Harold and Maude (1971) Harold and Maude. Dir. Hal Ashby. Writ. Colin Higgins. Prod. Colin Higgins and Charles B. Mulvenhill. Perf. Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, Vivian Pickles, Cyril Cusak, Charles, Tyner, and Ellen Geer. Paramount, 1971. Synopsis: The film begins with a controversial opening scene depicting Harold preparing for his suicide and eventually carrying it through. When his mother enters the room, she bypasses the whole scene as if she doesn’t notice what has occurred. Initially, the audience is appalled at the mother’s reaction to her dead son, but then we learn that this is a regular practice for him, mock suicides. Harold also attends funerals as a form of amusement and his domineering mother speculates this behavior, deeming it irregular. She requires her son to attend therapy sessions every week so as to ‘cure’ his problem. Harold even purchases a car that closely resembles the one used to transport dead bodies to their burial site. Instead of establishing a closer relationship with her son, Harold’s mom calls on his uncle, a general in the army, for help. This visit obviously did nothing to Harold as his formal life-style permanently redirected his behavior. He continues with these mock suicides, each time enacting a different variation to death. While the mother’s first two suggestions, a therapist and a visit from the general, failed she deems it necessary for Harold to get married. She signs him up for an online dating service, filling out his application in a manner she would respond to, omitting Harold’s reaction which is evidently the foundation of his problem. At his next funeral visit, Harold sees a crazy old lady for a second time, after their encounter in church. They slightly interact and she drives off in a stolen car like a mad woman. The next car she steals happens to be Harold’s as she reminds him that things come and go and getting attached is not a good quality. Harold then begins to visit Maude, a 79 year old woman who befriends him, on a regular basis and at the same time continues with his mock suicides to scare off the dates his mother obtained for him. They then begin to form a strange and contrasting friendship, as Maude is a lively, energetic, and existentialist character while Harold is quit dull, lacks character, and doesn’t appreciate life. As their friendship progress, however; we begin to notice the alteration in Harold’s outlook on life and his advance in charisma. The share many exciting and sentimental moments together as they successfully fool a cop and steel his bike and later share intimate secrets about Harold’s childhood. Later, when Harold’s mother attempts to send him to the army, he and Maude conceive a plan which gets him out of the trap; from there they openly confess their love to each other as the audience already picked up on it from previous events. On Maude’s 80th birthday, Harold surprises her with beautiful floral decorations, but faces tragic news when he hears that Maude over-dosed on pills so as to die on her 80th birthday. A quick glance of Maude’s hand relieved an intimate secret, portraying her participation and survival of the Holocaust. Harold then understands where her free-sprit stems from and comes to the realization that this is the woman he wants to marry. Unfortunately, as Maude poisoned herself and the paramedics were unsuccessful at saving her, Harold breaks down. We then see Harold’s car drive off a cliff and get caught in the air for a couple of seconds. As we are lead to believe that Harold has ended his life, the camera redirects its attention to the young boy standing at the edge of the cliff. This happy accident depicted Harold’s awakening moment as the Cat Stevens song sang, “If you want to be free, be free…and if you want to sing out, sing out… cause a million things to be, you know that there are, you can do what you want.” (A clear theme and lesson that Maude ultimately taught Harold). *Beautiful movie, I cried at the end* Does this comedy deal with moral and ethical issues? If so, what are they? What lessons can you learn from this comedy as to how to live life your life more fully and for the better? Be specific, citing examples from the film to substantiate you essay points. The opening scene of Harold and Maude depicted a suicide attempted by Harold, which the audience later learns is a mockery and disturbingly common for him. The general outlook of Harold’s character immediately grasps a depressing and discouraging quality. Harold simply takes life for granted as his fancy, posh life-style leaves him with no room for discovery. Everything he wants, with material value, is placed directly at his feet. When Harold purchased a car that resembled a corpse transporter in funerals, his mother immediately bought him a brand new sports car to clear his image. The one thing his mother forgot to input in all those valuables was the most precious thing of all, love and compassion for things outside the superficial realm. Harold and his mother have a very distant relationship in which she merely conducts his life in a manner she deems necessary. For example, when filling out applications for the online dating service, she neglected asking Harold for his response, as she simply answered the questions according to her will. All these attributes contributed to Harold’s character in a negative way, making death a more desirable and intriguing option than his already superficially set life. Maude, on the other hand, represented a care-free character who instead of dwelling on funerals took advantage of life. She did not care about authority or