During a walk through a field of daisies, Maude turns to Harold and says: "I should like to change into a sunflower most of all. They're so tall and simple. What flower would you like to be? Look, see. Some are smaller, some are fatter. Some grow to the left, some to the right. Some even have lost some petals. All kinds of observable differences. The camera pans out into an extreme long-shot, as it's revealed that the field of daisies Harold and Maude are standing in is a graveyard — the gravestones identical as daisies from the perspective.
Where other directors may have used a close-up shot to convey feeling, Ashby does the opposite, as he attempts to orient his viewer into an ecological point of view. Flowers growing out of gravestones. Stevens' soundtrack both seems to further embolden Maude's perspective and the lessons she hands down to Harold, while ameliorating the taboo relationship between old and young.
Just as the strings swell when Rick and Isla kiss in Casablanca, so Stevens gives the same majestic treatment to Harold and Maude — but swapping violin strings for acoustic nylon guitar strings.
Harold doesn't even make pallbearer. A consensus on the site read, "Hal Ashby's comedy is too dark and twisted for some, and occasionally oversteps its bounds, but there's no denying the film's warm humor and big heart. This poll has been going since and has become the most recognised poll of its kind in the world.
Frisch commented: "An encouragement to think beyond the obvious! Mulvehill, and a booklet which includes a new film essay by film and television critic Matt Zoller Seitz. Exclusive to the Blu-ray edition are a new digital restoration of the film with uncompressed monaural soundtrack and an optional remastered uncompressed stereo soundtrack.
Other exclusives are a New York Times profile of actress Ruth Gordon from , an interview from with actor Bud Cort and cinematographer John Alonzo, and an interview from with executive producer Mildred Lewis.
The list was released in In June , AFI revealed its "Ten Top Ten"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1, people from the creative community. Harold and Maude was acknowledged as the ninth best film in the romantic comedy genre. AFI's Years Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room..
The music in Harold and Maude was composed and performed by Cat Stevens. He had been suggested by Elton John to do the music after John had dropped out of the project.
Those albums had been released before the film. There is some additional non-Cat Stevens music in the film. During the scene where Harold is floating face-down in the swimming pool, the opening bars of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.
A marching band is also heard playing a John Philip Sousa march outside the church following a funeral. It omitted the two original songs and all instrumental and alternate versions of songs and was generally composed of re-released material that was in the film, along with five songs that were not in the film. Side two 1. The second soundtrack was released in December , by Vinyl Films Records, as a vinyl-only limited-edition release of 2, copies. It contained a page oral history of the making of the film, the most extensive series of interviews yet conducted on Harold and Maude.
Bonus 7" single 1. Colin Higgins later adapted the story into a stage play. Higgins expressed interest in about both a sequel and prequel to Harold and Maude. Higgins also imagined a prequel showing Maude's life before Harold, Grover and Maude had Maude learning how to steal cars from Grover Muldoon, the character portrayed by Richard Pryor in Higgins' film Silver Streak. Higgins wanted Gordon and Pryor to reprise their roles. Y] 08 Aug C Cult Movies. Delta Books. ISBN Library of Congress.
Retrieved Harold, of course, is distraught and angry at her. I love you! Now go and love some more. In this act Harold uses creative expression to work through his pain because through humor, as Maude taught Harold, is where we discover the true joys of life, our strength, and our resiliency.
Harold and Maude is a Holocaust humor film that transcends the genre. There was a lot they could learn from those who had been through hell and decided to not let it overtake them.
But to future viewers, the film represents the translation of Holocaust humor into a modern context, showing how Holocaust humor is not always explicitly about the Holocaust. Now 81 years after the Holocaust, Holocaust humor can seem like a lost art. Through all of the lessons we watch Maude teach Harold, we see how Holocaust humor moves through generations. It may no longer look like overt jokes about Hitler like in The Great Dictator, but it takes pain and spins it on its head; it takes trauma and uses comedy to cope.
The core of Holocaust comedies has been translated into modern issues and provided grievers with the same kind of coping mechanisms. The humor in Harold and Maude is never discussed in relation to its Jewishness despite having a Jewish director and a Jewish star. This movie was a welcome departure, but it was also risky.
Gallows humor can be tricky because it toes the line of offensive and radical. Harold and Maude shows how the goal of Holocaust humor, and all humor that laughs us through the tears, is one of the most rebellious acts of defiance there is.
The beauty of watching a movie like Harold and Maude is experiencing first-hand the transformative and revolutionary nature of comedy. Humor has a long history of power.
Share Share. Minnah Stein. Previous Post. Next article. You may also like. Comments are closed. More in Features. Death, Love and Life. The self-destructive and needy wealthy teenager Harold Bud Cort is obsessed by death and spends his leisure time attending funerals, watching demolishing of buildings, visiting junkyards, simulating suicides trying to get attention of his indifferent, snobbish and egocentric mother and having sessions with his psychologist.
When Harold meets the anarchist seventy nine year-old Maude Ruth Gordon at a funeral, they become friends and the old lady discloses others perspectives of the cycle of life for him. Meanwhile his mother enlists him in a dating service and tries to force Harold to join the army.
On the day of the eightieth anniversary of Maude, Harold proposes her but he finds the truth about the end of the cycle of life. The cult "Harold and Maude" was a huge success in Brazil for people of my generation with a refreshing and funny exposition of themes like death, love and life through the friendship and love of a teenager and a septuagenarian woman.
The complex Harold is a young man that needs the attention of his indifferent mother. He found in his childhood the only moment that she really seemed to be worried about him after a serious accident in school and he uses to fake suicides trying to have the same attention back.
Maude is an anarchist old woman not attached to material stuff like properties or collections that steals cars for self-locomotion. Along a few days, Maude gives a lesson of life to Harold, changing his behavior and feelings forever.
The performances of Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort in this weird love story are unforgettable and the soundtrack with Cat Steven's songs is another plus. My vote is eight. FAQ 7. Is "Harold and Maude" based on a book? How old are Harold and Maude supposed to be?
Why was Harold continually trying to commit suicide? Details Edit. Release date December 20, United States. United States. Harold und Maude. Mildred Lewis and Colin Higgins Productions. Box office Edit.
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