Reflections: The Sound of Music (1965 film)

Like many people of my generation, I grew up seeing Sound of Music—or more often, parts of it—every year on TV. I loved the puppet show; I found the song “Edelweiss” hauntingly beautiful and moving without knowing why; and I liked (precociously) the romance between Liesel and Rolf.

Though the movie as a whole was sometimes too long for me then, and had a lot of stretches where I couldn’t see much happening, today I love it, especially the songs, which consistently make me tear up.

• Throughout the film you see the power of filming on location instead of in a studio, even after the soaring panoramic views of Alpine grandeur in the opening sequence.

• The people making this movie understood the power of silence and not forcing background music into every scene. Note especially the dead quiet of the house when Maria first arrives and is meeting the Captain.

• The fact that Julie Andrews has such a splendid voice and uses it so well makes it too easy to forget she’s also extremely good at being funny.

• Two early scenes use the children pretty unconvincingly. I don’t for a moment believe that any but the youngest two feel guilty enough to actually cry at the dinner table; unless we’re supposed to understand the older ones are faking it, maybe to lull Maria into a false sense of security.

Also I don’t buy that all of them are so scared of the thunderstorm they rush to Maria’s room for comfort, and huddle quivering with every peal. Now maybe the noise of the youngest children alerted the others, and they came mostly so they wouldn’t be left out, but I still don’t think they’d be bent over and shaking every time the thunder sounded.

• It took time for Maria to make all those clothes for herself and the children—their mountain outing does not take place on her second day. Maria and the children have had some time offscreen getting to know one another.

• During the “Do Re Mi” number, there are several changes of costume. This is not a continuity error, it’s not a movie-making conceit you’re supposed to overlook, and it doesn’t mean they’re so rich and sophisticated they have a different outfit for every occasion.

It happens in order to show time passing.

The action is a single song to us, but within the story it spans several days, and those days may not even be consecutive.

The children do not learn to sing in only one afternoon.

• With seven children it’s unavoidable that some are less prominent than others, but you can’t ignore Angela Cartwright, who would go on to be many viewers’ first TV crush on Lost in Space.

• When talking to Maria in her bedroom, the Baroness has a hidden agenda, pretends to a concern and kindness she does not feel, and uses manipulation to get her way. Yet she does it by telling the truth and without making Maria do anything under false pretenses. It’s sleazy, and yet Maria, in full possession of the facts from another source, would respond exactly the same way.

• There are many paths in life, and just because you think one is what you’re supposed to do doesn’t mean it’s where you belong.

• If you reset the story a few years before or after, or just skimmed over the real-life context, the movie would end with the wedding. But there’s another half-hour to go, because solving a problem like Maria is not the only thing to do here.

• Rolf was a favorite character of mine as a child, in part because he shared a name with one of my favorite Muppets (spelled differently, though I didn’t know that). I was shocked watching the film again as an adult: in my memory of the story, Rolf helped the family escape, although he did not go with them. Funny how you can rewrite things in your head to make them easier on you.

• The Sound of Music never shows us Nazis committing atrocities. They‘re overbearing and act like bullies, but little else onscreen. The worst action they take is hunting a man and his family after he refuses to be in their navy, yet the film makes no effort to show us why he refuses. We’re expected to know that Nazis are unacceptable evil and a genuine menace; the story doesn’t have to prove it to us.

• Nothing more is done with it within the film, so we don’t know, but there’s a shot of the Von Trapp butler looking out the window as the family quietly pushes the car to the street for a night-time escape. He looks disapproving. Or maybe just concerned? But I’m left with a feeling that he may have contacted the Nazis to tip them off. Then again, it could be nothing more than a sour face. We don’t know. And perhaps that is a message itself: one of the most destructive elements shared by totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, whether Nazi, Fascist, Communist, or something else, is making you wonder who around you is an informant, eroding your trust in people you’ve known your entire life. You’re left with fear and suspicion, set off by something as insignificant as somebody glancing out a window. So, indirectly, we do see another terrible thing done by the Nazis.