Somewhere over the rainbow. Was An idea of hope, love, and prosperity for most of the viewers of the film the Wizard of Oz. although I view this film as a symbolic idea of the cliche movie story line. Although this cliche would never have been created if it had not been for the film itself. The idea of a young girl discovering herself, and a “wicked witch” trying to stop her from achieving her dreams set the story line up for the perfect antagonist and protagonist.

Dorothy plays the role of a young girl living on a farm with her aunt and three other farms men, as well as her dog toto. They live the simple life, until problems hit home when their retched neighbor Almira Gulch is bitten by toto and forces Dorothy to put him down. In order to prevent the death of toto, Dorothy decides to run away from her family and life in Kansas. She than decides to return home once she speaks with a “magical wizard” in passing. Sadly on her way home she gets separated from her family during a twister and hits her head and finds herself in the emerald city/the yellow brick road. On this journey of trying to get home she is introduced to 4 main characters. The scarecrow, the lion, tin man, and the wicked witch of the west.

While watching the film I tried to decide upon a character aside from the witch, who Dorothy could be compared to. But truthfully there is no one more suitable than witch herself.  The witch is on a mission to wear the ruby silvers and destroy Dorothy and Dorothy’s wish is to go back home to Kansas. Both on selfish missions, until Dorothy discovers the more importance of friendship and helping her friends out along the way. Back to the subject of this cliche cinematography, if it wasn’t for this film we would never have this idea of the wicked witch and innocent southern girl both on a mission, although one’s mission is to destroy the other. Aside from this clicheness, I believe this film has symbolism behind these two characters as well. Dorothy and the witch could be identified as our conscious, or the idea that in order to achieve your goal you must work for it and not sit around and wait for it. There are so many interpretations of this film, that there truly is no “right” or “wrong” way of digesting this film.

Whether you are watching the wizard of oz to entertain yourself, or interrupt the psychological aspect of the film, or even learn more about the films of that century you must always remember the beginning process that the movie makers and screenwriters went into in order to have this long lasting of a movie classic.