On New Year’s Eve we watched The Sound of Music, a movie I watched a lot as a kid but probably hadn’t seen a single time since then.
Things I didn’t understand about the movie as a child:
Why someone as old as the Captain would be looking for a new wife, or why he would be attractive to Maria in any way.
Why the Captain would be cold and emotionally damaged with his children, which I understood was because he was broken by the death of his wife—but then be relaxed and warm and happy with the Baroness and Max. “The children remind him of his wife” seemed inadequate explanation.
The appeal of the Baroness.
Why my mother kept making remarks about how Liesl is more like 29 going on 30.
Why my mother was so annoyed by the near-instant transformation of the terrible naughty children into perfect delightful ones.
Why my mother (a former teacher) was annoyed by the children’s instant and full grasp of the principals and applications of music. Teaching is easy! All you have to do is explain it once and demonstrate it once and that’s all there is to it! Instant gifted musicians!
Why Rolfe is suddenly cold to Liesl after being so sweet to her before.
Alllllllll the Germany/Nazi stuff.
Why singing Eidelweiss at the festival was a big deal, and why the Captain choked up.
Who on earth Max was, and why was he THERE?
Things I didn’t understand about the movie as an adult:
Why the Captain called Maria repetitious in her request for play clothes for the children, when it was her first time asking. (Theory: cut scenes.)
Why the Captain would be cold and emotionally damaged with his children, which I understood was because he was broken by the death of his wife—but then be relaxed and warm and happy with the Baroness and Max. “The children remind him of his wife” seems inadequate explanation.
Why the family hides in the nunnery and then goes out the back door, instead of going out the back door to begin with, or else staying in hiding until the soldiers leave.
Why Liesl’s dress is SO DIRTY when she comes in from the rain. (Paul says “from climbing the side of the house,” but it’s also dirty all over the back.) (Theory: unexpected fabric complications; dyes running, multiple-take mishaps, or whatnot.)
Why Maria gives Liesl something of her own to change into, instead of going (or having Liesl go) to her room to get something of Liesl’s own.
Where Maria’s “he can’t take his eyes off you in that” dress comes from: she didn’t make it from the fabrics she was given, and it’s not something she brought with her.
Why Liesl is not a teenager, but instead a grown woman talking in a breathy baby voice.
Why a nun sings the song about having adventures and following your dreams.
How Maria can be so relentlessly, amazingly perfect in every way, never a single moment of not wanting to fully interact with all those children, never a sharp word or moment of impatience. Just boundless, delightful energy and love, always knowing the right thing to say and do, always interested in teaching and playing and having fun. And the children respond by being absolutely perfect and delightful, and never mouthing off or misbehaving or being cranky, and hanging lovingly on her every word. The teenager consults her for advice, then takes it, then offers words of love and appreciation. DID NO ONE WORKING ON THIS FILM KNOW ANY ACTUAL CHILDREN?
Who on earth Max was, and why was he THERE?
I certainly felt differently about Christopher Plummer’s appeal this time around. Also, the Baroness was a more understandable character to me. As a child, I saw her not only as old but as obviously boring and unpleasant (doesn’t want to PLAY??? not charmed by someone else’s seven children??? obviously she is completely without merit), but as an adult I saw her as charming and pretty, with an understandable desire not to toss a ball around. I appreciated the way the Captain and the Baroness had a warm and affectionate and flirty relationship: I’d expect a movie of this sort to show their relationship as a burden of duty to the Captain and clearly a terrible idea, rather than something that would have been fine.
As for the perfection of Maria, while I was looking at information about the movie and the von Trapp family, I found this:
Far from the sweet and demure woman depicted in the film, Maria von Trapp recalls her stepmother Maria as being moody and prone to outbursts of manic rage. “[She] had a terrible temper. . . . And from one moment to the next, you didn’t know what hit her. We were not used to this. But we took it like a thunderstorm that would pass, because the next minute she could be very nice,” she stated in a 2003 interview.
I immediately felt much more as if Maria were a real person.
I’d forgotten how FUNNY the movie was. I’d remembered liking the songs, but I’d forgotten all the witty dialogue, physical humor, funny facial expressions, etc.
Well! Most of us liked it, and I suspect we’ll watch it again next New Year’s Eve.
Something I learned in theater school is to suspend disbelief and it has really helped me enjoy musicals, especially, so much more than I ever would have otherwise. I love movies a lot and don’t just them nearly as harshly as I would a book, or even a story that someone was telling me, ha!
Also, did you see this? Perfect! http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/11/08/243922063/a-complete-curmudgeons-guide-to-the-sound-of-music
As a child I thought the movie ended with their wedding, because the movie is so long that’s when my mother always made me go to bed. It felt like a reasonable ending and I had NO IDEA that there was more with Nazis until I was in college.
As far as Liesl wearing Maria’s clothes, I think it was Maria realizing that she would look like a pretty bad governess if Liesl was caught wandering back to her room, soaking wet and dirty after obviously breaking multiple rules. Here! Put on my robe and we’ll pretend we’ve been hanging out in here braiding each other’s hair and becoming friends!
