GOLDEN HOMAGE
Harold and Maude at 50
Fifty years ago, Hal Ashby's movie Harold and Maude opened in theatres.
A dark rom-com, sort of, the film delves into all sorts of big-life questions such as love, war and death. Oh, and there's a Cat Stevens soundtrack that is instant earworm material. Pretty much a flop at first, Harold and Maude is one of those films that took time to draw an audience, but went on to cult-hit status.
Vancouver poet, author and film-lover Heidi Greco is a fan of the film and has written the new book Glorious Birds: A Celebratory Homage to Harold and Maude. Postmedia News caught up to Greco and got her to answer a few questions on this, the film's, golden anniversary:
Q Why did you want to do a deep dive into Harold and Maude?
A Over the years since I first saw it — first run at a cinema in a mall, no less — it's a film I've gone back to over and over again until it's almost become a part of me. For a while I think I may have relied on it as a small cure for my occasional bouts of depression.
Q What can we still learn from this film now, 50 years after it was released?
A The primary lesson it offers is one that remains every bit as valid now as 50 years ago. Without going religious on us, it reminds us how precious life is, and that love is its most fulfilling gift.
Q What would be your elevator pitch if you were trying to get this film made?
A An impossible-sounding romance between a 20-year-old man and an 80-year-old woman offers proof that there are no barriers when it comes to love. Not a sequel; not based in a comic. No ginormous budget.
Q How was it received when first released?
A It was a dismal failure. In most venues it ran for barely a week before being closed down. Reviews were mostly miserable. It took a decade before it recouped costs and made any money.
Q You saw the film when it was originally released. How old were you? Where were you? What do you remember thinking when you left the theatre? A I was just a little older than Harold (he's 20 in the film), the character played by Bud Cort. I was a student at Simon Fraser University, living on campus in Louis Riel House, a building often referred to as the `married' residence, even though very few of us there were actually married — most of us were probably single parents with toddlers. After seeing the film I came out of the theatre, blinking, and knowing I'd need to see it again — riding on what I can only describe as a kind of high.
Q The Cat Stevens/Yusuf soundtrack is one of the most memorable parts of the film. Why do you think it worked so well with this story?
A Yes, it seems like an essential element of the film; it's hard to imagine it with a different soundtrack. I believe it worked as well as it did for several reasons
— one, there was a kind of unity provided by the music being all by one composer/singer, rather than a smattering of songs from here and there by various performers. Many of the lyrics verge on the philosophical, with thoughts closely linked to ideas expressed in the film.
In addition, because the songs were from two previously released albums, many who saw the film were already familiar with the music, so that likely added an aspect of informal intimacy.
So many of the songs form such a natural fit to events of and action in the film. This has a lot to do with how the director Hal Ashby chose to use the songs, with special attention to the brilliant ways the film's editing synchronizes so much of the music with what's happening on the screen.
Q What's your favourite moment in the movie?
A When you consider the title I chose for this book, I suppose it would have to be the memorable scene (depicted on the cover) where Maude tells Harold about Dreyfus and his memory of birds in sunlight on Devil's Island where he was exiled. The ability to see beauty while in the midst of misery — such an image for the human condition!
Q What is something that surprised you when you were doing research into this film?
A I was surprised, though I imagine I shouldn't have been, to learn about the deep interconnectedness of people in the film industry. Knowing of the networks writers have, this
shouldn't have been a surprise, but it was. Probably the coolest surprise that came my way was learning that Chuck Mulvehill, co-producer of the film, ended up marrying one of the actors he met during the making of the film — the second of the computer dates, Shari Summers. To the best of my knowledge, they remain together today.
Q There are a lot of themes coursing through this film: love, self-acceptance, antiwar, environmental stewardship to name a few. Do you see it fitting into a film genre?
A To me, that range of themes is one of the reasons it doesn't tidily fit into any specific film genre. Is it a romance? An antiwar or pro-environment message? Is it a veiled feminist treatise? That feisty unwillingness to fit any single genre is one of the reasons this film fits the very broad definition that lets us sometimes confer `cult' status onto a film. I suppose every viewer brings their own vision to how they see this, or for that matter, any film. That privacy of thoughts in a darkened cinema — ah, it'll always be magical.