The Wizard of Oz (BFI Film Classics) (Paperback)

by Salman Rushdie (Author), Melvyn Bragg (Editor), Richard Maltby (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
While Salman Rushdie has treasured The Wizard of Oz since his boyhood, the movie's idea of returning "home" has had a special resonance for him as an adult. In this lovely appreciation of the MGM classic, Rushdie does not dwell upon his continual flight from any "home" after writing The Satanic Verses. But his affinity for Dorothy and her predicament comes through in his analysis.

This is a marvelous little book, full of wonderful tidbits about the making of The Wizard of Oz. Rushdie also talks about the movie's contrast of black and white and color, order and disorder, good and evil. The volume ends with "At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers," a surrealistic short story in which Rushdie meditates on the value of fantasies like The Wizard of Oz.

From Publishers Weekly
This is one of the first in a new series of monographs pairing writers and film scholars with a film of their own choosing from the BFI archives. At first glance, the controversial author of The Satanic Verses might seem an odd pairing with the MGM musical classic, but Rushdie proclaims that the Judy Garland film was "my very first literary influence." The essay that follows this confession is sprightly, witty and surprisingly deeply felt. Like the embattled Rushdie, Dorothy is an exile looking for a way back home, the victim of a wicked witch not unlike Rushdie's nemesis, the Ayatollah Khomeini. Rushdie revels in the film's "joyful and almost complete secularism," while confessing his debt to it for the style of Haroun and the Sea of Stories. He also offers an idiosyncratic feminist defense of the Wicked Witch of the West and some mordant humor, as in his dismissal of Toto as "that little yapping hairpiece." The second half of this slender volume is a short story that inflates the ruby slippers into a bloated and portentous metaphor. The tale's failure, however, isn't enough to take the luster off the essay that precedes it. Illustrations not seen by PW. First serial to the New Yorker.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: British Film Institute (January 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0851703003
• ISBN-13: 978-0851703008
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.3 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #267,316 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, May 4, 1999

By	Gordon Strause (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Oz, Great Rushdie book, February 21, 2004

By	Jon Holt (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A great book for Rushdie -- one can feel the limitations perhaps set by the editors on him -- usually Rushdie runs on, but here all of his insight and enthusiasm is pared down into an economical essay one can enjoy in less than an afternoon. Oh, it's a wonderful book on the Wizard movie, too.

Rushdie, as outsider/insider, helps one return to the joy of first seeing the movie; he also provides some of the more delicious gossip and facts about this movie -- unlikely as I am to ever read a full book the film, Rushdie captures surely some of its best behind-the-scenes stories (yes: midgets, sweating, original actors, and the slippers).

This book is a great read: the author is able to remind us how so many good elements (the visual storytelling, Garland's voice, the lyrics, the political incorrectness) bleed together into this wonderful movie.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rushdie at his best - an essential guide to the Wiz, March 14, 2001

By	R. Griffiths "bookchoice" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.