Post by klep on Oct 12, 2020 8:05:40 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 10/12: Harold and Maude
AUTUMN WEEK!
Note: This week's essay is graciously provided by a guest contributor.
Yesterday, my three-year-old picked daisies for me. It's something small children like to do, after all, and while it's starting to get late in the year for flowers around here, she managed to find several of them. She sat down with me and told me that there was one for me and one for her. At first, she said that they looked alike, but as she looked closer, she started telling me some of the differences. The center of hers was more yellow; the center of mine was more green. I wasn't coaching her in it, but I was pleased that she was doing it herself. She is already seeing the difference in things that are theoretically the same.
Harold (Bud Cort) walks into a room. He is very calm. He puts on a record, the first Cat Stevens of much we will hear over the course of the movie. When things are just the way he wants them, he hangs himself. His mother (Vivian Pickles) walks in the room, sees Harold's hanging body, and mostly ignores him. And that is Harold's relationship with his mother.
She has put him in therapy; his therapist does not seem an understanding sort, even though the root of Harold's problems seems fairly evident to me. In addition to repeated staged suicides, he attends funerals. At one of these, he meets Maude (Ruth Gordon), formally Dame Marjorie Chardem. She is literally days shy of her eightieth birthday. She seems to be the first real life in Harold's world; she is a free spirit who is an artist and artist's model who steals cars for the experience of driving news cars. (Ruth Gordon herself could not drive, and the cars had to be towed.) She introduces Harold to beauty and dissipation, and he falls in love with her despite more than half-century age difference.
Actually, you don't have to be a trained therapist to get at the roots of Harold's problems, because he explains them quite matter-of-factly. His first "death" was when he was a child and accidentally caused an explosion in a chemistry lab, which made his mother believe he was dead. Her reaction to it made him feel as though he was important to her, something he'd never felt before. Clearly, he is trying to reproduce that importance. She talks about his father at a dinner party once, but we don't know what happened to him or how much Harold ever got to know him.
Harold has no friends. It seems likely that his mother discouraged friendship with the kind of people he enjoyed spending time with and that he finds the kind of people she approves of dull. There's a scene in the movie where she's filling out an application for a computer dating service for him, and I don't know who fits those answers, but it certainly isn't Harold. You can't even say it's her, because she routinely answers what she thinks Harold's response would be, or her impression of Harold. He must have had a happy childhood because he was a wonderful baby.
I suppose there's only so much sympathy you can have for Harold's problems. He is an awfully privileged young man. At the dinner party where we learn all we know of Harold's father, his mother tells one story of Paris and one of Japan, of calling the embassy for a doctor. He has no job. He has no need for a job. His mother presents him with a Jaguar as a gift to make up for getting rid of his hearse. His uncle Victor (Charles Tynor) was General MacArthur's right-hand man. His suicides are generally staged to take the greatest possible advantage of the opulent home he shares with his mother.
Conversely, there is little doubt that Maude is an Auschwitz survivor. She explicitly references the Dreyfuss affair, and we do see the tattoo on her arm which signifies a person used for forced labor in the camp. Outside the very narrow world of the movie, there are a lot of people for whom 1971 was a much worse year than Harold was having. If Harold could get out of his bubble, he might be better adjusted; we have no reason to believe he has any organic mental health condition.
Still, I've always identified a lot more with Harold, with his depression and isolation. With his neglectful mother who almost certainly would be shocked if you told her she was neglectful. I first saw this movie in high school—twice in my sophomore year. The second time was even in class, and I was certainly the only person in that room who had seen it before and knew a certain reveal was coming. I was also the only person who approved of it, of Harold's grasping for life at last. I don't want Irene to fully be like Maude, but I'm happy she can see the difference in the flowers, at least.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 10/19: Daisies
IT'S LADIES' WEEK!
Vera Chytilová's delightful, anarchic romp is our latest pick for Ladies' Week, and was once banned by the Czech government. Make sure to join us next week as we discuss the antics of this film and its protagonists. Daisies is available on Criterion Channel, HBO Max, Kanopy, and Watch TCM as well as for rent on iTunes.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 10/13: Dogtooth
Yorgos Lanthimos' uncomfortable film about a family that keeps their kids isolated in the house kicks off a pairing about toxic family situations. Join us Wednesday for our discussion of this film, available on Criterion Channel and Kanopy and for rent in the usual places.
