The Hills are Still Alive

If you can watch 1965's The Sound of Music without wanting to visit Salzburg you might be made of stone. Or maybe you live in Salzburg. Anyway, it's hard to imagine a lovelier blend of great locations with great cinematography. The songs and performances certainly don't hurt, either.

I like to ask the kids at the junior high schools where I work what movies they've watched lately. Since network television is still dominant in Japan, often many of the kids have watched the same thing. One channel has a regular Friday night movie--imagine my surprise when last week it was The Sound of Music the kids were talking about.

Just let that sink in. The kids at the junior high were all abuzz about The Sound of Music. From 1965. Because most of them saw it on TV. I felt a little weak in the knees. Have I mentioned lately how much I love this country?

Streaming is gaining ground here and I think a lot of them saw it because it's also on Disney+ worldwide. That's how I watched it (I still don't own a TV). I don't remember the image being so crisp and beautiful--I must not have ever seen the 2010 restoration. My god, those mountains, those streets and buildings. The interiors, too, are amazing, many of them also filmed in Salzburg, including this absurdly ornate ballroom.

This was clearly built in a time when rich people had taste.

The scenes filmed in studio also benefited from Ted D. McCord's cinematography. I love the lush, saturated lighting in the gazebo scenes, mixed with nuanced shadows deftly enough to avoid it looking like a Star Trek set. It looks unreal, like a delirious dream.

And the songs, of course. I love the oddly anxious quality of "My Favourite Things". Even a fairly sappy song like "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" works because McCord and director Robert Wise decided to drench the Mother Abbess in darkness.

Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer are both fantastic though I find myself liking the Baroness played by Eleanor Parker more than Maria. Maybe if Maria were played by someone younger than Andrews I could feel benevolent to her petulance but as it is the suffering of the Baroness along with the complexity of her grace and understanding make her seem a fitter mate for Captain Von Trapp. But I can't knock Andrews' singing voice.

The Sound of Music is available on Disney+.

Christopher Plummer

I'd forgotten how many movies I'd seen Christopher Plummer in. The great actor passed away a couple days ago. Scores of roles stand out, supporting and leading roles--Star Trek VI, The Man Who Would Be King, The Sound of Music. Then I looked at his filmography and remembered he was in 12 Monkeys, Somewhere in Time, and many others. I'd forgotten he was an NPC in Skyrim.

An old fashioned Shakespearean actor like Patrick Stewart or Anthony Quayle, his craft was in finding effective ways of delivering lines, interpreting the emotions in them and finding ways to communicate them to the audience with tone, inflection, and pacing. And like many such actors, he was as great in a pulp genre film as he was in something of higher artistic aspirations. The first film that comes to my mind is The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

Like many Terry Gilliam films, it's a story about the importance of imagination and independent thought and, like most such stories, it seems to hold less and less interest for young people. The film which featured Heath Ledger's last role seems to be almost forgotten except it is listed among even brief lists of Plummer's works in articles about him. Maybe, in spite of everything, in spite of the dull slogans people try to feed themselves, a work of rich imagination and surprising narrative actually did take root somewhere in the substrata of the zeitgeist. Old Parnassus might have been gratified to think so.

On the same token, I'm a little amused to see Knives Out isn't getting much prominent mention in articles about Plummer. Despite being such a darling barely more than a year ago, most headlines about Plummer include The Sound of Music and maybe The Man Who Would be King.

And Plummer himself was certainly capable of remaining outside the sway of any political forces. He took over a role from Kevin Spacey in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against Spacey but when asked to comment about it, Plummer said, "I think it’s very sad what happened to him. Kevin is such a talented and a terrifically gifted actor, and it’s so sad. It’s such a shame. That’s all I can say because that’s it." Despite this, Hollywood didn't ostracise Plummer. He wasn't cancelled. He was, of course, above our modern bullshit. He took the role because it was his business and his art, he had the casual audacity in this day and age to assume someone was innocent until proven guilty. I would say that comes from the spiritual fortitude of having his own mind.

Twitter Sonnet #1440

Collected notes create a ragged book.
To make the spin, balloons were talking fast.
For something watched, the eyes began to look.
The future sliced a corner off the past.
In fortune's nose the smell was never gone.
For fated heat descends upon the ball.
The blasted chill was stretched to run a con.
Decisions wait to burn the crispy fall.
Correct deductions cut the oranges quick.
In liquid grapes the future thinned the blood.
The talking time was marked along the stick.
A feisty rain creates the swirling mud.
The moving stage contained a number dead.
But something lived between the pages read.