AFI Top 100: #40
Didn't think I would be typing the words "this film needs more Nazis" today yet here we are. It is easy to see how Robert Wise's incredibly renowned and beloved The Sound of Music has become one of the world's go-to, feel-good classics but it is not so easy for me to see why people have simply skipped over the fact that its entire story changes in the last half an hour? While this movie has some of the most memorable, cheery, and ultimately pestering music accompanied by some fantastic performances from its main cast, I could not get past the jarring shift that this story took and was not warned ahead of time that it would happen. There is so much to love about this movie and the fantastically creative decisions that Wise makes with his musical adaptation but I was never completely sold on the plot past the initial love story premise. This film may have been very pretty to look at but if people were to notice the inconsistency of the writing, I really think that its classic status would be bumped down a notch or two.
Upon being suggested to work elsewhere by her covenant of nuns, Maria (Julie Andrews) goes to work for a wealthy naval Captain named Von Trapp (Christopher Plummer). She is assigned to be a caretaker for his seven children because his wife had recently passed away and they had yet to find a woman who was fit enough to raise them. As Maria teaches the children about the wondrous joys of life, she also sparks up a romance with Von Trapp that she finds hard to keep under wraps. The writing throughout this film was fairly good for the first two and a half hours. The developed romance between Maria and Von Trapp was decent and I definitely believed their cinematic relationship, despite how obviously forced and unrealistic it was for the sake of the musical narrative. The story ended up being incredibly predictable, which is why when the last thirty minutes hit, I was absolutely shaken. Wise's hard pivot in The Sound of Music from jovial musical to suspenseful war thriller was something that I was not at all expecting but also proved to be something that hurt the film overall. I am still trying to process or even understand why he would include this section of the film to cap the conclusion off and while I know it has to do something with timely relevance and political connectedness, it just fragments this story so painfully much. If this film would have ended with Maria and Von Trapp's wedding, I could have pleasantly gone about my day. Sure, it still would have been overly cheery and artificial but at least we would be left with a happy ending. Or, I honestly would have liked to seen Wise go the opposite route. If this film quickly turned into this wartime narrative in the beginning and the film flashed back to when these characters were naive and happy, I would have been much more into that. I just do not think that a proper balance was ever struck between the two and because of that, I was left so frustrated. Wise's direction is also much slower than it needed to be and there is no reason why this film had to be almost three hours long. So much could have been cut to speed up the actual plot of the film and it would have been a much more concise, entertaining time.
What makes The Sound of Music so apparently spectacular, however, is in the title itself: the sound of its music. The score and musical sequences throughout this movie are absolutely iconic but really failed to get me to feel anything. I guess because I have heard these songs countless times in different forms of media but the constant repetition of the same four musical numbers throughout this film really started to get on my nerves. I don't expect there to be a song for every passing moment of the movie but hearing the same notes and the same melodies over and over again for three hours definitely tested me. The musicality and performances from the cast were incredible, however, as Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer prove to be some of the best parts of the movie. They are just brilliant actors and bring so much life to their characters while simultaneously being able to belt out these show tunes with ease. Their relationship was also fantastic and the chemistry and tension they were able to play off each other were great to see. Although I had a lot of issues with this film's writing, handling of music, and abrupt shift in tone, it is hard to see past how gorgeous the movie is. The cinematography from Ted D. McCord is just stunning and his use of soft glows around the characters and wide shots during many of the film's musical sequences was beautiful. He also uses shadows very well and in many shots that would constitute a screenshot in itself, he is able to use this film's visual storytelling to tell a story of his own. I was also in awe of the massive, sweeping, aerial shots that directly started this film. Even though they might have been there just to show off the fact that this crew could pull off a majestic shot such as that, it worked well for the tone of the movie and the breezy, comedic atmosphere of most of this film plays into why it has become such a (mostly) lighthearted classic.
The Sound of Music is not inherently bad nor do I think it deserves the acclaim that it has garnered over the past 55 years of its lifespan. Andrews and Plummer are both wonderfully talented performers and Wise, along with the success of West Side Story, proves that he knows his way around a movie camera. My issues, however, come with this film's inability to decide what path to take and what audience they are trying to appeal to and I just can't wrap my head around some of those writing choices or why Wise took this completely wild path. Now excuse me while I lose my mind to the tune of "My Favorite Things" for the hundredth fucking time.
My Rating: ★★★
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