really anything pertaining to rules and regulations. She painted the Mary statue in Church black, she stole cars when she needed a lift, and she drove like a mad woman. We later find out that Maude had been part of a horrendous event, which we interpret made her the way she is. Maude was a Holocaust survivor and as such, she dismissed all the rules and authority figured which once made her life a living hell. From this, she simply acted as a free-spirit. This 79 year old women had the energy and joy of a five years child in Disneyland. When the two finally met, Maude befriended Harold and their drastically opposing characteristics somehow blended together really well. Maude had already gone through her life where every day had a pre-set menu and all she did was work and follow rules. Now she was out to teach the world that life is sacred and worth embracing, not merely living. As a Holocaust survivor, Maude realized the extreme simplicity of taking life away at any point in time; she understood the true value that the one opportunity to demonstrate our value and live completely was worth. Harold, on the other hand, had everything handed to him on a silver platter, yet he was not content. He wanted compassion in life and a genuine reason for living. He felt that his individual character granted no difference in the world, as it would not even be recognized when he is gone. This was demonstrated in the scene when Harold and Maude are in the fields and she asks him what type of flower he wants to be. Harold responds, pointing to the simplest, most abundant one, stating that they are all alike. Maude takes his shallow interpretation and expands it through the eyes of a believer. She marks the fact that there are short flowers, tall ones, ones that stray to left, and those that go to the right, there are millions of variations. She continues pointing out that this is the world’s sorrow, individually distinct characters and entities allow themselves to be treated as common on account of their superficial similarities. They are all unique and deserve personal care and attention, just as all Jews were bunched together as the ‘enemies’ of the world, these flowers were regarded as one field. This cannot hold true, for each person may be good and may be bad, as each flower may be tall or may be short. Generalizations lead to horrific outcomes like the Holocaust and Maude had to learn that the hard way. From there she establishes the morality that people are people, but they cannot be assembled together as a common group on simplistic qualities such as race, gender, or such. It is each individual that must be interrogated and from there conclusions can be drawn. Harold’s outlook on life summarizes the alienation of the younger generations in respect to events such as the Holocaust and the Vietnam War depicted in the background. It classifies the futile lives that many of these youngsters lead due to their lack of experience in difficult situations. Maude, on the other hand, understood the true meaning of life and promoted her existentialist outlook to the world. Her character, in turn, summarized the ability of individuals to live beyond a war and from that give meaning to something we only get one chance at, life. From these contrasting characters we are supposed to learn the value of integrating oneself in the community. To detach and turn a blind eye to surrounding events leads to a fruitless life with no meaning, while participation and care attach a whole new dimension. People must live vicariously day by day, taking advantage of every opportunity granted to them and not allowing grandiose events slip between their fingers. If it takes a horrific event to make one that way then let it be, but it becomes much more dreadful and painful through that method than simply learning from the survival of others and appreciating one’s position today. Maude was able to alter Harold’s outlook on life as he learned to sing and dance, two concepts he never even dreamed of attempting prior to their friendship. He learned to act according to his will and appreciate existence and nature, allowing himself to summersault down the hill with Maude at the park just because HE wanted to. Harold also learned that though authorities are meant to establish order and fairness, they are in retrospect bias. In the scene when Maude is seem by the cops as a sweet old lady walking to her car, reality reminds us that the car isn’t hers and she drives like a crazy person. She also attempts to save a tree, which is dying in the city, and take it back to the forest. On the way she and Harold outsmart the officer, steal his bike, and ride off with the plant to their destination. Her outlook on authority figures, as they damned her merely on account of her religion, is a negative one and she proves to Harold that a lot of the times they lack genuine purpose. Rules are meant to be followed, but sometimes it is necessary to break them in order to appreciate life and step outside the box. The Cat Stevens song, which constituted the theme and moral standpoint of the movie, sang, “If you want to be free…be free, if you want to sing out…sing out, cause a million things to be, you know that there are…you can do what you want.” This was the vital lesson Maude taught Harold, and the director was attempting to teach the audience. Harold and Maude represent characters in the movie, but they also symbolize entire generations and groups of people who follow these distinct trains of thought, one that needs strict alteration in Harold’s case. This transition was, however; evident in the final scene. Harold drove