Harold and Maude (1971)

 When Harold and Maude was first released in 1971 it bombed at the box office yet ever since it’s grown in reptation through repeat screenings in smaller cinemas and eventually physical media. Nowadays many film aficionados rate it as an all-time classic and I tend to agree with them while acknowledging its not a film for everyone. It’s eccentric narrative heralds individuality over conformity via two individuals whom you would think have nothing in common and showing what they do have.

There’s a well-known moment in when one of the two main characters, Harold, slowly looks at the camera as if we are in on his disruptive behaviour. Apart from being a relatively rare breaking of the fourth wall it also provides the first hint that Harold may actually be enjoying trying to frighten people, that this is a game to him. Up till then hem has seemed like a nihilistic young man who has left school and lives in his upper class mother’s sprawling house refusing to engage with the reality of life. Admittedly his eccentric mother is a handful, bringing in a parade of potential wives and pushing her son to join the military. Harold would rather ride around in a hearse he has bought, attending funerals and trying different fake suicide attempts. Then things change when he meets an elderly woman, who also makes a habit of attending funerals and stealing cars, who slowly changes his worldview.

Despite the subject matter- suicide is not a natural topic for comedy- the first half of the film especially is frequently funny. Director Hal Ashby’s choice of what to show and how to make the most of Harold’s melodramatic fake suicides pays off again and again. The best one being when Harold seems to set himself on fire in the backgound which we see through a window.

Harold’s obsession comes from a rejection of what life- and in particular his mother - has offered him. In therapy sessions- where he wears exactly the same clothes as the therapist- he declines to elucidate on his behaviour. By the time we enter the story his mother is already used to his pleas for attention, as evidence by the genius first scene where she enters the room in which we’ve just seen him `hang`  himself  and she nonchalantly ignores it.  As she thinks up ways to control his life- arranging interview schedules with potential wives, replacing his hearse with a shiny sports car and getting his uncle to try and draft him into the army, so Harold’s behaviour continues. Yet when he meets seventy nine year old Maude, also gatecrashing a funeral, and who lives in an old railroad car packed with unusual souvenirs, a friendship is sparked.

Ashby maintains the mordant atmosphere throughout save for one sequence where Harold and Maude try to sabotage the former’s draft potential by appearing as untruly as he can which just comes over as too slapstick for the film. Otherwise Ashby shoots with a realism that helps sell the sometimes unlikely scenarios we are seeing. The sequence where Harold and Maude are taking a tree they’ve uprooted from a public highway to plant it in a forest is very funny; each time you think the situation is over the film extends it further.  

This is a film that seems to have a lot in common with the late Sixties with its psychedelic undertow, hippy optimism and counter culture values rather than the more cynical Seventies. It even taps into the anti war feeling amongst many triggered by Vietnam while the tree sequence reflects growing ecological concerns that a film like Silent Running explored in more detail the following year. They are symbolic gestures but important nonetheless. And is there a scene that demonstrates the two differing viewpoints involving the individuality or otherwise of daisies.

The musical soundtrack consists either of brief segments of classical music or a number of Cat Stevens songs which suit the fiim’s mood betterthan you imagine the originally proposed Elton John score might have done. Stevens’ songs float on a bed of acoustic guitar and percussion espousing a worldview not dissimilar to Maude’s own.

It’s a plot that makes it clear Harld does effectively fall in love with Maude because she has grasped life to the fullest extent. It is a natural development compared to his mother’s idea that a wife can be selected by some sort of questionnaire. Maude seems to be the first person with whom he has ever connected, a contrast to his interactions with everyone else where his resentment or disinterest shines through. In a way he is the typical teenager albeit taking things to extremes far beyond slamming doors. Like any first love, whatever the situation, it overtakes him withut him realising.  When he tells her he loves her, Harold looks surprised with his own admission yet Maude simply reciprocates as if it’s the most normal thing. While we might accept a deep friendship, the fact that we see them in be the morning in bed makes it clearer what is happening. I imagine it caused some shock amongst those who saw it at the time!

The cast are exquisitely selected. Ruth Gordon is vivacious as Maude, her enthusiasm and energy crackling from the screen. The hints of darker times are subtly layered in occasional lines of dialogue. Great at telling Maude’s life stories, the actor shines in every frame.  Bud Cort is able to embody the disdain Harold has for his life and then slowly the light coming in via Maude. He has a wonderful natural delivery of lines that make it seem like we’re watching real life. Still with us today at 94, Vivian Pickles is tremendous as Harold’s mother, her performance pitched perfectly just the right side of caricature. Remarkably this is the only American film she made in a career of British productions.

In these different times the concept of any kind of romantic relationship across a sixty year age gap provokes even stronger reactions than it might have back then despite the release a few years earlier of The Graduate. Add in the number of fake suicides used essentially as gags and you have a film that chafes against modern sensibilities, a film whose appearance now comes replete with trigger warnings and caveats. Others may suggest it’s a perfect example of how art can only flourish when its free of so called “woke” concerns.  That the story is ultimately well intentioned makes it acceptable to though I understand why some wouldn’t watch it.

At the end – after the film’s shock twist is delivered in the most casual manner by Maude, we’re meant to think Harold has finally gone through with killing himself as we see his hearse speeding towards and over a cliff edge. Maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised that this trickster has fooled us again. Rather than die he appears to have been reborn - when the camera pulls back he is standing there banjo in hand. He strikes up a tune and even seems to dance a little as he walks away, now embodying Maude’s zest for life it would seem. Which is why there could never have been a sequel- Harold would be too positive!  He has accepted that because we will all die, its better to make the most of life as Maude did. Harold and Maude is one of those films without slack, casually delivered and despite the subject matter a wonderfully life affirming story.