{"id":12984,"date":"2010-10-25T11:46:53","date_gmt":"2010-10-25T18:46:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=12984"},"modified":"2020-12-10T13:49:47","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T20:49:47","slug":"harold-and-maude-1971","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=12984","title":{"rendered":"Harold and Maude (1971)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&#8220;Tell me about yourself. What do you do when you aren&#8217;t visiting funerals?&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Harold-and-Maude-Poster.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Harold-and-Maude-Poster-196x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-56804\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Harold-and-Maude-Poster-196x300.png 196w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Harold-and-Maude-Poster-669x1024.png 669w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Harold-and-Maude-Poster-84x128.png 84w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Harold-and-Maude-Poster-176x270.png 176w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Harold-and-Maude-Poster.png 727w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 196px) 100vw, 196px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong><br \/>\nThe depressed grown son (Bud Cort) of an overbearing mother (Vivian Pickles) meets a vivacious older woman (Ruth Gordon) and falls in love.\n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n<strong>Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Black Comedy<\/li>\n<li>Bud Cort Films<\/li>\n<li>Death and Dying<\/li>\n<li>Hal Ashby Films<\/li>\n<li>May-December Romance<\/li>\n<li>Misfits<\/li>\n<li>Nonconformists<\/li>\n<li>Ruth Gordon Films<\/li>\n<li>Suicide<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Response to Peary&#8217;s Review: <\/strong><br \/>\nAs Peary notes, this black comedy by director Hal Ashby remains &#8220;one of the most popular of all cult movies&#8221; &#8212; one which, unlike <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=2889\"><em>King of Hearts<\/em><\/a> (another counter-culture hit of the era), actually &#8220;holds up quite well today&#8221;. Peary argues that it possesses an &#8220;uplifting quality, a breeziness, a spark, [and] a wonderful sense of successful rebellion that more than compensates for first-time screenwriter Colin Higgins&#8217;s self-indulgences, puerile moments, and misdirected flights of fancy&#8221;. When I first saw <em>Harold and Maude<\/em> as a teenager, it hit me in just the right way: I could relate (along with so many others) to Harold&#8217;s sense of repression, and was truly taken with the film&#8217;s uniquely perverse sense of black humor; each of Harold&#8217;s infamous &#8220;faux suicide&#8221; attempts &#8212; and his mother&#8217;s utterly nonchalant responses to them &#8212; took me by giddy surprise. Meanwhile, I remember being genuinely inspired by the &#8220;simple things&#8221; Maude teaches Harold: &#8220;not to back away from life, to be an individual, to experiment, to take chances, and to sing and dance and play music&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p>Watching it again years later, I&#8217;m much more aware of the script&#8217;s heavy-handed faults, yet there&#8217;s still much here to take delight in. Cort and Gordon are perfectly cast as cinema&#8217;s most enduring odd couple, epitomizing a &#8220;May-December romance&#8221; taken to chronological extremes (Gordon&#8217;s 80-year-old character could actually be 20-year-old Cort&#8217;s <em>great<\/em>-grandmother &#8212; just chew on that one for a while). The suicide attempts remain clever and often laugh-out-loud funny; my particular favorite has Harold committing elaborate hara-kiri in front of his third blind date, an aspiring actress named Sunshine (Ellen Geer) who &#8212; rather than reacting with horror like her predecessors &#8212; shrieks with delight and proceeds to join Harold in his dramatics (though I wish the scene went on for a bit longer &#8212; I&#8217;d like to know what happened next!). And it&#8217;s true, as Peary notes, that there are &#8220;touching glimpses&#8221; throughout the film which reveal the shadow-side of Maude&#8217;s exuberance for life &#8212; though along with many others, I find the film&#8217;s surprising ending a bit &#8220;infuriating&#8221;, and am not quite sure I agree with Peary that it &#8220;makes sense&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p><strong>P.S.<\/strong> In both his <em>GFTFF <\/em>and <em>Cult Movies<\/em> reviews of the film, Peary makes an interesting comparison between <em>Harold and Maude<\/em> and Val Lewton&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=17144\"><em>Curse of the Cat People<\/em><\/a>, noting the parallels between Ruth Gordon and Simone Simon, who becomes &#8220;an unhappy little girl&#8217;s imaginary playmate, her one friend, until the girl can turn elsewhere&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Redeeming Qualities and Moments: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Bud Cort as Harold<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/harold-and-maude-cort.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/harold-and-maude-cort.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-12988\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>Ruth Gordon as Maude (Peary nominates her as best actress of the year in his <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?page_id=2606\"><em>Alternate Oscars<\/em><\/a>)<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/harold-and-maude-gordon.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/harold-and-maude-gordon.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-12989\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>Vivian Pickles as Harold&#8217;s mom<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/harold-and-maude-pickles.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/harold-and-maude-pickles.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-12990\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>Harold&#8217;s faux suicide attempts<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/harold-and-maude-hari-kari.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/harold-and-maude-hari-kari.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-12991\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>Cat Stevens&#8217; &#8220;terrific, cheery&#8221; score<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Must See? <\/strong><br \/>\nYes, as a genuine cult favorite.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Categories<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Cult Movie<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> (<span style=\"color:red;font-weight:bold;\">Listed in <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-static\/1001Movies.htm\"><em>1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die<\/em><\/a><\/span>) <\/p>\n<p><strong>Links: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0067185\/\">IMDb entry<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1971\/12\/21\/archives\/screen-harold-and-maude-and-lifehal-ashbys-comedy-opens-at-coronet.html\">NY Times Original Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigsawlounge.co.uk\/film\/haroldandmaude.html\">Jigsaw Lounge Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tcm.com\/tcmdb\/title\/4627\/harold-and-maude#articles-reviews?articleId=143189\">TCM Article<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeout.com\/movies\/harold-and-maude\">Time Out Capsule Review<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Tell me about yourself. What do you do when you aren&#8217;t visiting funerals?&#8221; Synopsis: The depressed grown son (Bud Cort) of an overbearing mother (Vivian Pickles) meets a vivacious older woman (Ruth Gordon) and falls in love. Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors: Black Comedy Bud Cort Films Death and Dying Hal Ashby Films May-December Romance Misfits Nonconformists Ruth Gordon Films Suicide Response to Peary&#8217;s Review: As Peary notes, this black comedy by director Hal Ashby remains &#8220;one of the most&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=12984\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-responses-to-peary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12984"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56805,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12984\/revisions\/56805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}