An Enduring Audio-visual Feast

I. Brief review on The Wizard of Oz
　　The Wizard of Oz is a musical adaptation of L Frank Baum's classic fable The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, directed by Victor Fleming. This movie was released in 1949, proving to be the peak of his feature, though his classic work Gone with the Wind is no less famous than it. The Wizard of Oz, considered to be the best famlily film, has become a classic, for both children and adults. With all the wonderful sets, dazzling colors, fabulous songs and the brilliant interpretation of those fairytale characters, The Wizard of Oz is surely a audio-visual feast, not only in preliminary stage of color film, but also in the present world where the techniques of 3D and IMAX are no more legends.
　　This classic musical fantasy is starred by Judy Gardland. It tells a story of a Kansas girl called Dorothy Gale. After a terrible tonardo, Dorothy finds herslef lost in a strange and magical world, with her little dog Toto. There she meets the friendly Munchkins and the Good Witch of the North, Glinda. Glinda tells Dorothy that the only way to go back home is to ask help from the Great Wizard of Oz, who lives in the Emerald city. Dorothy decides to do so. On the way to the Emerald City, she meets three interesting friends, known as the Scarecrow, the Cowardly lion and the Tin Man. They all hope to see the Wizard of Oz and help each other to escape from the Wicked Witch, whoes sister was accidentally killed when Dorothy’s house landed on the Munchkin Land. In the end, Dorothy finally gets to go home after saying goodbye to her trustful friends.
II. The Use of Color
     A notable aspect of this movie that tends to attract audience attention is its clever use of colors .
     The first part of the movie is setted in Kansas, a real but dull world in children’s eyes. To present such a world as full as possible , the movie chooses to use brown-and-white, and the setting includes mostly wasteland, shabby farmhouses as well as leafless trees. We can see how ingenious this is especially in the scene when Dorothy sings the famous song Over the Rainbow to the gray and gloomy sky. The constrast of the lively song and the dull environment throws the audience into a sutbtle but strong feeling that children’s world is supossed to be colorful and free, not dull and lifeless!
     When the setting shifts to the magical land, the gay and brown are replaced by bright red, green, orange and yellow. These vivid colors serve greatly for the building a land of magic and witchcraft. Though those colorful properties seem to be rather artificial, compared with today’s special effects, it doenst hurt the dazzling visual effect of them. That’s what fairy land looks like. Contrast color contributes a lot to the impressiveness of this movie.

III. Props
   The yellow brick road. The ruby slippers. The Emerald city. Flying Monkeys. These objects, known as props in a movie has become part of American culture and remained in the memory of several generations.
　　Among these icons, the ruby slippers that Dorothy acquires by accidentally killed the Wicked Witch of the East might be the most well-known. One of the four known surviving pairs made for the movie are now on permanent exhibition in Popular Culture wing of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.. Another pair believed to have been worn by Judy Garland's Dorothy when she clicks her heels to return home to Kansas near the end of the film was once offered with a high price at 2 million dollars. In the end, the famous actor leonardo Dicarprio and other benefactors made it possible for the acadmy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to acquire the pair for an undisclosed price in February 2012 for their proposed museum.
　　The ruby slippers are truely on the most valuable and treared film memorabilia. If The Wizard of Oz is one of only a handful of films that nearly everyone is familiar with, the ruby slippers would be one of a few props that have such an enduring magic power. It’s a success of the use of props.
IV. Special Effects
   The special effects in The Wizard of Oz are not techinically special effects. 1939 was only at the begining of the color films, so there was no digital imaging, no computer graphics, let alone the popular 3D or IMAX now. Because of the limitation of techniques, The Wizard of Oz is far less from delicate. No computer animation was used in the movie.
　　　Sometimes you can even see the difference between the special effects at that time and that of present time. For example, while watching, you can easily see where the yellow brick road ends and where the painting on the board begain. Also, when the Scaresrow is torn apart, the body of the actor fails to hide anyway. Those trees and flowers are not real clearly, neither the balloon of the Wizard. Compared with the latest adaption of this story, Oz the Great and Powerful in 2013 which is fine made with 3D techonology, The Wizard of Oz seems to be even crude.
　　　But the imagination can not be limited simply by techniques. These effects are good enough to present what the story needs and leave us enough space to imgaine and to sketch the rest part. Besides, the special effects of this movie are already the best at that time. A great movie don’t fade away as time goes by, because technique is never important as the movie itself.
　　
V. Soundtrack
　　 Everyone has a favorite memory from the Wizard of Oz, but the soundtrack would be a part that can never be ignored. Without good film soundtracks, we cannot call a movie “a audio-visual feast”.
　　The most famous of of them must be “Over the Rainbow” , sung by Judy Garland. It has become Garland’s signature song. In the movie, Dorothy sing the song after failing to get her aunt and uncle to listen to her talking about what has happened to her and Toto. Aunt Em tells Dorothy to “find yourself a place where you won’t get into any trouble”. Dorothy walks away and thinks about if there is such a place and then begins singing.
The music of this song, same as most of other songs in the movie, is by Harold Arlen, while the lyrics are by E. Y. Harburg. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Over the Rainbow has stand the test of time and remained a special part in the audience with the movie. It’s so famous that there are so many cover versions of it by famous singers like Celtic Woman and II Divo. And it has been used in many other films, such as Philadelphia Story, Sleepless in Seattle and Australia.

VI. Themes
    “There’s no place like home,” Dorothy chants as she clicks the heels of her sparkling ruby slippers.
     The moral of the story can be partly concluded by this famous line. Dorothy comes from Kansas, a dull and colorless world. Her families don’t care much about her feelings either. It doesn’t seem like a good place as Oz, where verdant trees and flowers grow and cheerful creatures live. It seems strange that Dorothy has always wanted to go home. But she does. She knows that no matter how beautiful and fascinating the outside world is, her heart needs a place, a place she calls “home”.
     The movie also makes it clear how important friendship is. In the begining of the movie, the only friend of Dorothy is her little dog, Toto. But when she steps into the magical land, she meets Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Lion. They help each other as they travel to the Emerald City. For Dorothy, if were for her three friends, she might have died in the deadly poppy field or been killed by the minions of the Witch. They protect her and companion her until she succeed going back to Kansas. So friendship is, in fact, a key word that director want to show the audience.