[Note: All screengrabs in this piece are taken from
the old Paramount DVD release of Harold
and Maude and are by no means indicative of the video quality of this
Blu-ray.]
Trying to find something
profound or insightful to say about Harold and Maude feels like an
exercise in futility; anything I’ve got, the film already says about 20 times
more eloquently, yet let’s give it a whirl, but be warned, because you’re gonna
get tons of “me, me, me” in this piece. I can’t write about the movie any other
way. It’s too personal. Nor do I wish to offer up some kind of plot summary,
which would be pointless. If you’ve not already seen this movie, then just go
buy this disc, you poor bastard, and if you don’t like it, I don’t want to know
you. There are few movies that grab me emotionally the way this one does; some
of the others that do, like Shampoo, are also directed by Hal
Ashby, who was one of the most gifted visual storytellers that ever lived. The
guy had a knack for finding truth in the most unlikely of places; he made a
career out of it. This ability of his was never more obvious than in Harold
and Maude, the story of the awkward, depressed young man (Bud Cort) who
falls for a free-spirited lover of life (Ruth Gordon) that’s four times his
age.
Remember those people who
were diagnosed with a sort of depression after seeing Avatar, because they were
so affected by the movie that they wanted to live in that world, but couldn’t? Harold
and Maude is my Avatar. It guts me. I have to be
careful about the frame of mind I’m in when I watch it, otherwise it’s liable
to send me spiraling into a state of melancholy, much like yesterday’s viewing
of this Blu-ray did. This is an odd reaction to such a life-affirming movie,
but I think the reason I respond like this is because it’s a reminder that I’m
not living my life as fully and with as much joy as I should.
It’s so easy to be pessimistic
in this day and age, because our culture is drenched in cynicism. How do you
fight against what’s in front of you at every turn? Further complicating the
issue is that there’s a potential price to pay for not joining in on the
group skepticism and that’s that you may not be taken seriously. You may even,
heaven forbid, be labeled naïve. Most
everything we are as a culture today is the exact opposite of what Harold
and Maude is (was?) about. If I could, I’d sit the entire country down,
pass around joints, bongs and baked goods, and make everyone watch Harold
and Maude simultaneously. If it made a dent for just one day, it’d be
worth it.
One of my favorite lines,
depending on which day I’m talking about the movie, is Maude’s, when she’s
dealing with an angry police officer (played by an uncredited Tom Skerritt): “Don't get officious. You're not yourself
when you're officious. That is the curse of a government job.” Harold
and Maude is all about challenging authority, and it was part of a
whole wave of films that were doing just that, although few of them managed to
do it as sweetly as this one. It was made in era when film really took authority
to task in a way it doesn’t today. Maybe it reflected the times. Back then
people thought they could make a difference and cause change. They felt their
opinions carried some weight and that authority figures like politicians had
some decency buried deep inside them that was just waiting to be dragged to the
surface. Nixon probably changed a lot of that, but certainly today – and this
goes back to the rampant cynicism – too many people believe less in challenging
authority than they do in dismantling it altogether.
So I guess Harold
and Maude takes me to a time that I never got to experience (having
been born about a month before the film’s release), and it does it in a way
that’s not even remotely preachy or maudlin or nostalgic (or maybe it’s all of those things?). It’s a story of two people
who’ve experienced tragedy and hurt and pain, and how one of them overcame it
long ago, and is now intent on helping the other through the rough times, so
they can both get to a better place. Folks have often placed an emphasis on the
romance between the two leads, but that’s the last thing I think about when it
comes to Harold and Maude, because it’s about so much more than that.
There are a million romance flicks out there - many of them with
pairings far stranger than this one - but there is only one Harold and Maude.
Having dealt with Harold
and Maude for years now through Paramount’s DVD release (and before
that on Paramount’s laserdisc), it’s never really occurred to me how much of an
overhaul this movie might need, but the difference between that disc and this
Criterion Blu-ray is pretty revelatory in terms of picture quality. Whereas
before the movie was mired in muddy dark browns and greens, on this Blu-ray
it’s now covered in eye-popping dark browns
and greens, not to mention a whole other palette of surprising colors that I
was never able to notice before. I often wonder with Criterion discs if some of
these old movies look better than
they did upon release. This one certainly looks better than I’ve seen it
before, and in fact when I went back and looked at the Paramount DVD for
screengrab purposes, I was rather stunned by how bad it looked. Also, in
addition to the original uncompressed mono soundtrack, this edition offers up a
newly remastered stereo track. The music of Cat Stevens has never sounded so
good in a feature film.
Hey Criterion! More Hal
Ashby on Blu-ray! Shampoo, pretty please!?!? You did that one many years ago on
laserdisc and it’s time to go back to the well.
 |
| Director Hal Ashby's Hitchcock cameo |
Blu-ray Extras: In a perfect world, the special features here would
be considerably more extensive, or at the very least there’d be interviews or commentaries
with Bud Cort and/or Vivian Pickles[1], but alas, ‘tis not to be. Perhaps it
was the lovely little 2011 interview with Yusef/Cat Stevens that made me want
more? Yes, that must have been it. Because before this Criterion disc came
along, I was satisfied with the content of the nearly bare bones Paramount DVD
I’ve had for years. In addition to talking with Cat, there are vintage audio
pieces (that play over montages) with both Hal Ashby and screenwriter Colin Higgins from ’72
and ’79 respectively, taken from Harold Lloyd Masters Seminars. An informative
commentary track alternating between Ashby biographer Nick Dawson and the
film’s producer Charles B. Mulvehill rounds out the disc’s bonus features. (The
two theatrical trailers on the Paramount disc
have not made the leap, I’m afraid to report.)
Additionally, the Blu-ray
includes one of those fine inner booklets that Criterion does so well. This one
spans 36 pages and is full of cute little Harold and Maude illustrations in
the same vein as the cover art. It features: A new essay entitled “Life and How
to Live It,” by one of the most insightful, not to mention dangerous, living movie/TV critics, Matt Zoller
Seitz (whom, it must be said, I also call a friend); a reprint of a 1971 New
York Times article/interview with Ruth Gordon by Leticia Kent entitled “A Boy
of Twenty and a Woman of Eighty”; a transcript of a 1997 conversation between
Bud Cort, cinematographer John Alonzo, and James Rogers of the Colin Higgins
Trust; lastly, there’s a short 2001 interview conducted by Rogers with the
film’s executive producer, Mildred Lewis, and her family, entitled “Meeting
Colin Higgins.”
