Brilliant: Salman Rushdie on The Wizard of Oz

“There’s no place home; there’s no place like home.” It’s an iconic line – and sentiment – from The Wizard of Oz, and certainly from the classic 1939 film version. But what does it actually mean?

Back in 1992, the British Film Institute launched the first four in an ongoing series of slender volumes about specific films – BFI Film Classics. That initial quartet were Double Indemnity, Went the Day Well, Stagecoach … and The Wizard of Oz.

 

The last of those was penned by Salman Rushdie, with an updated edition published in 2012.

 

Since starting a deep(er) dive into film than at any stage previously in my life, I have been getting some of these and reading them. Well … in the first case, trying to read. That was Michael Atkinson’s monograph on Blue Velvet, which I gave up on, not least because – in my opinion – it’s appallingly badly written.

 

The next one was by Dirk Bogarde biographer extraordinaire John Coldstream, on that star’s career-changing and social-challenging film Victim, which was eminently readable and informative.

 

And so to Rushdie’s contribution. Rolling in at 69 pages – without a few more including the full film credits, which all the books have – it is very, very good indeed and packed with philosophical insights in two sections. First, in an essay about the film and second, in a short story, which is effectively a very clever, and funny futuristic fantasy tale/satire about an auction for the ruby slippers. Both are centred on the concept of home.

 

If there is “no place like home”, what does that actually mean?

 

The essay starts with fascinating autobiographical insights, including some making links between the film and the cinema of India, where Rushdie grew up, and how it influenced him from early in his life.

 

He is detailed. He notes, for instance, a mention in the later stages of the film by the Wicked Witch of the West of “an insect” that she has sent on to take on our heroes. But there’s nothing else about that in the film.

 

As he points out, it relates to a cut musical number, The Jitter Bug. Bad editing! Though you can find grainy footage of said cut number here.

 

Now here I am going to go off piste a tad. I know that song.

 

I had loved The Wizard of Oz since being taken to the cinema to see a re-release of it as a child.

In the mid 1970s, at Fairfield High School for Girls, I played the Munchkin mayor in a school production.

 

Then, in late 1981, a couple of years after my family had moved to Lancaster, I was encouraged by Noel McKee, my wonderful music teacher at Lancaster Girls’ Grammar School, to audition for the annual Lancaster Footlights’ Christmas show – that year, to be The Wizard of Oz. So, with blesséd parental permission (it was the first time for a non-school production), I went along, prepared to audition for Gloria (she doesn’t appear in the film, but gets to sing Evening Star in the stage version – perfect for a mezzo like me).

 

I was 18, going on 19.

 

But something unexpected happened. While at packed auditions, I was asked if I’d read in the Wicked Witch of the West’s lines in an exchange with the Good Witch of the North, for auditions for the latter part. With no pressure on me – I wasn’t auditioning, after all – I thoroughly enjoyed doing full panto cackles and ‘witchy’ voice.

I landed the role (pictured left, centre) – without even trying for it! The Christmas production was always staged for a week, with the Saturday having a matinee as well as an evening production (often punctuated by dinner at Pizza Margherita on nearby Moor Lane). It was an utter joy.

 

I remember descending the steps from the stage to the stalls, in full costume and green face paint, with children backing up into their seats as I did so.

 

Weeks later, I was in Lancaster’s department store with my mother, when a young lad came up to and said, in awe: “You’re the witch!”. I played along, hissing back at him: “Tell nobody!” His mother, just behind, was at first embarrassed and then tickled pink. The power of theatre. The power of The Wizard of Oz.

 

So that’s my personal connection. Now, back to Rushdie’s own monograph.

 

He gets pissed off at the sentimentalised ending: why would Dorothy need to flee home only to be told, at the end, that the lesson is that she should never have wanted to. Is that really the only concept of home – that is limited to where you initially come from?

 

Contextually, bear in mind that, for Rushdie himself, this was written after the fatwa against the author for writing the Satanic Verses (published in 1988) was announced in early 1989 – effectively driving him away from ‘home’.

 

A number of things occurred to me.

 

First, Rushdie shows, in many ways, that The Wizard of Oz is a rebellion against simplistic ideas of ‘home’. Dorothy flees home to protect what is most important to her – Toto. It occurs to me, what happens to Toto when she returns? Is Miss Gulch still there to demand his death? If so, what are her values?

 

Rushdie points out that, in the series of books by Frank L Baum, Oz eventually becomes home – not just to Dorothy, but also to Aunt Em and Uncle Henry.

 

I did some checking: is this less a British/US understanding of ‘home’ and more a German one? ‘Heimat’ is one of those German words that holds within it layers of meaning. At its very simplest, it could be said to mean that home is ‘wherever you hang your hat’. Not ‘where you originate from geographically or in any other way’.

And then look at Baum’s name – and yes, he did have German heritage: ‘Baum’ is ‘tree’ in German.

 

To go further on the subject of home: given that ‘the friends of Dorothy’ is a euphemism for gay men, can we also, at this time, see that ‘home’ can refer to any community of which we choose/feel ourselves to be a part? Again, a sort of riff on heimat.

