Hollywood remembers ‘The Wizard of Oz’

As you have probably been made aware, Tuesday marked the 70th anniversary of the release of “The Wizard of Oz” in the U.S., a milestone which has inspired a number of tribute pieces this past week — including our own edition of The Lists dedicated to the classic.

For their part, the LA Times has taken the simple but effective approach of asking a range of artists from the world of film (and elsewhere) what the film means to them personally, and has turned up some interesting responses.

It’s an imaginative selection of interviewees they’ve assembled, ranging from directors Jon Favreau and Zach Snyder to oddball musician Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, which only goes to show the vast extent of the film’s reach and appeal. Still, the response I liked the most came from probably the most obvious source: Guillermo Del Toro, whose “Pan’s Labyrinth” is arguably the film’s closest contemporary cousin.

I was intrigued by the parallels Del Toro draws between the film and the principles of body-horror cinema:

I fixated on the scary aspects of the tale — the flying monkeys, the tornado (still a great effects example today), the Wicked Witch of the West, the overwhelming presence of the Wizard and — in my childhood imagination — the nagging biological horror that the lack of heart or brains indicated … I was completely engaged by the tale. Dorothy losing it all and having to regain it back on her own — it was a very empowering childhood tale.

Article writer Geoff Boucher also points out how the legacy of cinematic tributes to “The Wizard of Oz” is set to expand by one very significant title before the year’s end:

The movie remains an essential reference point — this December in James Cameron’s much-ballyhooed sci-fi epic “Avatar,” for instance, when the main character arrives on a dazzling jungle planet, moviegoers will hear a familiar line: “You’re not in Kansas anymore.” Cameron chuckled when asked about the line. “Yeah, it’s my favorite movie; I had to get it in there somewhere,” he said.

Read the rest here.