Harold and Maude marks the first time I realized that famed Pulitzer Prize-winning movie critic Roger Ebert could be wrong.
I had generally agreed with Ebert on his analysis of various films after watching Siskel and Ebert's PBS show, At the Movies, so I picked up a copy of one of his yearly volumes of reviews and read many of them. I was going along fine, in agreement (or at least understanding where Ebert was coming from), until I reached his Harold and Maude review.
I was stunned! I have total respect for Roger Ebert and credit him with helping to give me a more critical visual eye, yet Ebert absolutely hated Hal Ashby's quirky little film.
How could this be? I thought I had developed decent film taste. I loved many of the foreign films most Americans refused to go to because they didn't want to read subtitles, and I loved many art-house films that didn't follow the Hollywood formula and have that happily-ever-after ending. I also loved Harold and Maude.
And here was my favorite movie critic totally panning the movie. What was "wrong" with me?
Before you answer that, I finally realized that this film simply didn't work for Roger Ebert. He obviously didn't relate to it. I don't know all the details of his childhood and teenage years, but perhaps he grew up generally happy, had supportive parents, and led a well-adjusted social life in high school. If this describes your youth, you may think Harold and Maude is one of the most pointless movies you've ever seen (like Ebert).
On the other hand, if you suffered as a virtual "alien" during your teenage years, you may relate to Harold and Maude as much as I did and still do.
It often turns out that movie reviews reveal more about the reviewer than they do about the actual film. I am convinced that this is especially true with Harold and Maude, so my positive feelings about it will tell you a lot about the "thought dreams" that have churned inside my head for years. Reminiscent of The Graduate and Rushmore, we have a young protagonist who is a bit different from most people around him, and he is searching for his place in life.
It begins with one of the weirdest opening sequences ever. Harold (Bud Cort) somberly walks down the stairs, lights some candles, and hangs himself. ...
Before you get ticked off that I've already revealed too much of the plot, remember this is just the first minute, and we've got an hour and a half to go.
Though black comedy, Harold and Maude is not trying to outdo Psycho by removing its protagonist during the opening credits! If you feel that I have deprived you of any big surprise, consider that Harold is either:
1) faking this suicide
2) dreaming
3) committing suicide, but we'll see a series of flashbacks
4) And who is that woman in Greenlawn Cemetery?
An extremely melancholy 20-year-old, Harold enjoys staging suicides for his mother's "benefit," and enjoys funerals.
He begins to notice a 79-year-old lady who attends the same funerals. She is different. While everyone else wears black and acts somber, Maude (Ruth Gordon) wears light colors, carries a yellow umbrella, and takes off with other people's cars after the service. While Harold seems obsessed with death, Maude is fascinated by the great circle of life.
They are, of course, destined for each other, on a literal level and an emotional and spiritual level, with Maude primarily acting as Harold's mentor.
Harold likes watching buildings getting torn down; Maude loves to watch plants grow in the greenhouse. Harold is shy and isolated; Maude gets along famously with people, since "they are [her] species."
Harold also feels imprisoned by his overbearing mother; in contrast, Maude acts wild and crazy and continually demonstrates freedom. "How the world still dearly loves a cage," she remarks to Harold as she tells him about how she used to go to pet stores to liberate the canaries—an idea before its time. Now she has taken on the task of liberating Harold from the self-imposed prison and loveless life he has endured since he was born.
Essentially, Harold has given up on life, showing no passion for anything; he's just waiting to die. In fact, Harold seems obsessed with dying, telling his ineffectual psychiatrist that he has performed approximately 15 suicides.
We get to see some excellent ones, my favorite being the one when he lights himself on fire for his first computer date, arranged by his mother. As the computer date screams and races out of the house, Harold lets us in on the joke, giving the audience a "knowing" look and then snapping into sobriety when his mother notices. Those of us who have been in Harold's shoes know exactly what that means, and he connects with us there.
Though many of the fake suicides are priceless, and other scenes with Maude playing games with policemen are hilarious, my favorite scenes are the poignant ones.
The one that gets to me every time, and still causes the tear ducts to water, is a scene in which Maude asks Harold what kind of flower he'd like to be—after she has told him that sunflowers are her favorite.
Harold lifelessly remarks that it would probably be a daisy, like those in the vast field before them, because they all look alike. Maude destroys his paradigm, remarking how each daisy is an individual with different shapes and observable differences.
She then makes this profound statement:
"You see, Harold, I feel that much of the world's sorrow comes from people who are this, yet allow themselves to be treated as that."
That scene is a highlight, and it occurs about halfway through. I sense there are certain scenes that will resonate with others who have felt like Harold.
Though Harold may not be as verbally eloquent as Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caulfield, and Harold and Maude is not as artistically constructed as The Graduate, it still works well overall (despite some songs by Cat Stevens that seem intrusive occasionally). Simon and Garfunkel's songs weave into the plot and the themes of The Graduate seamlessly, but Stevens' songs sound like they are forcibly pasted onto the soundtrack.
The only song here of Stevens' that really seems to fit the situation is "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out," one of the few songs Stevens wrote specifically for Harold and Maude. The music background is a minor quibble though, and I've seen it enough times now that the songs don't interfere with the story and its themes.
Some will feel that Harold and Maude's lessons are too blatant, and that the '60s hippie mentality is preached too much here.
After all, Maude is focused on helping Harold find himself, and she fights for appropriately liberal causes. She is still actively fighting for issues in her own personal way—the big issues of "Liberty. Rights. Justice." Though she has stopped attending protest marches, she continues to question authority, and drives policemen crazy.
I readily admit that Harold and Maude is flawed artistically because of its preachiness, but I still enjoy the film for what it is: a period comedy for the alienated that gives them/us hope.
When I was teaching English, I would show Harold and Maude during some years when I had a student or two whose spirit reminded me of Harold, or of myself at that age.
The last several years, I could pick out a handful of students who were likely candidates to become Harold and Maude fans. They would be tuning in to heavy metal, alternative music (the kind before pop music usurped it), or punk, and they wouldn't be members of any of the sports teams. Most likely, they weren't going to the prom either. But they all had that knowing look that Harold has in the scene after he chases his first computer date away with a fake self-destruction by fire—and when I promoted Harold and Maude, they understood that I knew their angst as well.
The weirdness and dark comedy fell flat in places with many of the students, but each year I had students who absolutely loved it. Invariably, they would ask to borrow it; now I know that Harold and Maude still holds up.
On the other hand, most people who like music by The Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and Ricky Martin, and love Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks movies, may not relate.
I'm still a little perplexed that Roger Ebert hated it so, but it's a cult movie that doesn't work for everyone. I just know that it works for me.
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