A cinematographic critique and four directors approach David Lynch's cinema through the masterpiece "The Wizard of Oz".

"Lynch/Oz" is a visual and auditory bombardment where the off-screen voices of the narrators tell what many films by the American director have in common with the 1939 work. Dorothy's red shoes worn by various Lynch characters, the name Dorothy recurring in "Blue Velvet," the character of the good witch in the finale of "Wild at Heart" are just some of the explicit references taken from Lynch. However, what interests Philippe fundamentally are the themes taken from the American director's film by Fleming. The dark and evil forces, the unconscious, the dimensions of dreams and reality that relentlessly flirt in Lynch and come directly from Oz, the irrational that destroys the rational, the fragmentation of the self.

Philippe and his editor construct an impressive summary of Lynch's filmography, starting from "The Wizard of Oz," probably after seeing Lynch's studio where an image of "The Wizard of Oz" hangs on a wall.

As the minutes pass, "Lynch/Oz" expands the critical and historical discourse to cinema in general, which contains constant references to the 1939 film. What is Gary Ross's "Pleasantville" if not the journey of the protagonists from one dimension to another? And among the images of the film, there is one of a rainbow over the entire field of a Californian town, and wasn't it Dorothy who sang "Somewhere over the rainbow"? And speaking of rainbows, Kubrick also references "The Wizard of Oz" in "Eyes Wide Shut" when the two girls who approach Tom Cruise's character at a party say to him, "...where does the rainbow end," and "Rainbow" is also the name of the mask shop where the protagonist rents the costume to attend the orgiastic party.

The rainbow is seen as a bridge between two opposite realities.

How many films alternate sepia-toned photography only to explode into flaming colors? Many! Dario Argento used technicolor in "Suspiria" precisely to emphasize the fairy tale dimension of his film, in which there is a ferocious witch in the end.

Lynch/Oz also includes succulent digressions reminiscent of Kenneth Anger's "Hollywood Babylon," such as when one of the narrating voices tells of a suicide that occurred on the set of "The Wizard of Oz," and through a still image, a hanged man can be seen. In reality, that blurred image in a long shot is nothing more than an inanimate scenic element.

Returning to Lynch and his extraordinary filmography, "Wild at Heart" from 1990 is the film most inspired by the thirties' film. Alessandro Ronchi wrote in his review for "Gli Spietati": "The Wizard of Oz in Wild at Heart is a kitsch fetish handled in a maniacal way." In all three "Twin Peaks" series, for example, the story is about a d rowsy rural town that hides new psycho-physical dimensions in its deepest recesses, which explode onto the Evil, and what is Fleming's film if not, among other things, also the tale of a certain type of America deeply rooted in ritualism, where fantasy is necessary to estrange oneself from reality and routine, and it is important to embark on a trip to know oneself, something that cannot happen without taking risks, without questioning oneself, without knowing the malignant in its most disparate manifestations. Even Naomi Watts' character in "Mulholland Drive" is a sort of modern Dorothy who undergoes a risky, monstrous, erotic, psychic, and hallucinogenic journey from the province to the great Hollywood, "I lost my memory in Hollywood

I had a million good and bad visions

There's something in the Hollywood air," Madonna sang, and that's exactly what happens to Watts in the film, a sort of psychotic Dorothy who sees her personality shattered.

26-May-2023 by Ema