AUTUMN WEEK!
Note: This week's essay is graciously provided by a guest contributor.
Yesterday, my three-year-old picked daisies for me. It's something small children like to do, after all, and while it's starting to get late in the year for flowers around here, she managed to find several of them. She sat down with me and told me that there was one for me and one for her. At first, she said that they looked alike, but as she looked closer, she started telling me some of the differences. The center of hers was more yellow; the center of mine was more green. I wasn't coaching her in it, but I was pleased that she was doing it herself. She is already seeing the difference in things that are theoretically the same.
Harold (Bud Cort) walks into a room. He is very calm. He puts on a record, the first Cat Stevens of much we will hear over the course of the movie. When things are just the way he wants them, he hangs himself. His mother (Vivian Pickles) walks in the room, sees Harold's hanging body, and mostly ignores him. And that is Harold's relationship with his mother.
She has put him in therapy; his therapist does not seem an understanding sort, even though the root of Harold's problems seems fairly evident to me. In addition to repeated staged suicides, he attends funerals. At one of these, he meets Maude (Ruth Gordon), formally Dame Marjorie Chardem. She is literally days shy of her eightieth birthday. She seems to be the first real life in Harold's world; she is a free spirit who is an artist and artist's model who steals cars for the experience of driving news cars. (Ruth Gordon herself could not drive, and the cars had to be towed.) She introduces Harold to beauty and dissipation, and he falls in love with her despite more than half-century age difference.
Actually, you don't have to be a trained therapist to get at the roots of Harold's problems, because he explains them quite matter-of-factly. His first "death" was when he was a child and accidentally caused an explosion in a chemistry lab, which made his mother believe he was dead. Her reaction to it made him feel as though he was important to her, something he'd never felt before. Clearly, he is trying to reproduce that importance. She talks about his father at a dinner party once, but we don't know what happened to him or how much Harold ever got to know him.
Harold has no friends. It seems likely that his mother discouraged friendship with the kind of people he enjoyed spending time with and that he finds the kind of people she approves of dull. There's a scene in the movie where she's filling out an application for a computer dating service for him, and I don't know who fits those answers, but it certainly isn't Harold. You can't even say it's her, because she routinely answers what she thinks Harold's response would be, or her impression of Harold. He must have had a happy childhood because he was a wonderful baby.
I suppose there's only so much sympathy you can have for Harold's problems. He is an awfully privileged young man. At the dinner party where we learn all we know of Harold's father, his mother tells one story of Paris and one of Japan, of calling the embassy for a doctor. He has no job. He has no need for a job. His mother presents him with a Jaguar as a gift to make up for getting rid of his hearse. His uncle Victor (Charles Tynor) was General MacArthur's right-hand man. His suicides are generally staged to take the greatest possible advantage of the opulent home he shares with his mother.
Conversely, there is little doubt that Maude is an Auschwitz survivor. She explicitly references the Dreyfuss affair, and we do see the tattoo on her arm which signifies a person used for forced labor in the camp. Outside the very narrow world of the movie, there are a lot of people for whom 1971 was a much worse year than Harold was having. If Harold could get out of his bubble, he might be better adjusted; we have no reason to believe he has any organic mental health condition.
Still, I've always identified a lot more with Harold, with his depression and isolation. With his neglectful mother who almost certainly would be shocked if you told her she was neglectful. I first saw this movie in high school—twice in my sophomore year. The second time was even in class, and I was certainly the only person in that room who had seen it before and knew a certain reveal was coming. I was also the only person who approved of it, of Harold's grasping for life at last. I don't want Irene to fully be like Maude, but I'm happy she can see the difference in the flowers, at least.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 10/19: Daisies
IT'S LADIES' WEEK!
Vera Chytilová's delightful, anarchic romp is our latest pick for Ladies' Week, and was once banned by the Czech government. Make sure to join us next week as we discuss the antics of this film and its protagonists. Daisies is available on Criterion Channel, HBO Max, Kanopy, and Watch TCM as well as for rent on iTunes.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 10/13: Dogtooth
Yorgos Lanthimos' uncomfortable film about a family that keeps their kids isolated in the house kicks off a pairing about toxic family situations. Join us Wednesday for our discussion of this film, available on Criterion Channel and Kanopy and for rent in the usual places.