One of the few good things about being alone is being in
total control of the movies playing in the background of my boring misery. As
misery gets to the boring point, it starts falling into a routine, which means I
am finally emerging from my self-imposed shell after Michael… and it’s time to
re-boot my personality by watching the comfort food of movies!
From the first
footstep echoing to set the stage, my pulse begins to steady from even the
worst panic attack. If I catch my moods right, I can take myself from abject
despair to catharsis and peace in the space of 1 hour and 31 minutes. Harold
and Maude is a love story that was born from throwing the traditional love
story on its head and filling in the gaps with cultural taboos. Maude is my
heroine, and I can only hope that wisdom of this kind can truly come with age,
because it certainly wasn’t inborn in me.
The soundtrack
by Cat Stevens was incredibly difficult to find when I was younger, and my
brother recorded all the songs directly from the television- in an age when the
only technology we had to do so was placing the cassette recorder in
front of the speakers and pausing between the songs as the movie played.
Bud Cort wrote his character in stone- a classic and unbelievable
portrayal of lost and confused teenager who doesn’t fit in his own life,
*Spoiler*
Harold doesn’t exist in his world because his self, or soul,
or mind- that thing that exists whether or not we tell anyone about it- is
completely unexpressed, and leads into serious mind-body dualism. In
the observable, material world, he is only an extension of his mother, and,
judging by her reaction to his suicides, one that is expendable. Is he
practicing for the real thing, testing his boundaries of existence, or looking
for attention? I have felt this separation from the culture around me- to such
a degree that I have been convinced of my own alien nature in a more concrete
kind of way- and can empathize deeply with the character.
They try to fix him with psychotherapy, they try to
deprogram him by putting him in the armed forces, and decide that what he needs
is a wife: You’ve had too much to think, now you need a wife, right? We each
need a muse to lead us and connect to. Maude appears as a splash of color in
the darkness, the positivity and perspective that makes even misery joyful and
celebratory. She is a logical impossibility now, even more so than she was in
1971.
His life is painted in darkness- the wood paneling of the
manse and the black clothing of his chosen community- those who mourn. Someone
fascinated with death and misery- especially one so young, needs to truly
experience pain in order to appreciate the value of life- how cliché, when you think
about it, but somehow every story can sound cliché when you boil it down to its
archetypical
definition. Ask Joseph
Campbell…
Memorable Quotes: (all Maude)
“It’s incidental, not integral, if you know what I mean”
“How the world still dearly loves a cage”
“Consistency is not really a human trait”
“I don’t regret the kingdoms… but I miss
the kings”
“You gotta live…otherwise there’s nothing to talk about in
the locker room”
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