And finally, after re-watching the film, it struck me that the move from monochrome to colour is like a move from binary to non-binary. Indeed, the land of Oz is a vastly more diverse place than Kansas. Further, the Cowardly Lion is effeminate, though we learn that he is also not a coward.

Of the central four characters, Dorothy is the least camp, while many of the Munchkins are quite androgynous.

 

There are few books – let alone ones with so few pages – that can set readers thinking like this, but this is superb. And of course, it’s also superbly written.

 

Robot Dreams is a an absolute charm

Dog is a lonely hound living on his own in a third-floor New York apartment in the 1980s. In the evenings, he plays Pong on his own. But one night, flicking through channels on TV while eating his usual meal of microwaved macaroni cheese for one, he spots an ad for a build-your-own-robot as a friend, and immediately orders one.

When he’s completed the build – hilariously watched by pigeons on his windowsill – and worked out how to activate his new buddy, their life together begins as they set out to explore the city.

Robot is fascinated and thrilled by everything, and passes on that zest for life to Dog. The pair roller-skate in Central Park, dance together, watch The Wizard of Oz together and, after Robot learns not to squeeze Dog’s paw too tightly, hold hands.

But on a trip to Long Beach at the end of summer, the pair are separated after too much enthusiastic play in the water from Robot. Try as he might, Dog can’t help his friend and, when he returns the following day with tools and manuals to do so, he finds that the beach is now locked until 1 June the following year.

How they cope without each other and learn to live again is the core of the film.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Who knows. But Robot certainly dreams – not of sheep, but of finding his way back to Dog; dreams that are worked and re-worked from his time-limited experience of life. One in particular is gorgeous – he finds himself in The Wizard of Oz, surrounded by tap-dancing flowers doing a routine straight out of Busby Berkeley, as New York shimmers in green – seen like the city of Oz – on the horizon.

Between the Oz references, the trope of the gay love of musicals – here, Oz (don’t forget ‘friends of Dorothy’) and the Berkeleyesque routine – plus the holding hands, it’s little wonder that there is online speculation that this is a subtle and tender gay love story.

To be clear, there’s no mention of the gender of either Dog or Robot, but female characters in this anthropomorphic New York are pretty easy to spot. And the beach scenes clearly show Dog is male – watch out for a very funny swimming costume change gag.

Robot Dreams is Pablo Berger’s first animated feature and is based on Sara Varon’s comic of the same name. Entirely hand-drawn in 2D style, it has won plenty of plaudits – and rightly so. It’s a sweet, charming story, which depends on the visual, as there is no dialogue. It also references Isaac Asimov’s collection of short stories – and specific short story – of the same name. There’s a lot going on here. It’s not remotely a ‘kid’s movie’.

Don’t be misled by the animation being ‘old-fashioned’. It is fabulously done and gorgeous to watch – 1980s New York itself has been so lovingly created, while the cast of thousands has been given such wonderful attention to detail. There are couple of scenes where Dog is on a scooter with another character, riding into the countryside, where the trees coming over the horizon is simply stunningly done.

And while the comedy is gentle rather than LOLZ, it is certainly there. There’s a lovely scene about photo booths that will take those of us of a certain vintage back!

The ending is perhaps not what you’d expect, but shows a nice sophistication. The ’80s soundtrack is great.

Robot Dreams is a gentle, charming, really well-paced joy. My only personal surprise (disappointment?) as I came out of the cinema was that so many reviews have said: ‘Bring tissues – you will cry as well as laugh’, yet I didn’t.

Given how easily I blub at films (though I hate it when I feel my tear ducts are being deliberately tweaked), I walked home wondering if the absence of even a pricking meant it was not quite of the calibre so many have stated. Writing this, thinking back over the film itself, I have realised that it not bringing forth an instant deluge does not mean it’s not very good indeed.

I took lots of tissues to The Zone of Interest, expecting to find that would set me off, but it didn’t, yet it is one of the best (and most important) films I’ve seen thus far this year.

Robot Dreams is a wonderful film that I suspect is going to stay in my mind for a long time. And of course it’s gay!

A reminder that Ghibli is every bit as good as Disney

I’m back on catch-up film. This time, more from Studio Ghbli, in that studio’s 2004 adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’s novel Howl’s Moving Castle, with direction and screenplay by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki.

Sophie is a shy young hatter in a Victorian era setting who believes herself unlovely. But after a chance encounter with a wizard – and the Witch of the Waste – she is cursed into being an elderly woman, and becomes drawn into a battle that reflects the start of a war in the human world.

Utterly astonishing – not least in its portrayal of the positives of age – this is simply wonderful, but also its deeply anti-war position. It nods to The Wizard of Oz and much more, but it’s also very much of itself.

It’s fabulously animated, with a wonderful steampunk look, and a very real sense of morality as well as humour.

I watched the English dubbed version, with a fabulous voice cast – not least the utter legend that is Lauren Bacall as the Witch if the Waste, and Billy Crystal as a little fire demon.

Quite simply wonderful.