Fabulous Filmic Fashion Friday: THE WIZARD OF OZ

 My first impression of the inevitable 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz was: the 30s on ecstasy. Having seen the whole film now, I think I'll stick to that initial thought - and show you just one aspect that makes me feel this way: the costumes.

Designed by a man that goes by the name of Adrian, the world of the children's book comes alive through the evil witch's green skin (which, by the way, caught fire during the making), the good witch's Elizabeth the 1st inspired robes and of course Dorothy's childish and cute dress along with the adorable ruby slippers.

The Wizard of Oz is a fiest - if not for fashion lovers, then at least for costume lovers.

But not only was the costume design very inventive and visionary, it was also surprisingly convincing - never before have I seen a man in a lion costume look as much like a lion, and the same goes for the Scarecrow and the Tin Man. Today we have CGI - back then, all they had was needle and thread.

Therefore, let's honour the craftmanship of Adrian and his helpers today!

Thoughts on: "Tagore Stories on Film"

Biting the bullet: silent, black-and-white, Bengali.

On occasion of the 150th birthday of the acclaimed literature-nobelprice winner from India, Rabindranath Tagore, the Indian government published a filmset consisting of six films concerning the literary legend. This was done with the help of the National Film Development Corporation. 

There have been many filmatizations of the stories and novels that Tagore has written, but the government and NFDC have selected the following for the compilation:

Khudita Pashan (1960) - Tapan Sinha, Bengali

Teen Kanya (1961) - Satyajit Ray, Bengali

Kabuliwala (1961) - Hemen Gupta, Hindi

Ghare-Baire (1984) - Satyajit Ray, Bengali

Char Adhyay (1997) - Kumar Shahani, Hindi

BONUS DVD:

Natir Puja (1932) - Rabindranath Tagore, Bengali

Rabindranath Tagore (1961) - Satyajit Ray, Bengali

I promised you to write about the filmset by the time I'd be finished watching all seven films, so here I am, talking about three things I thought I would never fully be able to appreciate as much as I wanted:

1. Silent films (Natir Puja)
2. Black-and-white films (Natir Puja, Khudita Pashan, Teen Kanya, Rabindranath Tagore)
3. Bengali films (Natir Puja, Khudita Pashan, Teen Kanya, Rabindranath Tagore, Ghare-Baire)

With the exception of the silent film, which I simply cannot truly adjust to, I've grown fonder of the latter two than I had excepted initially - but what am I rambling; let's start to dive deeper into the subject...

MY THOUGHTS ON THE FILMS

(including a few of those essential trying-to-be-objective remarks)