Harold and Maude

Infobox Film
name = Harold and Maude


caption =
director = Hal Ashby
writer = Colin Higgins
starring = Ruth Gordon
Bud Cort
Vivian Pickles
Eric Christmas
Cyril Cusack
Ellen Geer
G. Wood
producer = Colin Higgins
Charles B. Mulvehill
director = Hal Ashby
movie_music = Cat Stevens
editing = William A. Sawyer
Edward Warschilka
distributor = Paramount Pictures
released = December 20, 1971 (U.S.)
runtime = 91 min.
country = USA
language = English
imdb_id = 0067185
music = Cat Stevens
awards =
budget = $1,200,000 (estimated)

"Harold and Maude" is a cult classic movie directed by Hal Ashby in 1971. The film, featuring slapstick, dark humour, and existentialist drama, revolves around the exploits of a morbid young man – Harold – who drifts away from the life that his detached mother prescribes for him, as he develops a relationship with septuagenarian Maude.

The film is number 45 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Funniest Movies of all time, [ [http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/laughs.aspx AFI's 100 YEARS...100 LAUGHS ] ] and number 42 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies". In 1997, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress [http://www.loc.gov/film/titles.html National Film Registry list of films, 1989-2006] as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The film was a commercial failure when it was released, and the critical reception was extremely mixed. It now has a large cult following.Peary, Danny. "Cult Movies", Delta Books, 1981. ISBN 0-517-20185-2]

The screenplay upon which the film was based was written by Colin Higgins, and published as a novel in 1971. The movie was shot in the San Francisco Bay Area. "Harold and Maude" was also a play on Broadway for some time. The last time was on 2005, with Eric Millegan as Harold and the oscar winner Estelle Parsons as Maude

The movie has given rise to two new words: "Harolding" (hanging around cemeteries), described by Douglas Coupland in "Harolding in West Vancouver" (1996); and "Maudism" or "Maudianism", the philosophy of living each day to the fullest. [ [http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/madhayes/maude.html HAROLD & MAUDE/Maudianism ] ] This may also have a link to the phonetically-similar philosophy of Mod-ism.

Almost the entire soundtrack for the movie is by Cat Stevens.

Plot synopsis

The film begins by introducing us to Harold (Bud Cort), an alienated young man from a wealthy family, who lives in a large mansion with his mother (Vivian Pickles). Harold, it is soon revealed, stages realistic mock suicides in order to shock his mother. However, this has evidently been going on for so long that his mother no longer takes any notice, other than when Harold causes a particular mess with his fake blood. Harold is a rather unusual young man. For amusement, he attends funerals of people he doesn't know. At these, he repeatedly sees Maude (Ruth Gordon), an elderly woman who also likes funerals, and who has a habit of stealing cars whenever it pleases her. Maude befriends Harold a week before her eightieth birthday, and the two form an unlikely friendship. Maude is very much Harold's opposite: a senior citizen, energetic, impulsive, and light-hearted. In her company, Harold begins to come out of his shell. During their time together, Maude recounts the events of her unlikely life, and Harold tells her about the incident that triggered his repeated staging of fake suicides. We learn that Harold was once believed to have been killed in an explosion at school. After seeing his mother's reaction upon hearing the news, he decided then and there that he enjoyed being dead. Maude consoles him – "A lot of people enjoy being dead" – but tells him that life should be lived to the fullest.

Harold learns to play the banjo at her behest, and he helps Maude to "liberate" a tree suffering from smog suffocation in the city. They uproot the tree with the intention of replanting it in a forest, which they manage to do despite the intervention of an "officious" motorcycle cop (Tom Skeritt, performing under a pseudonym). When Harold returns home, his mother insists that it is about time he got married. Using a dating service, she arranges for him to have three successive dates, all of which end disastrously, as Harold creatively fakes his death for each girl in turn. (The last girl, an "actress", recognizes that the "suicide" is fake, but because she proceeds to act out the death of Juliet from "Romeo and Juliet", Harold's mother is led to believe that Harold has killed her.)

Harold and Maude soon become very close, until, one evening, he gives her a token inscribed with the words "Harold loves Maude". The two later sleep together. The next day, he tells his mother that he plans to marry Maude, whereupon she sets about doing all she can to dissuade him. She sends him to a priest, and then to Uncle Victor, a proud military man who has lost an arm in battle, and who is expected to convince Harold to join the armed forces. Earlier in the film, Harold and Maude had cooked up and implemented a plan to demonstrate that Harold is not suitable for life in the armed forces. They stage a scene in which Harold's excessive enthusiasm for killing his fellow-man appears to lead to Maude's untimely death, and thus Harold's potential military career is abruptly curtailed.

On Maude's eightieth birthday, Harold intends to follow through with his plan and pop the question, but the celebration is halted when he learns that Maude has deliberately swallowed a fatal dose of unidentified tablets. "I'll be gone by midnight," she says. He rushes her to the hospital, but the doctors are unable to save her. Harold is grief-stricken and drives his car recklessly down a road towards a cliff overlooking a beach. The car falls from the high cliff, crashing upside down on the sand below, giving the impression that Harold has been killed. It is soon revealed, though, that it is only another pretend suicide, and Harold is still alive on the cliff overhead. As he walks away, he takes out Maude's banjo and begins to play, seemingly cheerfully, as he walks and skips his way into the distance.

