The Wiz: A Soulful Oz

But for all the references to its contemporary moment, The Wiz also has one foot planted firmly in the past. According to Lumet, he, Jones, and choreographer Louis Johnson “worked very hard to try to hit as many specific periods of black music and dance as possible.” The mere presence of Lena Horne—one of classic Hollywood’s greatest Black stars—harks back to the few all-Black-cast studio pictures that predate The Wiz, including Stormy Weather and Cabin in the Sky (both 1943). Decked out in a shimmering oversize bluish gown and a matching, tiara-adorned bonnet, the ethereal legend radiates old-school glamour while singing “Believe in Yourself,” a confidence-boosting ballad that encourages Dorothy to keep the faith. And in an earlier scene, television veteran Nipsey Russell—who plays the wisecracking Tinman—evokes the era of vaudeville with “Slide Some Oil to Me,” a song written in a Tin Pan Alley style.

At the center of the film’s extraordinary multigenerational cast is Diana Ross, who succeeds in making the iconic role of Dorothy her own. By the midseventies, Ross had proved that the undeniable it-girl persona she had cultivated as the lead singer of the Supremes could smoothly translate into solo pop stardom and big-screen fame. While most Black performers of the time were relegated to bit parts and schlocky blaxploitation fare, she landed a trio of major acting showcases and became arguably the first Black woman in Hollywood to gain the kind of behind-the-scenes leverage consistently denied her predecessors, including Horne and Dorothy Dandridge. Ross had earned an Oscar nomination for playing the leading role in Lady Sings the Blues (1972), a fascinatingly loose interpretation of the life of Billie Holiday, and followed that breakthrough three years later with the high-fashion melodrama Mahogany, which yielded her a number one hit single and a costume-design credit. The Wiz rounded out her trifecta of movies that decade, but like the stage musical itself, her casting was met with its share of naysayers.

Envisioned in Baum’s book as a young girl and played by the teenage Stephanie Mills in The Wiz’s original Broadway production, Dorothy would seem to be a poor fit for Ross, who was then well into her thirties, with three children of her own. To get around this unusual casting decision, Lumet and screenwriter Joel Schumacher refashioned the character as a twenty-four-year-old kindergarten teacher who suffers from arrested development: this Dorothy lives in Harlem with her Uncle Henry (Stanley Greene) and Aunt Em (Theresa Merritt)—the latter of whom urges her to move out and build a life of her own—and has never ventured south of 125th Street. Admittedly, this premise strains credulity, but Ross finds her own truth in the material, exhibiting the same conviction she was able to bring to Lady Sings the Blues despite not looking or sounding like Lady Day. Lithe of limb, wide-eyed, and enthralling, she pulls off what our greatest movie stars do, never trying to disappear into her role but instead bringing all of herself to it.

Ross exudes a remarkable tenderness and vulnerability in Dorothy’s interactions with her three sidekicks, the Scarecrow, the Tinman, and the Lion (Ted Ross). As she encourages them to find what they’re searching for within themselves, Dorothy’s own insecurities emerge. Her lilting voice and expressive eyes—which almost always seem to be on the verge of tears, even when she’s happy—drive home her sheltered background and her timidity. But Ross also imbues her character with authority and strength. In the film’s grand finale, she sings the musical’s signature ballad, “Home,” with a purity and clarity that call to mind her early Motown days, mixed with a grit and crackle that reveal her maturity as an artist and her understanding of how to tell stories through song. The number is shot as a long take—in a close-up on Ross’s face, surrounded by faded profiles of the many characters in Dorothy’s life—allowing us to fully bask in the song’s message of self-discovery and self-actualization.

Despite all the undeniable talent involved, the film initially met with a negative reception—an unfortunate outcome exacerbated by the too-great expectations of audiences and industry members alike. Throughout the production and rollout, observers continually balked at the hefty price tag, which was widely reported as twenty-four million dollars, an unprecedented sum for a film of its kind. Because Black cinema was in a precarious state following a brief boom in the early seventies of popular “ghetto” films, like Shaft and Super Fly, The Wiz was tasked with staving off a complete fade-out of Black performers from screens. When it failed at the box office, it was accused of killing what little interest Hollywood had left in movies with Black casts.

Decades later, though, The Wiz has nestled comfortably into the position of influential cult classic, especially for Black Americans. Its cross-generational appeal and status as a time capsule have made it a regular comfort watch at many family gatherings, keeping it in rotation on cable over the years. The movie has been affectionately referenced in contemporary pop culture, most notably by Beyoncé: the entrancing horn riff featured in the film’s Emerald City sequence was sampled during the singer’s 2018 Coachella set, and keen Beyhive members have suggested that her 2023 Renaissance World Tour’s green-and-silver color palette was inspired by the movie. Jackson’s infectious performance of “You Can’t Win”—a song alluding to the toll that systemic oppression takes on the Black psyche, sung while the Scarecrow is still pinned to his pole and surrounded by menacing crows—has also figured into the musical’s legacy; though the number was axed from the original Broadway production, it has since been reintegrated into subsequent ones, including NBC’s 2015 live television special and the 2024 Broadway revival.

In its best moments, The Wiz combines an ecstatic appreciation of Black artistry with a celebration of freedom and perseverance. This is why, for many of us, the warm feeling we had when we first encountered the movie never fades. Seeing Ross and Jackson duetting in all their glory on “Ease on Down the Road” brings memories of simpler times. The ensemble of cherubic babies, suspended in flying harnesses behind Glinda, elicits joy at such an over-the-top display of Black pride. And then there’s the buoyant number “A Brand New Day,” occasioned by the undignified end of Evillene, the Wicked Witch of the West (played by a legitimately scary Mabel King), in which enslaved workers declare deliverance from their sweatshop overlord—a clear allusion to Black liberation movements. (“Free at last!” the Tinman ad-libs.) Lumet alternates between tight, immersive shots of the performers and wider angles that capture them sprinting and gliding across the golden-hued set. The scene bursts with an energy that’s impossible to contain, especially when the workers take a beat to shed and then literally burn their rags and masks, revealing themselves in a nearly au naturel state. The instrumental ballet that immediately follows the witch’s demise is a gorgeous showcase of Johnson’s choreography, pulling from his collaborations with dance titans like Katherine Dunham, Jerome Robbins, and Alvin Ailey.

As in so many cultural products of the era, sparks of light coexist with a melancholic mood that goes far beyond the nightmare vision of those haunted trash cans. This dark tone is exemplified by Pryor’s Wiz, a dejected, manic “phony” whose pitiful digs consist of little more than a bare-bones cot. He is the embodiment of a dream squandered—and the cautionary wake-up call that Dorothy and her friends need to carry on.

Just as there is no wiz who can ensure Dorothy’s return home, there is no one film that can determine the fortunes of Black artists in Hollywood. But The Wiz nevertheless serves as a testament to how far the community had come since the golden age of the studio system, when the greatest Black performers were often relegated to supporting roles and rarely had a chance to develop lasting careers. The film reminds us of what Black people have been doing since the dawn of cinema: finding creative abandon in unexpected places, and making a delicious meal out of every opportunity that comes their way.