Great Acid Cinema: WIZARD OF OZ (1939)

If there's one national myth that still crosses over to all generations, one touchstone tale that every cathode ray tribal fire still hears tell annually, it would be THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939), a film so psychedelic and genuinely scary it still throws tripping college kids into nightmare K-holes to this day, only to suck them safely back out like bizarro tornadoes with just a click of the heels and the mantra "I will come down eventually, and maybe someone will give me a valium" i.e., "there's no place like home."

Not only is it common parlance, fitting the Jungian concept of myth as an archetypal blueprint of the unconscious, but also in the sociological sense of a story that binds us together and gives us a structural symbolic language with which to discuss psychological issues on both a personal and societal level. No matter where your head's at there's a line in THE WIZARD to lend you wisdom: "Oh Auntie Em, I'm stuck in the witch's castle and I can't get home," could be the anguished cry of any girl suffering from anorexia, for example. We're all on the brick road to Oz, only some of us are smart enough to know in advance that the man behind the curtain.... is ourselves. Whaddup, playa?!

A good myth functions as a natural psychedelic, but OZ also functions, like 2001, as a metaphor for acid itself, and remains a common way to describe the effects to people who've never tried it, i.e., the moment when Dorothy steps out of the black and white of Kansas into technicolor Oz (it's also what AA people often say to describe the magical effects of their first drink). No matter how many times we've seen it, even knowing it's coming after dozens of viewings since childhood, that transition from black and white Kansas to technicolor OZ is a bit of a shock. And the shock just intensifies with the arrival of 'The Lollipop Guild' (below) those freaky-haired goblins still give me nightmares. They're like those little weird demon guys in the bottom corners of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which also used to give me nightmares. The great Terence McKenna wrote of 'machine elves' as common mushroom hallucinations, positing that fairies, aliens, mythic creatures, all might be tied up into particular, small, elvin beings that exist in alternate dimensions but are nonetheless real. We all have a common imagining of these beings, and they look like this:

But a psychedelic journey doesn't end with the 'jump' you feel in perception shift as the film moves from black and white to color, from farmhands to elvin shapeshifters. That jump would be actually merely the beginning of a good acid trip: there'd be several comparable "jumps" after that, from color to 3-D to complete immersion, to abstraction, and to divine light and even past that into divine terror or divine boredom as you just wish the colors would stop already because it's ten in the morning and you haven't been able to fall asleep as the colors get more and more dull and lifeless and washed out but they.... just.... won't.... stop. You pray for black and white to come and wash it all away.

 But first, the colors would intensify and then take on hues and life until the colors were both themselves and all other colors, and in the dark gray of the scarecrow's outfit you could see army fatigues and ruddy swamps, chain gangs and dirty south racism. The blackened rust streaks on the Tin Man's metal torso would be serpentine, alive and breathing, oxidation happening right before our dilated eyes, particles streaming off into the ether, his glistening silver face paint and fey New Yorker speaking voice place him as some glam rock queen just missing big silver-spangled platform shoes. For you wouldn't see just a tin man in the farmhand of Kansas--his untapped archetypal potential--you'd also see a knight in the Tin Man, and a demon in the knight, all the way deep into your werewolf unconscious mind, which has--with the help of acid--kicked open the door and is running loose, drawing all over the walls with crazy markers, every line he draws moving with a wormish squiggling life of its own.

Don't we all feel there's a pair of eyes on us, a malicious Other infusing our every waking hour with a nameless sometime barely perceptible dread that what we're doing is wrong, or 'ooooh, we're in trouble'? That's always the witch. This is Dorothy's story so the Witches are the guardian parents she must outwit to steal their jewels. She kills one just by 'breaking into' Oz, like finding out you took two hits of blotter acid would "kill, just kill" your mother (don't worry mom, this is fiction!) The symbolic 'kill' in this case is akin to the pulling back the curtain of the great Oz. You don't kill the real mom per se, but you kill her hold over you, and your dependence on her, symbolically, and unless she's tried acid too, you just left her far, far behind on, like, the evolutionary ladder, at least so it feels at the time.

What makes OZ so special amongst all other kid movies isn't just the music or the set design but the seriousness and intensity with which Garland conveys childhood anxiety, and the unthinking misogyny of the celebration of the dead Wicked Witch of the East. "Only bad witches are ugly," the good witch notes, and the whole "Ding Dong the witch is dead" carries that PC shudder of patriarchal bullying, the Satanic panic echo of lynching and all other ceremonial "keep them in their place" tactics - stoning, flogging, defenestration, other things I've too recently been traumatized by THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO to name. "You killed her so completely that we thank you very sweetly," such lyrics would be branded misogynistic in today's climate; even if it was an evil wizard, such unrepentant glee in the death of another person--even a male--would never fly in today's society. Imagine Harry Potter brandishing the head of that snipey blonde kid on a stick and grinning with sadistic delight?