Themes

Hal Ashby, the director of the film, was part of the San Francisco youth culture, and in this film he contrasts the doomed outlook of the alienated youth of the time with the hard-won optimism of those who endured the horrors of the early 20th century, contrasting nihilism with purpose. Maude's past is revealed in a glimpse of the concentration camp ID number tattooed on her arm.

Harold is part of a society in which he has no personal importance; and existentially, therefore, he is without meaning. Maude, however, has survived and lives a life rich with meaning. It is in this existential crisis, shown against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, so that we see the difference of how one culture, personified by Harold, is handling one meaningless war, while another has experienced and lived beyond another war that produced a crisis of meaning, the Holocaust.

Honours

"Harold and Maude" is #45 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Year... 100 Laughs, the list of the top 100 films in American comedy. The list was released in 2000.

In June 2008, AFI revealed its "Ten Top Ten" – the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres – after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. "Harold and Maude" was acknowledged as the ninth best film in the romantic comedy genre. [cite news | author = American Film Institute | title = AFI Crowns Top 10 Films in 10 Classic Genres | work = ComingSoon.net | date = 2008-06-17 | url = http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=46072 | accessdate= 2008-06-18] [cite web | title= Top 10 Romantic Comedies | url = http://www.afi.com/10top10/romanticcomedy.html | publisher= American Film Institute |accessdate= 2008-06-18]

Cast

* Marjorie Chardin (Maude): Ruth Gordon
* Harold Chasen: Bud Cort
* Mrs. Chasen: Vivian Pickles
* Glaucus: Cyril Cusack
* Uncle Victor: Charles Tyner
* Sunshine Doré: Ellen Geer
* Priest: Eric Christmas
* Psychiatrist: G. Wood
* Candy Gulf: Judy Engles
* Edith Phern: Shari Summers
* Motorcycle Officer: Tom Skerritt (as M. Borman)
* Director Hal Ashby and songwriter Cat Stevens have cameos as a bearded man watching the model train and a mourner at a funeral, respectively.

Crew

* Cinematography by: John Alonzo

Music

The soundtrack is by Cat Stevens (now Yusuf Islam), and includes two songs, "Don't Be Shy" and "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out", that he composed specifically for the movie, and which were unavailable on vinyl for over a decade; they were eventually released in 1984 on the compilation "". A vinyl LP soundtrack was released in Japan, although without the two songs Cat Stevens wrote for the film, and including five songs not actually in the film ("Morning Has Broken," "Wild World," "Father & Son," "Lilywhite" and "Lady D'Arbanville"). The first official soundtrack to the film was released in December 2007, by Vinyl Films Records, as a vinyl-only limited edition release of 2500 copies. It contained a 30-page oral history of the making of the film, the most extensive series of interviews yet conducted on "Harold and Maude."

Track listing

This is the track listing for the first official release of the soundtrack to "Harold and Maude".

Side A:
# "Don't Be Shy"
# "On The Road To Find Out"
# "I Wish, I Wish"
# "Miles From Nowhere"
# "Tea for the Tillerman"
# "I Think I See The Light"

Side B:
# "Where Do The Children Play?"
# "If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out"
# "If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out (banjo version)" – previously unreleased
# "Trouble"
# "Don't Be Shy (alternate version)" – previously unreleased
# "If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out (instrumental version)" – previously unreleased

Bonus 7" single:A: "Don't Be Shy (demo version)" – previously unreleasedB: "If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out (alternative version)" – previously unreleased

Trivia

* A French adaptation for television, translated and written by Jean-Claude Carrière, appeared in 1978. It was adapted for the stage and performed in Québec, starring Roy Dupuis.
* In all shots of Ruth Gordon (Maude) driving the hearse, it is being towed, because Gordon never learned how to drive a car.
* Among the cult followers of "Harold and Maude" are Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly, who pay extensive tribute to the film in "There's Something About Mary". In the movie, the character of Mary thinks that "Harold and Maude" is "the greatest love story of our time".
* Wes Anderson has stated that the film was a large influence on his own style of films, most notably Rushmore.
* "Harold and Maude" played for a total of 1,957 showings from mid-1972 until June 1974 at the Westgate Theater in Edina, Minnesota. Ruth Gordon appeared for the first anniversary celebration, and both Gordon and Cort showed up for the second anniversary. [http://cinematreasures.org/theater/10082/]
* Actors originally considered for the role of Harold Chasen: John Rubinstein, Bob Balaban, Danny Fortas, Todd Sussman, Elton John, and John Neilson.
* Actresses originally considered for the role of Maude: Dame Edith Evans, Dame Cicely Courtneidge, Gladys Cooper, and Cathleen Nesbitt.
* Charles B. Mulvehill (producer of "Harold and Maude") and Shari Summers (Role of Edith Fern) married in director Hal Ashby's, immediately after the completion of "Harold and Maude".
* The Relient K song "Faking My Own Suicide" on the album Five Score and Seven Years Ago was inspired by "Harold and Maude". The song is about the narrator fantasizing about faking a suicide attempt to gain the attention - and affection - of his dream girl.
* "Harold and Maude" was originally intended to be 3 hours long.
* In the film "Y Tu Mama Tambien", a "Harold and Maude" poster appears in the opening scene.
* Bud Cort would occasionally improvise his lines much to the bewilderment of Ruth Gordon who was notorious for adhering strictly to the screenplay at all times.

References

* The official "Harold and Maude" soundtrack

External links

*
* French tv adaptation written by Jean-Claude Carrière and dir. by Jean-Paul Carrère
* [http://www.filminamerica.com/Movies/HaroldAndMaude/ Guide to shoot locations]