Cinema Styles: Harold & Maude finds beauty in life and death
Harold & Maude is Hal Ashby’s 1971 idiosyncratic love story. Harold (Cort), a rich young man obsessed with death, meets a 79-year-old woman named Maude (Gordon) at a funeral. His life is permanently altered from the friendship that develops between them, and the love they share together. Maude’s zest for life serves as an inspiration for Harold, showing him the wonders and possibilities life has to offer. Harold & Maude is a masterful dark comedy that ponders life, death, and the importance of living life to its fullest.
This movie is almost impossible to describe, and the description alone won’t entice many viewers to seek it out. However, this film is an absolute classic. Admittedly strange, this film doesn’t shy away from its weirdness, and in fact embraces its quirky individuality. Indeed, part of Harold’s personal journey in the film is discovering the value of embracing the uniqueness of himself and everything around him.
Harold & Maude practically invented the genre of Dark Comedy. This genre takes serious topics, such as death, and presents them in a lighthearted, playful, and often humorous way. An early example of this is during the first funeral scene, as the casket is being loaded into the hearse, a marching band starts loudly parading down the street. The juxtaposition of death and sadness with blaring vivaciousness sets the tone of the entire movie.
Tying it all together is the music of Cat Stevens. His songs are featured prominently throughout the movie, and his style of music is a perfect fit for what this film is trying to do: combining diametrically opposed tones to create something completely new.
From beginning to end, one of the key topics featured in the film is the idea of suicide. In fact, it’s central to the story. Throughout the movie, Harold often stages his own fake-suicides, often to get the attention of his domineering mother. Harold feels life has nothing to offer him, and fantasizes what it might mean to be dead.
Maude has no such fantasy, and conversely, she lives in the present moment of concrete reality. She’s a survivor who has witnessed unspeakable suffering and death. She knows how precious life is, and understands the value of cherishing every living moment. Her enthusiasm for life is inspiring, not only to Harold, but also to film viewers. She invites audience members to expand their thinking, find a passion for living, and appreciate every moment of being alive.
Early on in the movie, Maude compares humans with flowers, noting the observable differences that make each of them unique. She uses the flowers as an example of the whole process of life. When Maude says “they grow and bloom and fade and die and change into something else,” she could be talking about human beings just as much as flowers. She’s describing the entire experience of life and existence.
While this is an unconventional love story, it’s one with a positive message about embracing oneself and one’s life. Maude teaches Harold how to love not only another person, but also guides him on the important task of loving himself. Their story delves into the substance of a relationship, and the connection made within a new romantic partnership.
Ruth Gordon is absolutely incredible as Maude, and the film wouldn’t be half as memorable without her dedicated, spirited performance. Equally important is the young Bud Cort, offering a hilariously deadpan delivery that essentially created the archetype for every character in Wes Anderson movies.
The supporting cast is fantastic as well, each using their brief screentime to great effect. Vivian Pickles is a hilarious highlight as Harold’s mother. Also memorable are a trio of inept authority figures in Harold’s life, each existing to satirize institutional psychology, organized religion, and the military.
Harold & Maude was first released 50 years ago, and it was a commercial and critical failure. The offbeat tone and unconventional storyline turned audiences away. Eventually, the film developed a loyal following, and has since earned the distinction of being a Cult Classic. It’s now studied in film school, and is widely considered one of the greatest movies of its era. It has earned prestigious distinctions such as the National Film Registry, Criterion Collection, and the American Film Institute’s list of the top comedies of all time.
Harold & Maude is a beautiful film that will leave you with a new appreciation for life as a general concept, and your life specifically. It’s a movie that doesn’t shy away from the topic of death, but rather faces it directly, and acknowledges life has meaning because it has an end. Every choice matters because our time on Earth is limited. This movie, more than any other, captures and illuminates this idea. It flourishes in the commingling between life and death, and the glorious interdependence between the two. Harold & Maude is a dark movie filled with light, a bleak film filled with hope, and an in-motion contradiction that’s as paradoxical as life itself.
Bobby Styles studied Film at UCLA, and worked as an editor and producer on several film, commercial, and music video projects in Los Angeles. He currently teaches the intermediate and advanced Video Production courses in the Multimedia & Technology Academy at Monache High School. His column appears in The Recorder every Tuesday.