his funeral car off the cliff, which we later learned he was not inside of. Harold was finally free from the standards and banal routine which had driven him to this initial state. This ending can be classified as a happy accident, as Harold did become free, he did sing out, and now he was on his way to become who HE wanted to be, free from his mother’s established prison. It’s unfortunate that individuals had to undergo such a catastrophic event like the Holocaust, but it did teach them the value of life and the worthlessness of external physical features. Though Jews were used as scapegoats for Germany’s crisis after W.W.I, they did not fight back in blaming the German’s for their losses. Instead, they continued and portrayed to the world their inherent and developed strength from this unnecessary experience. Praising life and advancing these ideals to future generations, creating more Muades and eliminating more Haorlds. Does this film transmit its values exclusively by comic devices or by serious sections interspersed with comic ones? Is it an uneasy blend of the comic and serious, or does the blending of the two make the artist’s vision stronger? Provide examples from the film to support your viewpoint. Sometimes it is quit difficult for an audience to absorb serious information through the form of drama. In fact, this method is often bypassed by many members who never feel quit ready to be confronted with somber issues such as death, war, and pertinent topics. For this reason comedies are made and these comedies are made in satirical form, so that the audience recognizes the grave issues, yet is given moments to relax and enjoy the powerful form of entertainment as well. In a movie such as “Dr. Strangelove,” a more crucial issue is downright impossible to imagine, the country is at the brink of nuclear war, a war that can swipe all the world’s living creatures except cockroaches. Yet, this movie takes this chaotic premise and tweaks it to develop a comedy. This allows the audience can take pleasure in the film, yet later consider the problems presented and realize that these funny moments require immediate attention. Though “Harold and Maude” does not take such a life-threatening stance, it does present crucially grim issues which the current culture, at the time the movie was made, simply bypassed. The artist was cleverly able to create an easy blend of comic and serious, enhancing his vision and articulating his theme. Maude represented the comic relief aspect of the movie, as her point was to deliver the theme. The theme, again, was to encourage the uninvolved youth to live life to the fullest and make everyday important. They were in the mist of a war and a large percentage of the population was ignorant to what was taking place in their own country. The makers of this film regarded this unawareness as the most detrimental aspect for future generations and therefore, present Maude as a complete opposite to shine through the gloom and give life meaning. Harold continuously acted out mock suicides for his mother as a form of amusement, yet she was never entertained. Though these suicides were staged, Harold lived a very cut and dry life. His mother dictated his actions, not allowing him to develop and flourish in a personal manner. This, in turn, lead to the pessimistic outlook Harold had toward his future and his life in general. He was the symbol for all those careless citizens who lived everyday through habitual routines and never stepped foot outside their own box. Maude, on the other hand, experienced what it was like to have her life threatened and from there she understood its true value. Because of this one-time devastating and unforgettable experience, the Holocaust, Maude’s character symbolized those who had lived through the detriments and crisis of war and now understand the importance of awareness and change. As Maude mainly represents the comical aspects of the movie, in the quick scene when Harold notices the numbers on her wrist, our understanding of Maude’s’ character forms and quickly strays from comical. Though every other scene, Maude brings laughs and joy to Harold’s life, establishing a purpose to living and meaning to knowledge. In the scene when Maude first meets Harold, she befriends him at a funeral, where Harold enjoys spending most of his time, and the priest gets upset at her for painting The Saint black and steeling a car from one of the members. From that instant on, the audience is left to view Maude as this silly, crazy lady and when she drives off like a mad women, our interpretations are justified. Later, when she and Harold become closer, they drive through town and Maude feels the need to stop in the middle because she sees a tree which is dying and feels the need to return it to the forest. Not only does she take the tree form the ground and drives hundreds of miles to deliver it to its location, she encounters trouble with a police officer on the way. He attempts to pull them over for speeding, but ultimately Maude outsmarts him, tells Harold to take the shovel, and the two hop on his bike and ride off. She completely disobeys authority figures in order to save a living plant which most people don’t even look twice at, that’s really taking every bit out of life. This whole scene was probably the funniest out of the movie, as it portrays how unintelligent some police officers really are. Another example of her comic relief was depicted when Harold first came into her house and saw Maude naked posing for an ice-sculptor. Her house was designed almost as insanely as her ideas and that demonstrated her