When I saw the “live” tv musical last year, they restored some stage scenes and musical numbers that were cut out of the film. Max’s role became clear as he was a “safe” gay escort for the Baroness.
Nuns have adventures and follow their dreams, too. :-)
Would you believe I have never, ever seen that movie? Not even a snippet.
My daughter read a book about the Von Trapps after watching this movie several times, and really enjoyed it (especially the pictures.)
This Christmas break was The One Where We Introduced All Three Star Wars Movies To The Kids. (The original ones.) We watched the third one on New Year’s Eve. It occurred to me that, like me, this was the first role they had ever seen Harrison Ford in. No matter what else they see him in, from now on, like me, they’ll think, “Hey, that’s Han Solo.”
What timing! I am, right this minute, on my way to a SOUND OF MUSIC SING-A-LONG*. It is ok to be jealous. Most people would be.
*Like, in a huge theatre in Seattle. Not just in someone’s basement**
**Not that a sing a long in someone’s basement would be unfun.
Seeing it on the big screen definitely aids in the suspension of disbelief. And Max is one of the more interesting characters. He is there not only to move the plot along but also for comic relief. Also, his asides with the Baroness give the viewer a clearer picture of her character. AND his attitude toward the Nazis contrasts sharply with the Captain’s, thus portraying a central political conflict that existed among Austrian citizens at the time.
Your mother’s comment about Liesl cracked me up.
Oh, yes, I know what his PURPOSE is, as a plot device (though I didn’t as a child, of course: the Nazi stuff went over my head, and I didn’t find him funny). What I meant was, who is he IN THE STORY? Who is he to Georg, and why would he come to stay for such a very long time, staying on even after the Baroness leaves? Who is he to the Baroness? Etc. I don’t think that got fleshed out enough. He just…shows up, and stays. There’s this brief “You needed a chaperon and I needed a place to mooch” line, but I missed that as a child and only barely caught it as an adult.
I fully assumed he was Georg’s brother. In fact, I never questioned it in my life until I saw a joke about him on Pinterest.
I’ve watched the movie a million times – and we had the soundtrack so I’ve listened to it even more (a sing-a-long sounds like great fun!). The thing that always bothered me was how Maria was unpredictable as weather, etc. etc. her own woman/opinionated – and then she gets married and she’s instantly demure and acquiesing to the Captain…she’s a different person. I decided that having sex changed a person (when I was a kid watching the movie).
Max gives them a way out of the country as a family of singers since he’s a talent scout/manager. He’s also looking for a way out of the city for the summer and the captain has a villa.
I love the Sound of Music. What an excellent New Year’s Eve movie. Out here in LA there is a Sound of Music sing-a-long every year at the Hollywood Bowl (a huge outdoor amphitheater). They play the movie on a huge screen with the song lyrics below. People dress up (and get really into it – one year a group all came dressed up in head to toe gold as Oscar statues – one for each award the movie won) and most everyone brings a picnic dinner and usually wine. There is something deliriously fun about thousands of tipsy middle aged women all singing together. If you’re ever in LA in September this is something for the bucket list…
Didn’t she borrow that dress from the Baroness?
You might be thinking of the scene where the Baroness goes with her to help her find something suitable to wear. But then the Baroness just suggests the dress, the one Maria was wearing the other day when the Captain couldn’t take his eyes off her.
TSOF is one of the few films I have ever wanted to view more than once. I think Joanne’s comment has it–you just have to suspend disbelief. I will spare you the list of my disbeliefs, which are all different from yours except Liesl’s age.
My grandmother loved that movie, or at least, that is my memory of the matter from childhood and as she is now long deceased, we will take it to be true — as a child, at least, I loved it with her. I should probably watch it again. I do think I’ve seen it as an adult, but a much younger one.
Another detail that makes no sense: fleeing Salzburg and climbing over the mountains to … Germany? Not such a good plan for escaping the Nazis. More accurate information (about that and other aspects of the real history) here: http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2005/winter/von-trapps.html
one of my friends went on the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg and they made the same point about climbing the mountains. Made a joke about Americans being very dramatic.
Also, watch closely at the end when they are crossing the mountain- Christopher Plummer VERY clearly has a mannequin on his back. Apparently the little girl playing Gretl ate her way across Austria during the filming about by the end, legend has it that Christopher Plummer said, ‘No way in hell am I putting that kid on my back.” or something to that effect (again from the friend who went on the tour.) Not sure if the second part is true, but he is definitely not carrying a human.
Growing up, I always had to go to bed right after “So Long, Farewell” so I have only seen the rest a couple of times. This year, we watched it and I was surprised by how bored I got by everything after “So Long, Farewell.” You’d think that running from the Nazis would be pretty suspenseful, but I was already yawning by the end of the wedding scene.
Christopher Plummer was unbelievably hot.
The one about why a nun would get to sing “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” absolutely made me hoot out loud.
I was definitely surprised when I watched it as an adult that the Baroness is a good, sympathetic (to me) character, and not analogous to the evil fiancée from the Parent Trap. I think at some point I mixed those two up in my brain.