I'm really looking forward to SciFi Channel's The Tin Man, coming soon to a basic cable packaged television near you. Personally, I'm going to try rigging the set in my Boise corporate apartment to record it for me as I'll be teaching and then back in SF on the days of the first airing. Of course, past experience with attempting to get VCRs to record leads me to really bank on SciFi airing this miniseries again on days when I will be around.
What is so compelling about Dorothy Gail's story? Is it the metaphor of the tornado? Is it the reinterpretation of the real world in terms of fantasy that we understand on a deeper level? Is it the framing of the stories and the wizard himself? I completely geeked out over the website for The Tin Man which literally dives into the Russian doll framing of the story-within-a-story, world-within-a-world. I recommend using the lever on the upper left corner to go full speed and then reverse it all!
I also HIGHLY and capitally recommend Geoff Ryman's novel WAS for a wonderful explosion of the entire world of OZ and L Frank Baum's novel and the Hollywood version and the effects of it on people in a "real" world and a very different perspective of what Dorothy's life might have been like. If you know Kansas you might also really enjoy this as Ryman uses excerpts from Kansas settler's dairies, memoirs, historical record to reconstruct the landscape itself. Even more than any of the sort of straight versions of the story, Ryman brings out that capability in all of us of letting the world get ripped to shreds in our pursuit of the magic, safety, or just plain quiet that might await us in the eye of the tornado.
Some days (like today) #7,518
4 years ago
2 comments:
hey, so did you watch it? I mean, the Tin Man?
I was really excited about seeing 'The Tin Man' too, but somehow it just never caught my fancy. Maybe I am just too devoted to the original books.
I was five years old (that's a slew of years ago) and living in a hilltop appartment in Los Angeles with my mom, dad, aunt and cousin when I pushed myself to learn to read in order to read my cousin Jackie's dozen or so books of Oz tales. They were my first tumble into falling in love with books.
I read 'Wicked' not too long ago and enjoyed it. But 'Wicked' was a specific version of one character's life. I think 'The Tin Man' was a clever modern twist, but it didn't get to me because there just wasn't any improvement on the original. Dorothy, Glinda, the Red Jinn, Tik-Tok, the Hungry Tiger and all the hundreds of fabulous characters in the original books were perfect as they were written. Of course, I was only a 5 years old in love, so gimme a break.
I'll have to try 'WAS' and see what I come up with. By the way, what did you think of 'The Tin Man'?
- Lois
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