April 27th, 2009
I Heart… The Wizard of Oz
In honour of this week being the run of The Wizard of Oz musical that I’m playing in, I thought an Oz inspired post was necessary. Albeit, this editorial is a few years old (it ran in the December 2005 issue of Vogue US), I still find it quite lovely. I really enjoy interpretations and reworkings of books into other mediums whether it be film, print, illustration, whatever have you. I always find it interesting to see how the artist decodes a book, what they find most important, how they choose to address issues of moving from the page into a visual space, what details they alter, embellish, remove, … I could go on and on.
This group of photographs was shot by the amazing Annie Leibovitz and features Keira Knightley as Dorothy. It’s interesting that it’s a reworking of the 1939 film which is a reworking of L. Frank Baum’s story. A reworking of a reworking! Though when one thinks of The Wizard of Oz, what immediately comes to mind is the classic film starring Judy Garland, and not the book. Personally, I prefer the movie which is something I don’t often say; it’s quite a rare occurance that the movie impresses me much more than the book but the book just felt very juvenile to me. The movie was much more imaginative, in my opinion, and really brought the land of Oz to life. I think this editorial does equally as well with capturing the fantasy, the creativity and the essence of the magical tale.
I remember when I was younger and trying to convince my parents that we needed a tornado shelter. They didn’t buy my story, however. Though I did try and build one myself in a ditch in our backyard. It was basically the ditch, and a couple fall down trees over a small area of it. Definitely not an effective tornado shelter. It ended up being used as a bridge over the ditch. XD
I think this is probably my favourite photo of the bunch. I love how they interpreted the merry little munchkins as a marching band. It’s very clever!
Who else was scared of those flying monkeys in the movie? Raise your hands, I know you’re out there! I always had to hide my eyes in a sofa cushion; they were terrifying! These big ass monkeys that flew down from the sky and scooped Dorothy right up – the stuff nightmares are made of, my friends!
Aww, isn’t Toto adorable? When I was little, I wanted a Toto dog to play with so badly. That never happened, but I did have a toy dog that I named Toto for the sole purpose of carrying around in a basket with me so I could be Dorothy.
Well, this was a pretty random post, but shh. I’m wiped from 8 hour rehearsals all day and my brain does not want to function.
Images via The Fashion Box.
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Manda » 27 April 2009
When I was four years old, I insisted to my parents that I wanted to be Dorothy for Halloween. My dad would be the Tin Man, my mom the Scarecrow, and my little brother would be Toto XD
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Krissy replied on 6 May 2009...
Aww, that would have been most adorable! I always tried to convince my parents to dress up and ‘match’ the theme of my costume for Halloween, but they never went for it. Le sigh. :P
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