The Sound of Music has a confidence and a sense of moral purpose that warms the hardest heart, says Sarah Crompton.
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| A joy: Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music |
At this distance it is hard to separate Robert Wise’s lush film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s final musical from its current incarnation in thousands of sing along performances, with audiences dressed as nuns and winsome kids.
Even in 1965, the film divided opinion. Wise originally turned down the chance to direct because he felt it was too saccharine. Reviews were lukewarm. The eminent critic Pauline Kael described it as “the sugar-coated lie that people seem to want to eat.”
But bad films don’t survive to be loved as much as this one is. And from the soaring opening shot, swooping over the mountains to find the glorious figure of Julie Andrews singing with a voice as clear as a mountain stream and as pure as an angel, to the closing moment when Andrews leads her bedraggled family back over those heights, the movie has a confidence and a sense of moral purpose that warms the hardest heart.
Its enduring appeal stands, I think, on three sturdy legs. The first is that behind the beautiful scenery and under the charm, something important really is at stake. The movie may have shed the two most overtly political songs from the original stage show, but it is still full of ethical dilemmas, of decisions where people must chose between right and wrong.
Maria grapples with the difference between earthly and heavenly love; Captain von Trapp with his decision to stand up to the Nazis, and leave the country he loves. The fact that in reality he made the same decision – under even greater pressure since he was far more impoverished than is portrayed on screen – gives the story proper authority.
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