MIddlearth, OZ and faithfulness

[Sauron the White]

Recently, I started another thread, Lawrence of Middle-earth. In it I quoted from Wikipedia on all of the changes that were made when doing the much loved film LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. I believe it helps put the lie to the complaint heard here far too often that "the LOTR movies were not faithful to the books and thus were not very good". For some reason, few people cared to post.

My point is that a good film is not dependent on a faithful adaption from its source. It mattters not and is no real consequence.

I picked LAWRENCE because it is generally heralded as one of the great films of all time. Now, here is yet another. In 1939, MGM gave us THE WIZARD OF OZ. It is based on the book by L. Frank Baum. The film is both highly thought of by the experts (see AFI Top 100 Films of All Time) and the public who have loved it for decades now. However, it was not anything approaching a faithful adaption from its source material.

Here is the information from Wikipedia:

Differences from the original novel
Main article: The Wizard of Oz book to film comparison
The film expands the Kansas section, creating several characters (the farmhands, Miss Gulch, and Professor Marvel) that do not appear in the book. It also interprets the Oz experience as a dream, in which many of the characters that Dorothy meets represent the people from her home life. By contrast, in the book, her adventures in Oz are unambiguously meant to be real.

Nearly all of the Kansas characters have matching counterparts in Oz, and therefore most of the cast playing characters in Kansas play matching characters in Oz. Frank Morgan plays Professor Marvel, the Wizard, and several other people in the land of Oz. Margaret Hamilton plays both Miss Gulch and The Witch of The West (and The Witch of the East, a "cameo" part). Ray Bolger plays Hunk and The Scarecrow. Jack Haley plays Hickory and The Tin Man while Bert Lahr plays Zeke and The Lion.

Though the final film was far more faithful to Baum's original book than many earlier scripts (see below), the movie still had several notable differences. Due to time restraints a number of sub-plots from the book were cut. In the original, Dorothy and friends encounter a "Dainty China Country" where everyone is made of china, fight a gang of odd-looking "Hammer-heads," vicious half-tiger half-bear "Kalidahs" (who are referenced in the film in passing by the Scarecrow), and liberate an animal village from the rule of an evil spider king. None of these episodes appear in the movie, though the china country was invoked in the design of the Emerald City.

Likewise, some characters were merged or simplified for the purposes of the movie's plot. The film's character of Glinda is actually a composite of two book characters, the (nameless) Good Witch of the North and Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, who does not appear in the novel until the very end, and Burke's performance is a combination of the grandmotherly, less powerful Witch of the North and the young-seeming, wise, powerful, and dignified Glinda. In the novel, the Wizard likewise takes on various forms to fool and terrify Dorothy and friends – giant head, winged lady, terrible beast, and ball of fire - but in the film, he only takes the form of the giant head combined with the fire aspect. However, a moment edited out of the film, in which the Carriage Driver at the Emerald City reversed his moustache to become the Guard, implied that the Doorkeeper, the Carriage Driver, and the Guard at the Emerald City were all actually the Wizard in disguise. This implication is given credibility in the film by having all four characters played by Frank Morgan.

In the novel, the Emerald City was a trick created by the Wizard in order to inspire fear and respect - everybody in the city had to wear glasses with green glass which tricked them into believing that the Wizard had turned the city green. In the movie, the city really was green, and nobody needed to wear any glasses.

In contrast, Dorothy's family is given a much larger role in the film than in the novel.

A notable visual change made to the film was the changing of Dorothy's silver shoes to ruby slippers, to make them visually dazzling against the yellow brick road on the Technicolor screens.[3] Baum's original world was made dramatically more colorful overall; in his original story the different areas of Oz only had one color each, with the Munchkin country being entirely blue and the City of Emeralds being entirely green.

The Wicked Witch of the West was much more cowardly in the novel, afraid of the dark, never left her castle, and carried an umbrella rather than a broom, for water would cause her to melt. The witch's skin was pale from lack of blood, but not green. She was also missing an eye, covered with a patch, with the other described "as powerful as a telescope". Her presumably blond hair (based on the original illustrations) was tied in three pigtails.

Perhaps the most severe change is that of Dorothy becoming a damsel in distress figure needing to be rescued by her male friends. In the novel, Dorothy administers the rescue of her friends after she has dispatched the witch. Her behavior toward the witch in the novel is much more aggressive; in the novel, the Silver Shoes can be taken off with no harm, and the witch trips Dorothy in order to be able to do this. Outraged, Dorothy deliberately douses her with the bucket of water, though still unaware that this will cause the Witch to melt.

The famous line that Dorothy repeats in the movie that sends her back to Kansas occurs rather early in the novel. When she is getting acquainted with the Scarecrow, Dorothy explains that she would rather live in Kansas than the Land of Oz because, “There is no place like home.” The line does not recur in the novel.

The final words of the Wicked Witch of the West were also modified. In the movie, the Witch repeats, “Ohhh, look out! Look out! I'm going!” and then a final "Ohhhh....", which fades out. In the novel, her final words are “Look out – here I go!”

There were also some other changes that served to keep the movie flowing. In the novel, it took Dorothy five nights and six days before finally reaching the Emerald City. After reaching the city, it took Dorothy and her friends an additional four days to plead their cases before the Wizard and then they spent one more night before setting out to kill the Wicked Witch of the West. Thus, Dorothy was in her eleventh day in Oz before setting out to kill the Witch. Then, after the Winged Monkeys brought Dorothy to the Witch, Dorothy spent several more days as the Witch’s servant before she was actually able to kill her with the water. In the movie, it is never actually stated how long it takes Dorothy and her friends to reach the Emerald City, nor how long it takes them to get to the Witch's castle. The only reference to the amount of time Dorothy has spent in Oz is at the end, when Dorothy exclaims, "But that's just the trouble Uncle Henry, I did leave you! And I tried to get back for days and days!", to which Aunt Em responds, "There, there , lie quite now. You've just had a bad dream".

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Combine this with the lesson of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. A great film does not have to be slavishly faithful to its source material to work on screen and be embraced and loved by the public. Faithfulness means little compared to all of the other things that truly determine the success of a film.