EveryBestPicture.com revisits this Oscar Best Picture winner
Although your critic has seen many of these films at least once before, somehow The Sound of Music has escaped my attention. This puts me in the rare and enviable position of being able to see a widely regarded classic for the first time. A musical often included in all-time top 10 lists, this is a film that Julie Andrews couldn’t resist starring in, despite her reluctance in reprising “another nanny role” after her success as Mary Poppins. Now, clearly I am not going in blind, I know much of the music while the setting and tone have become familiar by cultural osmosis. The film is ubiquitous and its cultural importance cannot be underestimated, it defines an age. The impenetrable protective bubble created by Rogers & Hammerstein’s score and Julie Andrews performance as Maria the governess was strong enough to thwart even the Nazis, and convincingly so. But how does it look to someone watching it in adulthood? At very nearly 3 hours running time and almost certainly the closest thing to a children’s film best picture winner, could I sit through it? There does seem to be a fairly strong divide in people I know: between cisgender men and everyone else on just how good this film really is. Make of that what you will. My initial impression is that Julie Andrews exercised a power that swept up all before her, yes, even me. There were cracks if you looked for them, I found it very difficult to get past the innocent (/absurd), portrayal of the benign sisters and mother superior of the nunnery where the film opens. However, I am very much aware that I am completely open to the accusation of wilfully resisting the suspension of disbelief as the son of a woman who told me horror stories of her time in a school run by German Catholic nuns, so this is likely to be my failing rather than the film's. As someone who works with primary aged children I also found the young Vonn Trapps escapades early on largely unconvincing. However, in both of these cases Andrews convinced me in her performance opposite them that this was just the way things were, and I should get over it. And I did. As theatrical as the performances are, so stylised, I didn’t ever feel that the camera was the actor’s focus. I didn’t feel performed to, like I have done in other musicals; it appeared that they performed for each other rather than their audience. This provided a gateway into their world; an escape from my own. Once this has happened, in any film, if the magic continues for the reminder you will forgive it almost anything. It is also shot sumptuously: exteriors shot on location in Salzburg, Austria and the difference made on screen is astounding. The visual depth seems limitless and this sucks you in body and soul from the first truly iconic shot of Maria atop an Austrian hill, telling us how alive it was. I believed her, the proof was there before me. There are some very interesting shot choices, one such eyebrow raiser during the ‘climb every mountain number’. The Mother Abbess (MA) sings to Maria to convince her to return to Captain Von Trapp and be brave enough to find out if her feelings are mutual (Maria's feelings, not the Nun's) in full black habit. The singing nun spends almost the entire duration obscured, in complete darkness in the foreground, with Andrews face illuminated by a light which suggested to me that the voice she hears is in fact a message of divine provenance, directing her away from the habit and into the arms of the man she loves. There are many theories on why it was done this way: to preserve the MA's modesty; to highlight how dark Maria's life would be in the Abbey seeking the love of Jesus just there for consolation (in comparison to the outside world which appears so brightly lit through the windows here); to obscure Peggy Wood's (the actress who played the MA) poor lip-syncing (as it was not her singing)... I'll stick with my initial interpretation on this one until directed to believe otherwise. The chemistry between the Captain and Governess was a beautiful example of a slow burn beginning to a relationship, so often used in cinema before and since, rarely as successfully. When Maria returns from her honeymoon there is a visible, arresting change in her presence and interactions with the Captain. The suggestion that the marriage was a missing piece in their relationship was poetic, everything between them had now fallen into place. The biggest departure from the norm, something that I have still struggled to get my head around, is the structure of the film. I do not mean this as a negative, quite the opposite. Typically, films (and almost any tale, however old, however told) have three acts. You will know this already: when we teach children to write fiction in England we repeat ad nauseam from when they are 3 until 11 years old, throughout what we call primary school, and often beyond that you must 1. Establish your characters, setting & situation; 2. introduce a dilemma / change to the status quo you have established; 3. Resolve the situation. The Sound of Music, in fact, is a film and its own sequel. The Sound of Music has 6 very clearly defined acts: 1: in the nunnery 2: role as governess INTERMISSION 3: wedding and then a 40 minute sequel in which we 1: meet the Nazis 2: see the Nazi net close in on the Vonn Trapps 3: escape the Nazis Each ‘film’ is perfectly capable of standing on its own two feet, but together they create an epic where nothing stands still, not for a moment. Both parts fit together in a seamless and natural way that cannot be challenged because hey, it all just works so well. Most importantly it doesn’t feel like 3 hours. At the end of the 3rd act we had to put our son to bed, at the wedding scene, perfect timing. I was amazed to see that there were only 40 minutes left. Were this a studio movie made 20 years ago vast swathes of it would have been cut and it would have been a flop of 88 minutes. 10 years ago it would have been a 3 picture franchise (each of 2.5 hours) and today it would have been a Netflix series with each of the Von Trapp children having a spin off of their own. All of these alternatives would have sucked. This picture struck me to be like an antique music box, containing a magic that could only have been created in its time. Any imperfections I may have noted add to its personality. So yes, I enjoyed it. If somehow, like me, you are yet to see it, male cisgender or not, get thee to the Salzburg nunnery. Addendum Although I found it hard, I have decided to consciously avoid discussing the sexual or wartime politics which are present in the film. Perhaps another day. I may be wrong to take the film as intended by the makers, but there was a pleasure in doing so. The suspension of this part of my consciousness made for a much more enjoyable experience, something I am not often capable off doing. Although I do feel a little guilt akin to having just finished a 500ml tub of Haagen Dazs despite myself. |
Previous ReviewsComing soon:Archives
February 2019
Categories
All
AuthorPablo Griffiths is a man with a passion for many things. He has recently taken an interest in writing about film, and himself in the third person. |