Drug analogies continue with the introduction of poppies, the lethargic sleep it creates is countered by some good witch "snow" -- i.e. "a speed-ball," which is what supposedly killed John Belushi and Jackie Superstar; and for the Tin Man, a little "oil" loosens the "joints." (the cut "Jitterbug" sequence would have been the DTs or opiate withdrawal).

But the main lesson of Oz transcends drugs to approach the unobtainable kernel of enjoyment that Lacan always writes about, an archetypal unconscious kingdom of Platonic ideals translated into symbolic language, where everything is "the" single thing and not a prefab copy from an endless line as it is today: the pig farmer is the lion, not "a" lion, not one of millions, and the phrase "horse of a different color" comes from this one horse right here in the Emerald City, and the lesson is to realize that all the things and people in your life are part of your archetypal mythic core, should be seen as unique and sacred, not disposable and of fleeting worth.

All it takes is fearless self examination and a bump on the noggin from a tornado-driven window frame to see even the most mundane elements of your existence through the lens of the eternal. In order to reach this realm you must not see in terms of better or lesser than (i.e., "maybe we should take more, I'm not feeling anything.") for everything is perfect and mythopoetic as it is, the kingdom of heaven is spread upon the earth; have you the courage to take off your shoes and soak in it, Madge?

When you stop wishing for a richer tin man, a braver lion, a smarter scarecrow, a better cut of poppy, then you are already on the yellow brick road, the one that leads beyond duality and post-modern malaise. Every time you watch the WIZARD OF OZ can be the first time, a rebirth, a baptism. As a child suffering through dull Thanksgivings with parent's friends, tje WIZARD was the one thing that brought all the cocktail drinking parents and sugar-addled kids together at the same time, after dinner, to watch, once again, THE WIZARD. It was our big bonding moment and I can still taste the adults' gin and tonics and Whiskey Sours every time I see it; can still feel that sense of belonging and import, the smell of other parents' couches, dog hair, turkey and cranberry.

And we were all scared of the witch-young and old, the parents remembered too as we do now, being scared as kids by the flying monkeys -- so were were all freaked out, the way a whole tribe in the jungle might listen to the same story of their tribe's creation every full moon around the ceremonial fire, bonded in their fears and hopes, or all shudder from the same howl in the brush. Each trip to Oz is as exciting as the first, because everyone watching is 'in the moment' together, and can recognize they are the only ones who are themselves, and all is sacred. That's a hard way to feel when all your stories come to you from digital transmissions beamed up and down from outer space to your iphone. When you can watch OZ over and over on your watch, alone, you've lost something. You've inherited the world, and now it's small. Not that I don't love having OZ on blu-ray. Aye, 'tis a devil's bargain which makes distracted hermits of us all.   

Viewing the film today, it's more than anything the emotional intensity Judy Garland brings to Dorothy that separates it from today's kid-oriented fantasies. Garland's deep sadness would be considered too much gravitas for the the kids. One incredibly intense moment occurs in the witch's castle shortly after Dorothy is abducted by those damned monkeys. The witch uses Toto as leverage to get the slippers, threatening to drown him. When Toto escapes, Dorothy tearfully notes: "He got away! He got away!"  As a kid you resonate so strongly with that moment; you feel such trapped helpless despair in her voice, and the thought that at least her dog's escaped is such a beautiful straw to clutch, such a relief even as she prepares to face death. It's amazing that she's never threatened exactly (who knows what was going to happen after that hourglass ran out?) and yet it's twice as terrifying as movies these days that ladle on violence and torture.

A good drug trip is also a spiritual one, a triumph that opens our castle doors to admit new thoughts and feelings. Our escape from the witch's castle is a celebration of  smarts, heart and courage. The mantra 'there's no place like home'  is what the monks of the OZ ashram teach: deep meditation does the hat trick of taking you to Oz, but not bringing you along at the same time; the split between you and you; what part of you stays behind when you pass through the heavenly gates? The ego, of course, and without the ego you're not separate from the chair you sit on, the air you breathe or the people next to you.  Unless you have followers to do your own laundry, egolessness is a place to visit not to stay, but of course when returning to Kansas you can bring some of the color back with you to share in art, sermons or say, a gonzo-esque movie blog. Let's not forget that, back in Kansas, though the tornado seems to have distracted the real life witch for the moment, soon she'll be back for that dog -- unless the tornado killed her. It's not really mentioned. As in SHERLOCK JR,. the problems of the real are solved while the subject is in the realm of the imaginary/symbolic.

