I actually saw this the same day as
WSS, which is a big part of the reason I lay on the comparison so heavily.
The Sound of Music (rewatch)
Robert Wise (1965)
Before she became a magical nanny for posh British kids, Julie Andrews got her training as a singing nanny for posh Austrian kids. Hollywood ; making prequels before they were cool.
In the process of teaching the children in her care how to enjoy the summer - and behave like human beings - and reminding their father that there is a reason military service has age restrictions, Maria gives us a lesson in how to make a wonderful musical. Listen up children, this stuff is important.
The Sound of Music triumphs where my most recent musical disappointment,
West Side Story, fails. The writing is a thing of beauty. The second scene of the movie makes nuns appear likeable and funny. Nuns ! After three genuine laughs in a couple of minutes I knew it was not a mistake to rewatch this. Before the nazis bring their distinct brand of serious to the film it remains a perfectly light affair, comanding hilarity whenever it so desires.
All the children act their age but none ever feel like caricatures. Dosage is perhaps the great quality of the sound of music. Liesl is as dumb as any 16 year old who thinks she is in love but without being insufferable. Captain von Trapp is authoritarian but never autocratic. He mellows muh easier and quicker than I remembered. The baroness does what she can to hold on to him but has enough class to not be petty or small in her jalousy of Maria. It turns out I truly cannot trust childhood memories.
Dosage goes much farther than sole character building. The film is a delicate balance that shifts from a playful beginning to a more serious middle and a solemn ending - all the while maintaining a welcome lightheartedness that never undermines the stakes. The humour always works to reinforce whatever tone the scene wants to adopt and the ubiquitous songs never become too many. The movie is sweet, hopeful and gay, and yet avoids becoming naive or saccharine. Unlike so many characters in movies like
Les Demoiselles de Rochefort, Maria could actually live in the real world. She is a free spirit but can be serious when the occasion demands it.
That makes it easy to go along with the plot. Songs and dialogue provide a punchy combination that is inescapably entertaining. For the first half of the movie one can contentedly marvel at the wit of the exchanges and the cleverness of the lyrics - not to mention the harmony. Rivers of idiosyncrasies emanate from the characters who somehow pirouette around ever turning the film overbearingly silly.
When the action settles into a love story it starts telling something about relationships and people and the script becomes elevated - all the more so because all its characters are treated like actual, complex people, largely motivated by positive forces. After the Anschluss of course, the movie becomes about something else entirely. It is a credit to the original musical that it manages to combine the beginning with the aforementioned ghastly swastika wavers. Again, dosage.
To stay on that theme,
The Sound of Music does something that I discovered enjoying quite a lot with Hamilton: using its songs (or parts thereof) as recurring motifs. A lot of the songs of the former are repeated in different situations to enforce themes and punctuate evolutions and actions. I also found being rather fond of the way the songs actually "exist" instead of being punctual performances that in a way "never happened".
The Sound of Music has virtually no dancing, at least not in the scale of
West Side Story. It has much deeper characters and a better love story however, not to mention the incomparable writing. In many cases it showcases what I like in musicals - until I find the perfect counterexample of the movie I will find myself loving despite its doing the diametric opposite that is.
8/10Also, it has the better song about a girl named Maria.