The Sound of Music (1965)

I'm a dude.  The Dude Handbook explicitly forbids one from liking musicals and advises their avoidance.  Hence, I had never seen The Sound of Music until now.  I may have to cash in some of my dude cred because I liked it.  I wouldn't say I loved it as a film, but I liked it.  Prior to watching the movie, I only knew a few things about it--it is a musical, stars Julie Andrews, and has something to do with mountainscapes.  I didn't realize that it's a very dramatized retelling of the true story of the formation of the Von Trapp family singing group.  Interestingly, it occurred in unstable Austria at the dawn of the Third Reich.

The Sound of Music has all the stock ingredients of family feel-goodery, including romance, beautiful scenery, humor, predictability, and...oh yes...the sound of music.  True to many musicals, it oozes of melodrama that is appropriate for the stage but feels silly on film.  The characters are so dang likable and the Austrian mountains are so picturesque that I was able to overlook some of the drama.  I enjoyed many of the wide frame shots that captured the beauty of the abbey and the countryside.  The film did a great job of utilizing cameras to produce a world that draws us in rather than relying on many stagnant stage scenes.  

Though the story is relatively predictable, I was struck with one subplot that didn't develop as I had expected.  The young romance of Liesl and Rolf didn't resolve as positively as I had hoped.  It did however, provide an interesting paradoxical parallel to the romance between Maria and Captain Von Trapp.  The young lovers had a secret relationship that appeared sweet and good, all the while Maria and the Captain had an unintentional attraction that would prove to be devastating to another relationship in the film (the Captain and the Baroness).  The virtues of the men in these romances, Rolf and Von Trapp, reveal themselves by the end of the film.  Rolf, who had chosen to serve under the Nazi regime, has an opportunity to turn away from the dark side and redeem his relationship with Liesl.  Captain Von Trapp, on the otherhand, resists the Nazi authorities from the beginning and fulfills his role as husband and father in providing escape from the Nazis (specifically from Rolf himself).  The moral is that Nazi sympathizers do not get the girl.

The primary theme and real beauty of The Sound of Music is the power of music/art.  As a musical it is, of course, going to celebrate the virtue of music.  But it uses music to stir the audience and provide dynamic character developments in the movie.  Many of the songs mark specific milestones in the story and often lead to a next important story development.  And most importantly, the songs provide solid recital fodder for many young girls.

Next up: Dr. Zhivago (1965)