character’s motive as well. She later steels Harold’s car, as this is obviously one of her hobbies, and demands that he give her a ride home, if thats not comedy then what is?! But through these spontaneous and irrelevant acts, Maude makes intriguing points. She teaches Harold never to get attached because things come and go easier then people think. She also emphasizes the fact that living should be done enjoyably and sporadically, not through mundane routines day in and day out. Since Harold gets everything handed to him on a silver platter, even expensive sports cars which his mother bought him for no reason, he takes like for granted. He depicts that dying, ignorant youth, yet simultaneously portrays the hope for change. After being with Maude for several weeks, the audience begins to notice an alteration in Harold’s behavior and even physical appearance. His face doesn’t look as white as it once did; he begins to wear lighter color clothing, symbolizing his enlightened position in life. Maude even gets the ‘death-loving’ Harold to sing and dance with her, in addition to sharing childhood stories he never did with anyone else. When Maude appeared at the funeral, where she first met Harold, she wore white representing her repulsion to conformity, which later gets translated to Harold. In the field of flowers she explains to Harold that each individual flower is unique and different, making Harold’s statement that they are similar, very shallow and surface. Her presence in the Holocaust, where all the non-Aryans were treated like garbage, taught her the distinction between each individual, as well as their importance and the difference they can make. To further open Harold’s mind, the two love birds have a picnic at a dump site and later do summersaults in the middle of the fields simply because they feel like it. The Holocaust, and similar disastrous events, restrained people to routine lives where alteration had a very negative connotation and now that Maude was free, she was set out to free another individual trapped, as she once was. This ideology takes a very serious standpoint and is only evident through funny moments in Maude’s spontaneous actions or through Harold’s gradual evolution. The happy story on the surface comes to a tragic, yet deeply content ending. A serious section, just as many of the opening scenes with Harold or the discovery of Maude’s past, appears again on Maude’s 80th birthday. Harold is only seen content when he is with Maude, but back at home, he continues his routine life-style scarring off his mother’s new idea, dating service women, with his ordinary mock suicides. Maude was able to comically instill life into Harold’s banal world, yet she was his true premise of joy. This happiness escaladed into love and Harold then decided to propose to Maude when he was confronted with her over-dose of pills as a personal birthday present. Harold rushes Maude to the hospital and another serious and sentimental scene takes play as anxiety fills the audience while we wait to find out Maude’s status. Again, the film maker depicts an alternate view of the situation as revealed on the surface. Harold breaks into sorrow, as his only reason for living has just been terminated. The final scene shows Harold driving his old car off a cliff, absent of his presence. Though his physical support is gone and his transition is not complete, he has been set free and this happy accident depicts a joyful ending. For Maude, it took a catastrophe like the Holocaust and for Harold it took an extraordinary individual like Maude. This film transmits its values extremely well through the wonderful blend of serious and comic. Though the premise of this movie is quit important, there was not a moment when a chuckle didn’t shortly follow the tear. In the end, this tear, however; was one of joy and hope, leading audience members to feel inspired and intrigued to investigate their lives and determine whether they are a Harold or Maude, assuming that a Maude will eventually free them if they are not her already. This qualifies a good comedy, the audience is not exhausted with devastating issues, yet they leave with a crucial theme to take home and re-evaluate. Does this film fit into the category of “black comedy”? Are we being made to laugh at something that is very serious and which most people don’t feel funny? If so, what are we laughing at? Does this ‘black comedy’ approach to the material turn you off, or does it delight you? Explain your answers. Provide examples from the film. “Black Comedy” is dark humor, it’s a sub-genre of comedy and satire which takes serious topics and treats them with humorous/satirical mannerisms. “Dr. Strangelove” is the perfect example; it takes a life-and-death situation, nuclear war, and turns it into a comedic film. A similar premise was taken with “Fail Safe” and the audience rejected it, as nuclear war is difficult and even impossible for many to view in a dramatic setting. The characters in many black comedies are usually exaggerated and stereotypes of individuals which the film makers are aiming their mockery toward. “Harold and Maude” fits the category of black comedy very well as it deals with issues pertaining to life and death. Beginning with the characters, Harold and Maude are set to symbolize two very distinct and opposing personas. Maude is the active, cheerful, joyous human being who lives every day like it’s her last. While, Harold, on the contrary, glooms through everyday by setting up mock suicides for his mother and attending funerals for fun. Undoubtedly, these very extreme versions of individuals may exist