The Sound of Music

So the past few days have led to some different movie choices. I've been trying to review movies that fit the season more and are scarier or at least have a supernatural or out of this world element to it. I intend to get back to those, especially as Stranger Things Season 2 comes closer and closer, BUT, I thought I'd take a break and watch a movie I said I was going to check out after I watched The Man in the High Castle. I've seen it multiple times but I've never reviewed it. It's Roger and Hammerstein's 1965 classic, The Sound of Music.

The Sound of Music follows the story of a young woman named Maria (played by Julie Andrews). She is a prospective nun who can't seem to keep her head out of the clouds and continuously breaks into song leaving the nuns at the abbey in Austria conflicted on what to do with her. In order to give her some kind of experience before taking her vows, they send her off to be a governess for a strict former Sea Captain by the name of Captain Von Trapp (played by Christopher Plummer).

Captain Von Trapp has seven children that he keeps in total military discipline since their mother died. Before Maria, there were seven governesses that couldn't really contain the children.

But Maria is able to come into the home and give these children, and even the stern Captain Von Trapp the gift of music and in doing so, brings the family together at the eve of the rise of the Nazi regime extending its reach to Austria.

If you haven't seen this movie you are really missing out. I would put this movie up there with movies like The Wizard Of Oz, Casablanca, and Citizen Kane of essential movies to see before you die. While it doesn't go on any kind of my top ten favorite movies of all time, you still have to understand how well made this movie is and appreciate the genre regardless of whether or not you are a music fan or not.

Now while I knew I wasn't come out of this movie thinking it was bad, I did have a couple of questions about it in 2017. Mainly the question of does it still hold up?

If you know anything about musicals then you've probably heard the names Rogers and Hammerstein and the countless musicals they have popped out. The King and I, Oklahoma, and South Pacific may be some of them that stand out the most and The Sound of Music is by far their most popular. But they've been around for so long I might have thought that the music might have dated itself, especially in a world where we have musicals like Les Miserables and Hamilton.

Of course this is just my opinion and again, while I won't put The Sound of Music down as my favorite musical of all time, I do think the music holds up still. It is no doubt timeless as these songs are still incredibly familiar and memorable, but with my limited musical knowledge, they are still good songs. In comparison with the musicals of today and later on, I would maybe say they've gotten a little bit dated but sometimes going back to the traditional songs can have its benefits.

But the songs are only as good as the singers/performers. And holy crap was Julie Andrews talented.

Everyone else in the show is... fine. Mother Abbess (played by Peggy Wood) for example has a phenomenal voice. But the main star obviously is Andrews and holy crap does she nail it. Song after song continues to be a display of her singing voice at the time. I know she had some kind of vocal thing happen later on in her life which made singing incredibly difficult but that doesn't negate how talented she used to be.

Her acting is actually really fun as well. As much as Maria seems like a pretty stereotypical airhead, Andrews actually played her with a lot of spunk and personality. This was something I actually picked up after years of watching, Maria is a little bit of a klutz and has a pretty unique goofy personality. I think one criticism of the movie I would have is that they have this pretty unique character at the beginning and then in the second half of the musical she gets kind of neutered down and she isn't as interesting. But the second half is more about Captain Von Trapp, Austria, and Nazis than her so it kind of evens out.

Christopher Plummer plays Captain Von Trapp and I've actually gotten around to seeing more of Plummer's films. He's a very talented actor and he's actually been in a couple movies recently that I think I like more than this performance. And that's definitely because his performance in this movie is kind of weird.

Of course it's a good weird but something I realized watching the movie now is that Plummer starts off playing Von Trapp as this stoic, towering, almost scary individual. Then when music is brought into his house he flips almost instantly and becomes happy and likes to sing... but that doesn't fit with Plummer whatsoever.

The character flip is different enough, but it doesn't really seem to fit with Plummer as he almost looks scary in this film. Suddenly we're supposed to really like this character and actually see him as a love interest for Maria, as one of the few critiques that I see looking back at this movie, this was a little bit strange.

He still gives a good performance, especially near the end. When I was a kid, all I saw was a guy in a fedora who didn't like Nazis. As far as my mind went, Captain Von Trapp was Indiana Jones. But watching it now, I realize that it's not just because Captain Von Trapp was anti-Nazi, it's that he was Austrian first. This is something you figure out from the dialogue in this film that you miss as a kid. He's incredibly patriotic and being Austrian means so much to him. His conscience doesn't allow him to be a Nazi Officer at the end, his Austrian pride makes him a symbol. In a world where we have to question whether or not we're cool with Nazis let's all be like Captain Von Trapp. Have some pride in your country and rip a Nazi flag.

So moving away from politics.

The children are pleasant additions to the movie. I'm not going to go into each of them individually because the truth is, the movie doesn't really do that. They really only give a personality and a lot of lines to Liesl (played by Charmian Carr) the oldest. She's got a young love relationship with a kid who ends up being a Nazi but after re-watching this film, I'm not totally sure Rolfe (played by Daniel Truhitte) was totally into Liesl... or women in general if you catch my drift.

But the children are fun. They're young so they aren't the greatest. While their voices aren't the best, I would also say that's not really the point. They're there to provide backup and cute faces for Maria. And they do that well.

Each one of them has enough personality to make the movie work and while I didn't know much about Kurt for example, I didn't really feel like I needed to. The children kind of act as a unit and it's a good unit.

Overall, this movie is just timeless. Yeah there are plenty of jokes to be made about it and it's ripe (almost over ripe) for spoofs (just ask Seth McFarlene). This review might be shorter than I think I wanted it to be but the truth is there isn't a lot to say. It's a great film, almost perfect. Yeah you can see how it hasn't aged well in certain areas but for how timeless and how much of a classic this film is, you can't really hold those wrinkles against it. 

The only other way I could make this review go a little bit longer is if I pitch my thoughts for a Sound of Music prequel. In all reality I would probably hate this, but I was thinking at a certain point that there should be a Sound of Music prequel centered on a young sea Captain named Gayorg (I'm pretty sure that's his name) Von Trapp. He obviously fought in World War I and lost. He's seen the horrors of war. There's a reason he's so patriotic towards Austria. There's a reason he sees the dangers of the Nazis. This is his war story/musical all about patriotism... and it's called Edelweiss.

What do you think? Do you want to see that Sound of Music prequel? What do you think of The Sound of Music original? Does it hold up? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Might as well leave you with the opening number. It really is still awesome. Enjoy!