The hills...

...oh, the hills.  The beautiful, beautiful hills.

Next installment of my quest to watch the AFI Top 100 (10th Anniversary Edition) in a calendar year.

I'll bet you've seen this film, too.

Film 40

40.  "The Sound Of Music" (AFI Rank #40)

Heh.  Until one types out "40" that many times, one doesn't realize that one put the number 40 ranked film in the number 40 slot on one's personal list...heh.  Anyway.

Filmed largely in Austria, with gorgeous scenery punctuating a great number of the exterior shots, "The Sound of Music" is movie musical making done the right way.  Take a really good Broadway musical, with gorgeous music...then put it on real sets, in real places.  In the case of this film, at one point I said, out loud, "Will you look at that?  I mean, come on, ANY director could get this right.  OK, you've got this beautiful music, and this scenery, go put your actors in front of it and frame it properly, and you've got a guaranteed great film."

At which point Julie said, "Les Miserables."

Fuck.  I love that woman.

Which got me thinking...what are the things that are so right about "The Sound of Music?"  I'd rather not focus on comparing it to that train wreck that Tom Hooper put on film in 2012, but I may.  Not sure where this is going to take me.

Directed by Robert Wise, and starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, and based loosely on the real story of the Von Trapp Family, this film was a staple of my youth.  Funny, I just found out that the first time it was shown on television was 1976...I swear we watched it every year...and we probably did...but it didn't come on TV until I was 8.  Of course, I'd be hard pressed to really discuss too many events before about then, anyway, but it seemed as if it was always part of my childhood.  Once a year, we'd gather, as a family, and watch this film.  It was usually a Sunday night, but I remember a couple of Thanksgivings with this (the Friday, I think) on the television.  Or was that "The Wizard of Oz?"  Bah.  Either of those films were watched whenever they were on.  Before VCRs, before DVRs, it is amazing how much of this I would retain from year to year.  And that is what I was struck with last night as I watched it.  Familiarity.  And yet, while watching this with a somewhat critical eye, I've got my tens of  readers to think about...(that's a good joke...I do, sincerely, REALLY sincerely, appreciate ANYONE reading this stream of words.  Really, I do.  Really.)...I was struck with just how great a film this is.

The opening shots, as we establish Austria, with the slight strains of the opening of the title song tugging at our ears, tell us that what we are going to be looking at for a good chunk of this film will be gorgeous.  And it is.  It's a feast for the eyes, whether loving whatever entity created the earth, or loving of the work of man in the Von Trapp estate (Villa?!), and its sumptuous craftsmanship, this film makes us envy what we are looking at in nearly every frame.  Hell, even the Mother Superior's office at the Abbey is gorgeous.  And...I defy you not to watch the wedding scene and not to want to be there.  Robert Wise nailed this.  Just nailed it.  His camera shots are incredible throughout.  Film is principally a visual medium...and well...you get it.  It's gorgeous.

Also of note, I think being mentioned for the first time in this quest, is the costuming.  Everyone looks like they should at all times, and everything, everything makes sense.  The costumes in this film are amazing.  Tell me you aren't attracted to the Captain, regardless of your sexuality, simply because of the figure he cuts in his uniform.  Tell me you don't find Maria, the nun, hot when she is watching the Captain sing in that beautiful blue dress.  Tell me that the Baroness isn't exquisitely appointed, exactly as she should be...and tell me her costumes don't establish her character.  Highlighted especially by the scene where the Baroness attempts to play ball with the obviously very resentful children, the Baroness is the epitome of chic, even when chic is not suiting her purposes.

I don't really need to talk about the music, do I?  No.  OK.  Maybe for a moment.  Who wouldn't want to sing this stuff?  OK.  I've commented on the music.  If you don't like the music...don't bother.

