Watched: 03/25/2024
Format: Disney+
Viewing: Unknown
Director: Robert Wise
Selection: Jamie's birthday choice!
I have no idea when I last watched The Sound of Music (1965). I've documented most of the movie's I've seen since 2012 - with a break in 2013-2014. So it's possible I watched it in that window, because it seems like I've seen it more recently than 2011. Or I just forgot to write it up. That happens.
It's probably a fool's errand to talk about the movie at length. It's a bonafide classic, one of the two great American musicals directed by Robert Wise, and the music has permeated culture far beyond the boundaries of the film. A Few of My Favorite Things has somehow become a Christmas song, which, sure. Why not?
From a personal standpoint, when I watch this movie, I am about 75% sure this is what my mom wanted out of having kids. Matching outfits, adventures, happiness and singing. And while she did an amazing job of mothering, she still wound up with two sarcastic, grumpy, gigantic boys who kind of moseyed through family adventures with a grunt and an eyeroll. Sorry, Ma.
The Sound of Music is based (extremely loosely) on the real life Family Von Trapp, who were an Austrian family who left their homeland after Hitler invaded. It was, in it's own way, as dramatic as anything, but also not the short, exciting escape depicted in the film.
It is worth going back and watching for a few reasons. 1) If your memory of the films is essentially kids prancing around the hills with their governess, it means the last time you saw this movie you went to bed at Intermission. 2) Putting those songs from the musical into the narrative context of the film is kind of a good idea. It also tells you a lot about how a musical is supposed to work. 3) The movie is just masterfully choreographed and shot - and edited. The entire film looks phenomenal, and clearly no expense was spared for locations, camera placement, time on location, extras, etc... But also the framing and use of visual language in this movie is kind of mind-boggling. Check out the Do-Re-Me sequence. It's phenomenally well done for everything it conveys and the way it's shot and edited. 4) It's not much fun to think about vis-a-vis parallels to current threats to democracy, but at least the Georg in this movie is deeply anti-Nazi and sees the tide rising while everyone else kind of rolls over. 5) The Lonely Goatherd is an all-time banger.
Watching the film now, I'm always probably more sympathetic than the film wants me to be to the Baroness, who gets tossed aside for the virginal manic pixie dream-nun. Also, God bless 'em, but they shouldn't have cast the late Charmain Carr as the naive, 16-year old Liesl. She was probably 21 or 22, looks 24, and it's almost visually confusing seeing her with the actual children. Meanwhile, a near-30-year-old Julie Andrews is playing a novice, so I'd guess she *should* about 18 or so. And, btw, Christopher Plummer was about 13 years older than Carr and barely older than Andrews.* And he's 7 years younger than Eleanor Parker, who plays the Baroness.** Anyway, once you look at it again, the movie can feel a wee bit jarring and I don't know the in's and out's of why they cast who they did.
Still, if you want to absolutely want to cock-punch a dude named Rolfe, this is the movie for you. (man, Rolfe just sucks so fucking bad. Liesl, NO.)
This is a Robert Wise movie, and I'm going to just keep saying "Robert Wise does not make bad movies".
Anyhoo, I *do* think we're hitting an interesting point as the Gen-Z kids haven't been part of the ritual of watching The Sound of Music on TV once a year or so, and generally people don't really talk about movies with their kids. So while I'm sure a percentage will have seen this movie, it's no longer the cultural shorthand it was. And actual Nazis probably seem a whole lot more like something out of a movie than actual people we'd been at war with 20 years prior to the release of this movie.
*apparently the real-life age gap between Georg and Maria was 25 years
**Parker had been in her career peek from the mid-1940's to the mid-50's, but was working consistently til about 1990. She was the established star in the movie with Academy Awards and whatnot, and she just kills it in this film. And is not funny looking.
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