The Sound Of Music (U.)
Directed by Robert Wise. 1965.
Starring Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker, Richard Haydn, Peggy Wood, Charmian Carr, Heather Menzies, Nicholas Hammond, Duane Chase, Angela Cartwright, Debbie Turner, Kym Karath. Back in cinemas in a new 70mm print or a 4K digital restoration. 165 mins
Random notes on The Sound Of Music which the nice people at Park Circus have put back in cinemas in a new 70mm print. There is also a 4K digital restoration being lined to be shown in cinemas that can't project 70mm (which is most of them.) This though is the original copy, without any touching up, a chance to see it just as it was in 1965.
- At the start, the camera descends from the clouds to find Julie Andrews' Maria bounding around on the glorious mountain tops of the Austrian Alps, jazz handing all creation in the most prim and proper way. The shot ties her to the landscape, asserting her primal attachment to these hills that have been alive with songs for a thousand years; it's the opposite of Hitler at the start of Triumph Of The Will. While Hitler descended from the heavens to his homeland, flying into Nurembourg for a lads get together, Maria rises up from it. The two figures though are linked in two ways: neither of them is someone you can imagine having sex and these days you just can't understand what people ever saw in them.
- This was, I'm pretty sure, the first time I've seen it. Of course, The Sound Of Music is one of those films that is now impossible to see for the first time because it's already known to you. It's been there all your life. And because of that nobody seems to address what an absurd, peculiar enterprise it is. The spectacular scenery in contrast with the tiny little characters and their bedtime story narrative. Those twee songs. This dream version of Austria where everybody speaks with cut-glass English accents. The irrationality of showing the evils of Nazism from the point of view of the poor downtrodden Austrians struggling under the tyranny of the Anschluss.
- Initially, I thought there would be no way I was making it beyond the intermission: way too many nuns and way too much Julie Andrews. I was in a kind of hysteria, aghast and overwhelmed by the hideousness of it all. But by an hour I was, god help me, much calmer, almost attuned to it, even quite enjoying it.
- The straight man's way into The Sound of Music is through Christopher Plummer. He is remarkably good as Captain Von Trapp. Along with Richard Haydn as Max he is the only one who looks like he is acting in a film rather than a stage production. He reportedly hated the experience of making the film but he is the one that gives it some moral force. If he can get through it so can you, damn it.
- Screenwriting great Ernest Lehman adapted the book for the screen but it still has lots of contrived and instant plot resolutions. For example, Plummer goes from strict disciplinarian to doting loving father in a moment.
- Adjusted for inflation, The Sound of Music is reckoned to be the third most successful film of all time (certainly in the US, probably there or thereabouts around the world) behind Gone With The Wind and Star Wars. The Sound of Music is incredibly dated, but probably not much more so than in 1965 when it came out. I think you could show it to audiences at any point in history and once they got over the miracle of moving pictures on a big screen, I think they'd conclude that it was pretty basic stuff. Why it is so popular and effective is a mystery to me, though I might hazard that it could have something to do with how Maria is such a conformist free spirit. She breaks every chain of authority that is presented to her but does so accidentally and apologetically. Their father is a regimented disciplinarian, making his household respond to his whistled commands. Her rebellion is to turn this unit into a well-drilled music group – an alpine equivalent of a K-pop group. Even the other nuns are less uptight than her.
Directed by Robert Wise. 1965.
Starring Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker, Richard Haydn, Peggy Wood, Charmian Carr, Heather Menzies, Nicholas Hammond, Duane Chase, Angela Cartwright, Debbie Turner, Kym Karath. Back in cinemas in a new 70mm print or a 4K digital restoration. 165 mins
Random notes on The Sound Of Music which the nice people at Park Circus have put back in cinemas in a new 70mm print. There is also a 4K digital restoration being lined to be shown in cinemas that can't project 70mm (which is most of them.) This though is the original copy, without any touching up, a chance to see it just as it was in 1965.
- At the start, the camera descends from the clouds to find Julie Andrews' Maria bounding around on the glorious mountain tops of the Austrian Alps, jazz handing all creation in the most prim and proper way. The shot ties her to the landscape, asserting her primal attachment to these hills that have been alive with songs for a thousand years; it's the opposite of Hitler at the start of Triumph Of The Will. While Hitler descended from the heavens to his homeland, flying into Nurembourg for a lads get together, Maria rises up from it. The two figures though are linked in two ways: neither of them is someone you can imagine having sex and these days you just can't understand what people ever saw in them.
- This was, I'm pretty sure, the first time I've seen it. Of course, The Sound Of Music is one of those films that is now impossible to see for the first time because it's already known to you. It's been there all your life. And because of that nobody seems to address what an absurd, peculiar enterprise it is. The spectacular scenery in contrast with the tiny little characters and their bedtime story narrative. Those twee songs. This dream version of Austria where everybody speaks with cut-glass English accents. The irrationality of showing the evils of Nazism from the point of view of the poor downtrodden Austrians struggling under the tyranny of the Anschluss.
- Initially, I thought there would be no way I was making it beyond the intermission: way too many nuns and way too much Julie Andrews. I was in a kind of hysteria, aghast and overwhelmed by the hideousness of it all. But by an hour I was, god help me, much calmer, almost attuned to it, even quite enjoying it.
- The straight man's way into The Sound of Music is through Christopher Plummer. He is remarkably good as Captain Von Trapp. Along with Richard Haydn as Max he is the only one who looks like he is acting in a film rather than a stage production. He reportedly hated the experience of making the film but he is the one that gives it some moral force. If he can get through it so can you, damn it.
- Screenwriting great Ernest Lehman adapted the book for the screen but it still has lots of contrived and instant plot resolutions. For example, Plummer goes from strict disciplinarian to doting loving father in a moment.
- Adjusted for inflation, The Sound of Music is reckoned to be the third most successful film of all time (certainly in the US, probably there or thereabouts around the world) behind Gone With The Wind and Star Wars. The Sound of Music is incredibly dated, but probably not much more so than in 1965 when it came out. I think you could show it to audiences at any point in history and once they got over the miracle of moving pictures on a big screen, I think they'd conclude that it was pretty basic stuff. Why it is so popular and effective is a mystery to me, though I might hazard that it could have something to do with how Maria is such a conformist free spirit. She breaks every chain of authority that is presented to her but does so accidentally and apologetically. Their father is a regimented disciplinarian, making his household respond to his whistled commands. Her rebellion is to turn this unit into a well-drilled music group – an alpine equivalent of a K-pop group. Even the other nuns are less uptight than her.