What else...oh yeah.  Acting.  There is a well established thought that Christopher Plummer hated being in the film, something which he has helped to perpetuate, and one that audiences think they see in his performance.  I did find one interview in which he states that he was snobbish, but didn't hate the role, but hates being recognized ONLY for that role.  Regardless, Plummer...is quite extraordinary in this film.  Only 35 at its filming, he carries himself with the gravitas of a man several years his senior.  Sure, he looks stoic and wooden a great deal of the time.  Look up material on Captain Von Trapp.  His children describe him as a terrific bore.  Maybe, just maybe, the very talented actor inhabiting this role knew that, and played it.  I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and look at the film in 2015 terms, and realize that the man was giving an ACTOR'S performance in a medium that usually didn't call for it.  He's not playing to the back row.  He's in a film, not a play...and so many other musical performances are played for the people in the theatre that the film is NOT being shot on.  I think Plummer is tremendous.

As is Julie Andrews.  There is real depth in a role that can easily be played shallow.  Ingenues play this role.  Ingenues tend not to understand all that is being said by their characters.  Andrews shows the real need, the real range of what it must be to be an outsider, to have feelings of lust, to have feelings of regret, and self-doubt.  She's wonderful.  Plus, when she needs to, she takes over the screen, no matter what is going on around her.  She's a star, the role is a star, and it's great.  Just great.

The kids.  Well.  The kids are the kids.  Liesl is really the only standout...and maybe that's as it should be.  I caught a line for the first time last night.  "Well, no one knows about Luisa" or something close to that.  Heh.  Luisa...doesn't say a fucking thing for much of the film.  Like...never.  Liesl, however, I still have a massive crush on.  She's a beautiful woman, and I found myself, as a dirty middle aged man, watching her with a great deal of "holy crap."  Wowza.  She is gorgeous.  And she acts pretty well, and dances divinely.

Speaking of the dance.  There are really only two "dance" numbers in the movie, and both are highly erotic, very well executed numbers.  In "Sixteen Going On Seventeen," we see the boundless energy of new feelings awakened in us as we fumble through our first love.  The symmetry, the communication, the awakened joy!  It's a great number, and it's punctuated by a resounding "WHEE!!!!!"  Then, of course, we have the dance between the Captain and Maria, the Ländler (I gotta learn how to do umlauts one of these days - GOD BLESS YOU INTERNET - I LEARNED BEFORE I FINISHED THIS SENTENCE).  Highly charged, it is the adult version of sexuality.  It is slow, steady, builds to a tremendous peak, then slowly diminishes.  It is just as energetic as the teens' version, but the way it goes about its business is completely different.  That the Captain and Maria are in love is obvious.  That it needs to be consummated is what we are left wanting.  And we want it.

Really, I've prattled on this time.  I did mention "Les Miserables," so I'm going to discuss that.  I thought, given the material, that "Les Miserables" had a chance to be the greatest film ever released.  And it is a mess, a terrible, terrible mess.  It forgot what was great about the show (the music), focused on the acting, while failing there as well, and spent so much of its energy making sure that we understood every word that was being sung by incessant close-up that it never treated us as adults.  That "Les Miserables" failed when it had so much going for it, while "The Sound of Music" succeeds still today, 50 years later, is an example of how, even with brilliant source material, that a truly great opportunity can be bungled by one or two really bad decisions (Russell Crowe, live singing).  It is not a crime, but a really bad thing, that our film version of "Les Miserables" is the piece of crap that was foisted upon us in 2012.  It is also a treasure that our film version of "The Sound of Music" is so great, even today.  A film that outpaces the show from which it came.  Amazing.
 
I didn't mention Nazis.  I didn't mention Max.  I didn't mention marionettes (Really?...come on).  I didn't really mention NUNS, so MANY NUNS.  Look, some things are underplayed in the film.  Perhaps there would be more focus on them today.  Perhaps not.  I've got "Cabaret" coming on the list if I really want a musical that sets up the horrors of the Nazis...

I'm not sure a gritty remake is in the offing, and I'm not sure what that would accomplish.  Austria was a bad place to be in the late 30s/early 40s.  That is fairly well established.  That this story came from that, as embellished as it is, is amazing.  Perhaps it is right to be sentimental and gooey.  Sometimes, an audience needs that.

Bah.  Watch this film again.  It's tremendous.

Wow.  Rumor has it that Roger Ebert never actually watched "The Sound of Music."  I find that hard to believe, but he has no review of it, anywhere.