Garland’s Dorothy, the ruby slippers and the yellow brick road in the collective consciousness.
Since then, film-makers and artists from Walter Murch to the late David Lynch have mined its dream logic and darker undercurrents. “The Wizard of Oz is a film with very great power,” Lynch once remarked. It’s “like a dream ... There’s a certain amount of fear in that picture, as well as things to dream about. So it seems truthful in some way.”
Novels such as Geoff Ryman’s wildly imaginative Was, Danielle Paige’s Dorothy Must Die and Gregory Maguire’s revisionist Wicked form part of a thriving post-Baum canon. Maguire’s book spawned one of the highest-grossing screen musicals of all time, in last year’s Wicked: Part One. The keenly anticipated translation to screen is finalised with the imminent Wicked: For Good.
“It’s such a nice place to play,” says Jon M Chu, director of the Wicked sequence. “It’s daunting, of course, but it makes you examine what the original L Frank Baum book means to you. What does the 1939 movie mean to you? What do all the different versions mean?
Continue Reading on The Irish Times
This preview shows approximately 15% of the article. Read the full story on the publisher's website to support quality journalism.