in the world, yet primarily for the theme emphasis, they were exaggerated. If Maude pulled a tree from public property because she was attempting to restore it back to its original location, she would definitely be fined and maybe even doomed to a night in jail. Her defiance in authorities was exaggerated for the purpose of proving a point, that she is a free bird and appreciates life. Another example, the scene where two cops are posted on the street and view this nice old walking along with Harold, who then steels a car, they would not simply look at each other and do nothing about it. Just as the cop who Maude stole the bike from, they would call for back-up and arrest her. The purpose of all these comic and exaggerated moments are to emphasize the fact that younger, developing generations don’t know what it means to set outside routine, they simply take life for granted. The same case goes for Harold. If an individual constituted mock suicides for his mother on a daily basis, he would not only be seeing a therapist, but he would be damned to solitary confinement in a rehabilitation facility. Also the whole aspect of going to funerals for amusement isn’t that far fetched, though it was also added to his character to engage the audience in Harold’s inclination toward death. Later, Harold’s transformation, due to Maude, turned him more into a likable and realistic human being combining the two extremes, Maude and old Harold. He dressed normally, gained color in his face, acted on his will, but not as spontaneously and care-free as Maude, and finally saw the real essence of life. For example, when they were in the park, it was Harold who suggested doing summersaults down the hill, as his inner spirit was breaking loose. The whole premise of a black comedy is to mock or satirize grave topics through a comedic approach, as it becomes difficult for the audience to regard heavy subjects in the lights of reality. For this film, the topics of life and death were made the fundamental premise, as the film makers regarded the emerging generations with hostility due to their lack of concern for the world around them. Members of society, which survived devastating events, constituted the older generations and they knew what it meant to be alive, as their existence was seriously threatened one time in the past. This is a very intricate and deep theme for a film to portray so, therefore, applying comic tones allows the audience to take a breath, laugh a little, and later realize the thesis. The slight glance at Maude’s wrist was already so difficult to see that right after they played the cheerful theme song, reminding the audience to be free and sing out due to instances like those. This approach was very appropriate for this film because just as “Fail Safe” was rejected due to its genuine nature, if images of the Holocaust where portaged, depicting why Maude ended up the way she did, many viewers would walk out, unable to take the pressure. Though these events are worth investigating in detail, it becomes different when they are examined through text or through a documentary, when people are prepared to see the ultimate truth. In films, many times people yearn for entertainment and beneath that entertainment some value. Some movies, like actions movies, may even lack the theme part and stay strictly with amusement. This is, again, because of this desire to escape from reality in the cinema and view a world outside one’s own. Though this may be a sort of vacation from personal life, black comedies are in no way relaxing. They present a very vital manner and often times it becomes difficult to distinguish whether the film is a comedy or not. For example, the opening scene in “Harold and Maude”, Harold is depicted setting up for a very rigorous event, hanging himself. The audience observes the assembly and then witnesses the event. The camera even focuses on Harold for a good 10 seconds before his mother walks in. The viewers are expecting to see a horrified expression on the mother’s face, when all that’s heard is her directions for dinner. Perplexity strikes, until Harold begins to move and we understand that this is a mock suicide. To start a movie in such a manner already denotes it’s serious, yet timely comic premise and therefore, places it in the black comedy genre. It further makes it place through the theme which the authors attempted to set forth. They did this by awakening people and demonstrating that simply because younger generations did not live through what older ones did, in this context, a war was still taking place and required attention. Neither Harold nor the group he was established to symbolize knew anything about it, while there were people like Maude who lived through so much and sincerely appreciated every morning they opened their eyes. Maude taught her lesson, freed Harold, demonstrating that such ignorance is not permanent, and wanted to end her life in a happy place. Though Harold may encounter difficult times without his love, he was struck with freedom and that was demonstrated by the happy accident in the end. The car flew off the cliff, yet he stayed firm on ground. This represented his re-birth and demise of his old routine life-style, that his mother constructed and he took no part in. Black comedies are very powerful tools to classifying the problems in society. Though some may like blunt messages thrown in their face, many can’t stand the pressure and prefer viewing it through such a context, a mixture of serious and comic. This movie accomplished all the goals that were established and therefore can be recorded as a classic.