The Wizard of Oz
A Tornado, (sometimes called a twister or cyclone) is a violent and deadly rotating column of powerful air that is in contact with both the clouds of the atmosphere and the surface of the earth, usually brought on by thunderstorms. It is a very large, massive and dangerously strong funnel that reaches from the sky and hundreds of miles down in length until it touches the ground. It moves very, very fast in an uncoordinated circular motion across the land.
In the movie, The Wizard of Oz, the catalyst to get Dorothy to Oz was a tornado. The movie’s starting point, was a small town in Kansas. Kansas is part of Tornado Alley, a part of the country that has perfect conditions for tornados. “The central part of the U.S. gets many tornadoes, particularly strong and violent ones, because of the unique geography of North America. The combination of the Gulf of Mexico to the south and the Rocky Mountains to the west provides ideal environmental conditions for the development of tornadoes more often there than any other place on earth.” (http://www.scientificamerican.com) No other part of the world has the combination of a warm, moist air source on the equatorward side and a wide, high range of mountains to the west that extends from north to south that provides the right atmospheric conditions for frequent tornadoes.
Through my research, I discovered that,“the author of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum, was a Theosophist. The tornado that brought Dorothy to the land of Oz had a literal and symbolic meaning from his religion.” For the literal meaning of a tornado, a tornado can lift and spin a house. (http://architecturerevived.blogspot.com)
The film used a realistic area for a tornado, but some of the supporting details were less realistic. I don’t think anyone could sleep through a tornado. Arriving to an alternate universe was also not realistic. Tornados can move houses and have been known to picked up homes and move them. The images of being able to see different objects in an active tornado, I don’t think is as feasible.
The wizard of Oz, was my introduction to natural disasters as a child, as an adult I witnessed a tornado warning and tornado in Indiana. I immediately recalled this scene for the Wizard of Oz -
My favorite quote from the movie-“It really was no miracle what happened was just this: The wind began to switch, the house to pitch, and suddenly the hinges started to unhitch, just then the Witch! To satisfy an itch, went flying on her broomstick thumbing for a hitch! "
―Dorothy Gale (1939)
References
"Meaning Of The Tornado In The Wizard of Oz." Meaning Of The Tornado In The Wizard of Oz. Web.
"Special Effects in 'Wizard of Oz' Took Real Magic." Kansas. Web. 7 Mar. 2015.
"What Makes Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma so Prone to Tornadoes?" Scientific American Global RSS. Web.