‘Sound of Music’ still a favorite
Flipping through the cable channels this week, I happened upon “The Sound of Music” – the one film I will always stop to watch no matter how many times I’ve seen it.
Turner Classic Movies was showing Julie Andrews films to mark her 90th birthday. She starred in dozens of films, but if you ask around, there’s a good chance people will say their favorite role was that of Maria Von Trapp, the would-be nun who showed up to take care of seven children and ended up marrying their widowed Navy captain father.
And what’s not to love about the film: the sweeping scenery, the church bells, the cute kids, the handsome Christopher Plummer as the Captain, even the scheming of the glamorous, cold, would-be wife Baroness Von Schraeder, who sent Maria packing back to the convent.
And above all, there was the music.
That was my family’s connection to the film. The music is baked into our family story so completely that when I watched the movie this week, I knew every word to every song.
It makes sense for our family, of course. My parents were music teachers and musicians; after seeing the movie they bought the record album. We dropped the stereo needle on it, and my sisters and I would move the living room furniture out of the way to make a stage where the three of us managed to fill the roles of Maria and the Captain but also all seven children.
After rehearsal we’d beckon our parents to the living room; there, they would be subjected to an hour-long staging of the story, complete with dancing, dramatic flourishes and an occasional cartwheel (though none appeared in the film). A favorite was “I Am Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” with my older sister playing Liesl and I doing the role of Rolphe, the bike-messenger boyfriend. At ages 8 and 6, we found nothing confining about a girl telling a boy he must take care of her because she’s too dumb to survive, but still. It’s a bouncy melody.
Speaking of boyfriends, my first serious beau despised the movie.
“All that marching around the town square singing and flapping their arms,” he would say. “What kids would actually do that?”
I told him he was missing the point, and that his disdain for the movie might be a red flag or a deal breaker for me. But he was not alone. Pauline Kael, one of last century’s most prominent critics, lambasted the film, calling it a “sugarcoated lie” in a scathing takedown I didn’t read until I’d outgrown the living room plays.
As I watched it this week, I could see her point. The story takes place in Salzburg, on the eve of Nazis annexing Austria. The film sidesteps the evil that awaits with a plot about some clever planning and nice singing. And Kael was right: what sane children would agree to march around in single file while singing “Do Re Me?”
Well, my sisters and I did, which might say more about my family than it does about the family portrayed on the screen. This was probably the 10th time I’ve watched the movie from beginning to end, and I still think it’s among the most lovely. It’s possible to see a film with wiser and perhaps more skeptical eyes and to enjoy it anyway.
The chemistry between Julie and Christopher is the best ever on screen. “Eidelweiss” is one of the loveliest songs ever written, and Maria’s wedding gown the most beautiful. All of it still holds up.
But the Baroness? I still hate her.