The Wizard of Oz

In June 2020, I watched the movie The Wizard of Oz for the first time on DVD. The American musical fantasy was released in 1939 and it was done 15 years later in Japan.

It follows a girl named Dorothy who is taken by a tornado into a dreamy land in which she makes three friends and struggles to get back to the real world with them singing and dancing so as to encourage her friends and herself. 

Although I first watched it, yet I felt nostalgia maybe because it was produced more than 80 years ago. All of the music sounded comfortable. The melody of "Over the Rainbow" was especially beautiful and was being played in my head for a while after watching it. As for the picture, the tone was at first sepia and changed to color when Dorothy wandered into the dreamy land as if she went over the rainbow, then it returned to sepia again toward the end. The direction was effective and tasteful.

In March 2020, I watched the movie Judy which describes Judy Garland's later days and in which a girl playing the young Garland was far prettier than the real Judy. Garland must be a typical beauty only in the middle of the twentieth century. Or it might be a matter of my personal preference. She was great at singing and dancing, though. Then I felt that Billie Burke was pretty as Glinda the Good Witch of the North. 

It was said that Garland was driven to chemical oblivion by adults around her so that she could keep her slender figure and continue to be awake at work when she was young. I had known about it from Judy, so I felt complicated when I watched her happily acting the lively Dorothy in the old movie. She passed away at the age of 47. Her early death might be due to the adults. 

However, a person's longevity might depend on their own genes because Paul McCartney, Keith Richards and Elton John, who all used to be drug addicts, are all more than seventy years old and still active as musicians. I believe that how you live matters in the end.