So, I just saw Wicked: Part 1 for the third time after seeing it twice on opening weekend, then not seeing it again after a whole month. (It's getting ready to drop for home release with digital sales and rentals this upcoming Tuesday and physical media on February 4.)
But, I wanted to talk to some points that are a little more spoilery than my review spoke for, as well as the spoiler podcast I had with some friends. (I really need to start posting the podcast on the blog again. Problem is I usually blog from one laptop and do my podcasts on another one.) So, if you haven't seen the movie and want to go into your experience spoiler free, this is your warning to stop reading now.
A major thing that's noted early on is that Elphaba wears black as a child in an added for the movie scene, and later, it's the prominent color in her wardrobe, wearing a similarly black outfit when she arrives at Shiz. In the musical, she wears a regular Shiz uniform. In the musical, she's first seen in black during the OzDust Ballroom part of "Dancing Through Life." In film, they can do a wide variety of costumes to show that sequences can take place over different days. Onstage, the main cast doing costume changes is very limited as they're often carrying the story and as such aren't given a lot of opportunity to be offstage.
Elphaba wearing black isn't just a nod to her being the Wicked Witch of the West. This is visual storytelling. When I was growing up and being homeschooled, we read a lot of books about frontier life like the Little House on the Prarie series, The Yearling and others. A little bit about fashion popped up. White clothes and dyed and pattern-printed clothes were often kept for special occasions rather than day to day wear, especially if you didn't have a lot of money to purchase new clothing often. Black and other dark colored clothing, especially sturdier fabrics, would be very common for pants, dresses and stockings. Black was less common for women to wear day to day as wearing black was often for mourning, but not necessarily limited to it.
Black clothing is low maintenance. Stains don't show up on it, and most things that would show could easily be washed off with normal cleaning. So Elphaba wearing black as opposed to her sister Nessarose's fashionable clothing tells us a lot about the care they get.
Another point is that the Silver Shoes in this film version of the story are revealed to have belonged to Elphaba and Nessarose's mother and are gifted to Nessarose by their father on her first day at Shiz. We're not informed that any clothing of their mother's is given to Elphaba. It's possible some was.
However, the only thing that Elphaba has that we're clearly told belonged to her mother is the telltale bottle that once held green elixir.
Nessarose got a pair of pretty shoes. Elphaba got an actual piece of garbage. You begin to wonder how exactly Elphaba got that...
Elphaba clearly has trauma from how she was raised that she later expresses to Galinda: her father, fearful of having another green child, made his wife chew milkweeds while pregnant. However, the plant had a different effect in making Nessarose be born premature and making her unable to walk. In addition, their mother dies in childbirth. Elphaba claims it's her fault, and given the context we've seen in the movie, she didn't come at that conclusion herself. It's also telling that during one of her visions, she sees her father saying "Take it away!" just after her birth.
Galinda is depicted as someone who wants to appear to be good, made very clear in the song "Popular." She doesn't do nice things because people need help, she does it for the attention. The story shows us her being very unkind to Elphaba: when she accidentally volunteers her private suite for Elphaba's lodgings, she gives her a very small corner of the room that she even piles her numerous belongings around.
When Galinda decides to rename herself, it's a fairly hollow gesture that doesn't really help anything. Yet, Elphaba respects it and never "deadnames" her.
That said, we do see the origins of "Glinda the Good." Galinda originally invites Elphaba to join the party at the OzDust Ballroom and gives her an ugly hat so she can be mocked. This is after she blows off Boq asking her for a dance by suggesting he ask Nessarose.
However, Elphaba doesn't see this as Galinda being unkind. Nessarose enjoys getting attention from Boq, and the hat is likely the first gift anyone's ever given Elphaba that had any thought put into it. As a result, Elphaba decides to get Madame Morrible to teach Galinda sorcery as well.
Elphaba arriving at the party kind of reminded me of Disney's animated film adaptation of Cinderella, in which our heroine didn't go to the ball in hopes of winning the affection of the prince, but because she just wanted to have a good time. Elphaba just wanted to have a good time at the OzDust Ballroom with her peers, but instead they single her out and mock her.
Galinda deciding to dance with Elphaba is a powerful moment for her. She recognizes this is someone she harmed who didn't deserve it. She stops seeing Elphaba as her inconvenience and sees her as a person. When they get back to their room, Galinda lets Elphaba speak about her trauma involving Nessarose and her mother and tells her it wasn't her fault. While "Popular" says a lot about Galinda's superficial stances, it's also her trying in her own way to make it up to Elphaba for her former treatment, the two becoming fast friends afterward.
She's not Glinda the Good yet, let her cook.
During the "One Short Day" sequence, the Wizomania bit has been expanded with basically a brand new song sneaked in, telling us the history of the Grimmerie. Denslow-ish costume designs appear for female guards (looking like Glinda's guards, just green) and performers on stilts dressed as the Soldier With The Green Whiskers, while the Hammerheads (faithfully reinterpreted from Denslow's illustrations for the stage) have been reimagined. The nods to Denslow's designs are an interesting way to pay tribute to the original Oz books.
During "One Short Day," we also see four posts that seem to also be mailboxes that are colored red, blue, purple and yellow, the four colors of the Land of Oz from the original Baum books. However, we see that—akin to Volkov's Magic Land—the colors have been switched up as Winkie Country is now blue and Munchkin Country is yellow on the map seen in the film and on the Shiz University website.
We're going to have to wait for next November to see just how malicious Jeff Goldblum's Wizard might be. From what we've seen in the first movie, I think Madame Morrible might be the actual malicious intent behind the throne. This take on the Wizard isn't without fault as he's letting the Animals be caged and pulled from public life. I hope the second film gives us a little clarification on the reasons as while Dr. Dillamond speaks of the Great Drought and the Wizard cites a need to "bring folks together," we're not seeing a lot of discord in the people of Oz yet. In fact, they seem really easy to sway.
"Defying Gravity" is really the culmination of Elphaba's character arc in the film. She has to put away her childhood dream of meeting the Wizard and getting her heart's desire and now she has to defy him as Madame Morrible and the Wizard turn Oz against her.
As in the musical, Elphaba asks Glinda to join her in defying the Wizard. While Glinda understands what her friend is doing, she can't bring herself to defy the status quo that's always been in her favor. Although Madame Morrible treated her icily at Shiz, at the end of the film, Morrible embraces Glinda, seeking to make her a tool for her ends.
Wicked has been a pretty meaningful piece about questioning authority and where you stand and what your influence is. The film does a very good job of conveying that, possibly even more effectively with the increased time and ability to zoom in on moments that you can't really do onstage.
No comments:
Post a Comment