The wizard also fits the Lacanian model of the "Non du pere" - a figurehead who portrays great strength and mystery, the ultimate signifier, i.e. he embodies the "one who knows." He may not actually know anything of value except one essential thing: "when they get what they want, they never want it again" - and thus it is "not how much you love, but how much you are loved by others." He's really referring to himself, because outside of others' love, he has no real power. His emptiness is a favor of course, for he shows that all patriarchal power is contingent upon our belief in that power

Thus, in being exposed, el Wizardo has no choice but to admit he's a fraud and has no way to help Dorothy or her three companions with their imaginary problems. What he ingeniously does however is carry the Non over into the nom du pere, and thus he 'names' the subjects as having already attained these values. He rewrites their conceptions of their own history, so they realize they earned these gifts through their courage, resourcefulness and bravery in the tasks ascribed. His role as the ultimate signifier, then, is to carry them over the blank spot in the circle--the objet petit a--and place them safely down on the other side. The tokens of this trial--medal, pocket watch, and diploma--assure the subjects the tasks were completed and "they are that."

This is why the keepsake from an absent lover, a diploma, the graduation ceremony, the wedding photo album, are important for continuing the illusion that "shit happened." Alas, in the days of email all this is more virtual and thus robbed of its mythic personal power, leaving you weak and with baggy eyes from looking too long ascreen.  For lovers, the pressed flower,sent in a letter dabbed with tears and perfume, a half a heart gold chain, a yearbook photo with a sexy signature on the back, give way to torrid 300 page emails and endless pictures but nothing tangible...nothing will remain once the electricity goes out and the bombs start falling.

A "near death" experience or acid trip can sometimes knock you into enlightenment, make you appreciate all of life and sing the praises of the banal, but then what? After a few months or years, is Dorothy still going to remember her Oz visit? Really, she should have been allowed to keep one souvenir from OZ, some representation of the unassimilable remainder-- the ruby slippers, ideally. They should have returned with her to Kansas, and remained red, even after the black and white has resumed, the same red of the little girl's coat in SCHINDLER'S LIST, or the blood in THE TINGLER,, or the color explosion with the gun at the end of SPELLBOUND, or to a cornier extent, the arrival of color slow and sure into PLEASANTVILLE's black and white conformity. 

Failing that, Dorothy would maybe later buy some acid while enrolled at Kansas City University and when she'd see that it's red and sparkly--"ruby" acid--she'd know the score. Open up the Emerald City, baby. Dorothy's coming back with dilated pupils. But Oz can be accessed only with total devotion to the inner Angora-wearing Glenda the Good Witch. One must become pure love, a vessel stripped bare of all traces of ego and judgment. In other words, to see God you have but to blind yourself with the sun or leap from a cliff, or have perfect faith, like Bella in NEW MOON!

When I was in college I wrote two Oz related stories, one was about an old homeless Dorothy hallucinating scarecrows and hiding her ruby slippers in a shoebox at the bottom of her trash-filled shopping cart, finally bleeding to death after being robbed and beaten by a flying monkey, she lies dying in the gutter, saying there's no place like home and seeing the Emerald City open up before her.
 The other had Dorothy the liberal, stopping along the yellow brick road for every needy creature that asked for change, until she had an army, a million strong, marching towards the Emerald City, and then they can't get in, so they riot, then retreat out into the poppy fields, where eventually a shanty town forms. Addiction runs rampant, the poppies die out and the now opiate-addicts must steal everything in Oz not nailed down and hock it for the good fairy dust because the crops they left behind when following Dorothy have been eaten up by crows. Dorothy meanwhile has skipped out, hiding down in Munchkinland, crying in the ruins of her fallen house.

The sensible prophets always escape--usually into death--before their followers get too needy and devour them whole. One must realize one is not actually Jesus, but still amused to announce: "Go and tell your people, a king has come," and spend the night stomping around with a cape on, going "wooooof and a wooooof and a royal grown....(wwooooif!)" and asking girls "so who's your scarecrow these days?"

As for Dorothy, she knows her straw man will come back down eventually, with a thud, back into his black and white dorm room, all apologetic and hungover, but for now he's technicolor dream coat king of the forrrressst! and only his fried retinas and arthritic wrists are left behind as he heads off to fight in World War Wii.