The Wizard of Oz 'was my very first literary influence,' writes Salman
Rushdie in his account of the great MGM children's classic. At the age
of ten he had written a story, 'Over the Rainbow', about a colourful
fantasy world. But for Rushdie The Wizard of Oz is more than a
children's film, and more than a fantasy. It's a story whose driving
force is the inadequacy of adults, in which 'the weakness of grown-ups
forces children to take control of their own destinies'. And Rushdie
rejects the conventional view that its fantasy of escape from reality
ends with a comforting return to home, sweet home. On the contrary, it
is a film that speaks to the exile. The Wizard of Oz shows that
imagination can become reality, that there is no such place like home,
or rather that the only home is the one we make for ourselves.
Rushdie's brilliant insights into a film more often seen than written
about are rounded off with his typically scintillating short story,
'At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers,' about the day when Dorothy's
red shoes are knocked down to $15,000 at a sale of MGM props. In his
foreword to this special edition, published to celebrate the 20th
anniversary of the BFI Film Classics series, Rushdie looks back to the
circumstances in which he wrote the book, when, in the wake of the
controversy surrounding The Satanic Verses and the issue of a fatwa
against him, the idea of home and exile held a particular resonance.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781839020803
Publisert
2020
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
British Film Institute
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter