SAVAGE CINEMA DEBUTS: "HAROLD AND MAUDE" (1971)

"HAROLD AND MAUDE" (1971)
Screenplay Written by Colin Higgins
Directed by Hal Ashby
**** (four stars)

I am most certain that it may be extremely difficult for any of you to believe that I have not seen this film before now. Yes, dear readers, it is true. Director Hal Ashby’s “Harold and Maude,” legendary cult classic and deeply influential work is just one of those films of which I obviously had knowledge of even without knowing any of its specifics. “Harold and Maude” was just one of those seminal works that never really ever crossed my path and my impetus to become acquainted with it was never terribly strong.

The first time I had ever heard of the film was during my own teen years, 1985 to be exact, as I was building a growing affection for the subversively oddball and almost surreal John Cusack comedy “Better Off Dead” from Writer/Director Savage Steve Holland. As I am certain all of you remember, “Better Off Dead” centered around lovestruck Lane Meyer (Cusack) and his romantic downfall when the girl of his dreams (Amanda Wyss) dumps him for another, albeit arrogant rich boy, who is also Captain of the high school ski team. In addition to dealing with his bizarre family and the even more bizarre family across the street, Lane is confronted with the vengefully persistent newspaper boy, two Howard Cosell imitating Asian drag racing brothers and is own depleting self-esteem and heartache. Devastated, Lane periodically indulges in a series of ridiculous suicide attempts until he begins to regain his footing and re-build his self-confidence after catching the eye of the cute French exchange student (Diane Franklin) across the street.

To paraphrase the great Roger Ebert, I truly hated, hated, hated that movie on my first viewing. But high school being high school, I found myself in situations where I had seen “Better Off Dead” over and over again and then subsequently renting it for myself over and over again, as it off kilter rhythms and teeter-totter humor finally sunk in. As talk of that comedy blazed through the high school hallways, one close friend suggested to me that I should see “Harold and Maude” as it also featured the darkly comic misadventures of a young man engaging in ridiculous suicide attempts. While I did take the suggestion to heart, I never found myself searching for it in the local video store.

Campus screenings during my college years came and went and even into adulthood, with a wider knowledge of cinema at my disposal, “Harold and Maude” never seemed to race to the forefront of my mind. And yet, I feel for movies in the same way I feel for music or literature. The art in question will choose you and find you when the time is right. As I walked into my local video store to obtain a new release almost two weeks ago, “Harold and Maude,” for an inexplicable reason, popped into my consciousness and I rented that as well.

The time was right and now I understand.

Simultaneously filled with grim comedy, surreal touches combined with a pastoral sensibility and fragile spirit of love and heartbreak, Hal Ashby’s “Harold and Maude” stars Bud Cort as Harold Chasen, a wealthy, sheltered young man in his 20’s who has an unusual obsession with death and dying. Typically dressed in dark colored suits, Harold skulks around graveyards, drives a hearse and regularly attends the funerals of strangers. At his most defiant, Harold rebels against the vacuous, so-called “respectable” life his wearily detached socialite Mother (played sharply by Vivian Pickles) continuously attempts to arrange for him by staging a series of elaborately gruesome and hysterical suicide attempts.

Enter 79 year old Dame Marjorie Chardin, otherwise known as “Maude” (Ruth Gordon), whom Harold meets at a funeral. Maude is the eternal free spirit, the uninhibited life force with a seemingly childlike sense of wonder that contrasts profoundly with Harold morbid worldview yet also intrigues him greatly. Maude habitually steals cars, poses nude for an artist friend, gleefully collects all manner of bric-a-brac and has an engagement with life that ultimately draws Harold out of his self-imposed shell. The twosome re-plant a stolen tree, Maude gives Harold a banjo, they outsmart a motorcycle cop (Tom Skerritt), share songs, stories and dark secrets all the while creating a highly unorthodox bond, as Harold and Maude fall in love.

As Maude approaches her 80th birthday, she and Harold are forced to confront not only their feelings for each other but their feelings regarding life itself and the realities of death, suicide, love and the choices we all make in deciding how we live our lives.

At first glance, “Harold and Maude” is the obvious precursor to modern day independent feature films. In fact, it closely mirrors, ever so precisely, the very sort of current independent films that typically make me shudder. The type with the self-consciously quirky (read: “colorful”) characters that never feel as if they could possibly exist in any world anywhere. “Harold and Maude” admittedly is a strange, peculiar little film. I do have to admit that while there were several moments that felt stylistically odd to me (for instance, how Harold wears the exact same clothing as his psychotherapist) or even a few moments that felt a tad flat, by the film’s mid-point, I had succumbed to its tonality, form, structure and of course, its characters.

Hal Ashby has created a tale that unfolds with a jagged rhythm, set to the soulfully soothing music of Cat Stevens. The film flies from absurdist comedy to sections of deep melancholic existentialism without warning yet, he keeps all of the elements in place by presenting the motivations and emotional states of his titular characters firmly in the foreground. “Harold and Maude” works as so much more than an oddball “May-December” romance or even as an exercise in insufferable self-indulgent quirkiness. Thankfully, the character quirks do not exist solely for themselves. By making the characters of Harold and Maude emotionally true through his unforced cinematic hands, Ashby injects just enough honest pathos, which cements these two oddities into actual human beings we can understand and empathize with. Those moments are the passageway into the film’s deeper emotional waters, which enhances the comedy and makes the drama so touchingly painful. As the film ambled along its way, I found myself truly absorbed by and concerned about the fates and overall happiness of Harold and Maude. By the film’s conclusion, I was surprised by how big of a punch the film packed.

Although “Harold and Maude” definitely speaks to the counter-culture movement of the early 1970s (depicted greatly by the character of Harold's Uncle, a one armed military war veteran), Hal Ashby’s film transcends its period and becomes a timeless work of art. Ashby plays with and juxtaposes the film’s variety of themes fiendishly and in its crafty way, he forces you to make your own conclusions rather than beating you over the head with his personal worldview. “Harold and Maude” is a life affirming film that just happens to hold suicide as a major theme. Additionally, I found myself wondering if this film is a love story between two insane people who have somehow found each other or is it an honest portrayal that explores the mysteries of the soul and how one individual is able to find and positively influence another?

Harold Chasen’s existential pain of nothingness and meaninglessness is presented as very real even though we experience much of it through his offbeat suicide attempts and ploys of insanity designed to ward off influences he has no desire to engage. Bud Cort’s performance as Harold is simultaneously sympathetic and more than a little creepy. His physical resemblance suggests a younger Andrew McCarthy yet with the pallor of a wax museum mannequin. Harold says little throughout the film and when he does speak, it is a hair above a mumble. And after one of his sadistic pranks has sabotaged yet another of his Mother’s sad attempts to normalize him, there is a moment when he stares into the camera like a Stanley Kubrick character and the moment is a bit chilling. Yet, in one short confessional monologue to Maude, as we understand exactly the source of his sadness, we are also allowed to ponder if he is simply self-indulgent and misguided. A possibility that becomes clearer once his relationship with Maude reaches its climax.

Ruth Gordon’s Maude could be seen as nothing more than a fanciful elderly pixie yet she skillfully toys with any pre-conceived perceptions by embodying some extremely real touches that exist within the life of the character and upon the fringes of the film. She obviously represents the life force but as we learn more about her life, we are shown how a person’s happiness or downfall is the result of one’s personal choices. But are Maude’s choices representing a personal freedom or an abject nihilism? The film’s final sequences illustrate beautifully how her choices have been informed by the fullness of her life experiences but has she acted in a noble or reckless fashion?

I truly love films like this!! Films that stick to the ribs, so to speak, with characters who twist and turn as I remember and ruminate over them. Films that continue to reveal themselves the more you think about them as well as with each subsequent viewing. It has been nearly two weeks since I have seen “Harold and Maude” and the fact that the work is still racing through my mind speaks to its power, as well as its long cinematic history as a celebrated an influential work. Judd Apatow has long stated how the work of Hal Ashby remains a significant influence to his own work. Cameron Crowe (who has issued the film’s only official soundtrack album through his Vinyl Films imprint) has frequently declared “Harold and Maude” as one of his personal Top Ten Favorite Films and after having seen it for myself, I cannot help but to wonder if his “Elizabethtown” (2005) was a partial tribute to Ashby's film. I also wondered if Paul Thomas Anderson even took a page from the “Hal Ashby Playbook” when he made “Magnolia” (1999), a film which featured the music and voice of Aimee Mann as that film’s beating heart and connective tissue that bound the variety of stories and characters together.

As I watched “Harold and Maude,” the filmmaker working today, that popped into my head, whose films feel as if they could have originated from the same world as Ashby’s was Wes Anderson. While I have no idea if Ashby or “Harold and Maude” happens to be one of Anderson’s favorite films or influences, it cannot be overstated how Anderson regularly creates artificial worlds with peculiar characters and foibles where the emotions are instantly recognizable, relatable and real.

And maybe that is why this film spoke to me so profoundly. Harold and Maude were two people who ultimately felt recognizable, relatable and real, whose questions about life and death mirror my own or presumably anyone else’s. “Harold and Maude” is a poignantly playful film that jangles upon its path without any regard for any potential ill viewpoints. It is a film that lives, breathes, dances and remains so present long after the fade out.

I am so happy, that at this time of my life, this film chose me.