The Wizard of Oz

I presumably don’t need to tell you, but the narrative language of film was still being developed in 1914, so it’s not too surprising that many films, especially genre films. Intolerance, which is often considered to have established many of the conventions of film grammar, didn’t come until 1916. Feature films with space for a narrative to develop were still a novelty. There’s also the issue that studios (or their precursors) were churning out films at a prodigious rate pre-sound, so quality control wasn’t a huge priority.

What early/silent films do you think fit or don’t fit with what I’ve just said?

Well, Intolerance would be an interesting one to look at.

I was under the impression that Baum was much more interested in being recognized for his contributions to theater and film as opposed to children’s literature, and that he was personally involved with a lot of the set designs and costuming of the Oz productions, many of which [I think the stage musical The Tik-Tok Man of Oz in particular] weren’t terribly well received. Also, the book the The Tik-Tok Man, which is a very odd Oz book, was based on the musical, which in turn was based on a very muddled version of the book Ozma of Oz. “Tangled and stained” is apt.

Has anyone ever seen Le avventure straordinarissime di Saturnino Farandola ? An Italian silent film serial from 1913, based stories by Robida, a contemporary of Verne. I’ve only ever read about it or seen posters.

Having read books 1,2,3, and 19 by the time I first watched the 1939 movie, I found it old-fashioned, stagey, corny, a travesty of the fine text, and what’s with all those crappy songs?

I’m glad that I’m not the only one who finds the 1939 film, which is the only knowledge most people have of Oz, infinitely inferior to the first few books in the series, and the first two in particular, which were brilliant. In fact, I really don’t care for the musical at all, which opinion appears to be nearly sacrilegious.

Actually, the 1985 film, Return to Oz, was, I thought, much better than the musical, and a lot closer in spirit to the early books. The later books became increasingly saccharine, I think, though they had their moments.

There’s an ongoing review of the entire series going on at Tor.com if anyone is interested.

I’m glad that I’m not the only one who finds the 1939 film, which is the only knowledge most people have of Oz, infinitely inferior to the first few books in the series, and the first two in particular, which were brilliant

I’m with R.A. Fox here. While I agree that the books are, in their own way, brilliant, and that the movie is different in some ways, I think the movie has to be viewed as a separate creative act, and it is a fantastic piece of storytelling and a technical triumph.

I feel much the same way about the tension between the Roald Dahl book and (first) movie version of “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory”: Dahl hated the movie for the liberties it took (he wrote the screenplay, but the director and actors altered a great deal) but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s quite faithful to the spirit and effect of the book.

There are choices that need to be made in translating from one medium to another; I thought people realized that by now.

I loved the OZ books as a girl. The movie was not as good as my imagination and killed my interest. Judy Garland wasn’t a little girl. The Wicked Witch terrified my little sister, who had to be carried out of the theater screaming.
Baum was a true American character. He said we should kill all the Indians, because they were so degenerate after years of mistreatment that it would be merciful to put them out of their misery.

The best Oz book for my money is the one with the princess with the interchangeable heads; I can’t remember the title.

can we get some love for harold arlen and yip harburg here?

you visual-culture people–you act as though it matters what things *look* like.

I have a hard time telling what they thought they were trying to do.

Bordwell/Staiger/Thompson’s The Classical Hollywood Cinema – Film Style & Mode of Production to 1960 is very good at providing context for early film production. As the title says, the focus is on the development of the classical narrative model, but by way of contrast one can learns quite a bit about this early period as well especially the roots of film in vaudeville and how that influenced its aesthetics.

And I don’t know all that much about early cinema either ;).

Tom Gunning’s article “The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde” is also worth reading. While the article mainly addresses pre-1907 film norms, it does deal with what filmmakers and audiences wanted from early cinema (including why amateurism may be appealing).

It feels weird recommending “Cinema of Attractions” since these days its pretty much prescribed reading for film students – not because anybody cares about early cinema (fib), but because Gunning’s (and André Gaudreault’s) concept of the Cinema of Attractions has become one of the founding metaphors of blockbuster theory and discussion. Grab the Cinema of Attractions: Reloaded for the full context http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=toc&isbn=9789053569443 Plus it includes Donald Crafton’s lovely “Pie and Chase: Gag, Spectacle and Narrative in Slapstick Comedy.”

“I actually like to keep my Amazon shopping cart filled up with stuff just to watch their all-too-frequent price changes…”

Is anybody making money purely off the arbitrage and/or seigneurage effects at work and/or in play here?

Thanks John E, that sounds very interesting and – never having studied film in an academic context – I have been unaware of it.

Is anybody making money purely off the arbitrage and/or seigneurage effects at work and/or in play here?

There’s quite a few arbitrage opp’ties between the various Amazon stores, especially for textbooks that are required at U.S. universities, which are often cheaper from the UK store even with overseas shipping…

It seems it’s not the UK as such that is expensive, but Central London and the Southwest.

I recently signed up for a new gym and since they didn’t have prices on their website, did some research on message boards: turns out that I (Central London) am paying 150% of what they charge people in most other London boroughs and 200% of what people pay in “the North”.