TV Note: "The Sound of Music" (12/15)
David Shasha
"The Sound of Music" will be screened on ABC Sunday, December 15th at 7:00 PM
Seeing and Hearing “The Sound of Music” in Trumpworld
When I was a child the two movie musicals that were most central to my consciousness were The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music.”
I must admit that although The Beatles’ classic has remained central to my cultural and emotional awareness, “The Sound of Music” has largely faded from my radar.
Over time “The Sound of Music” has been derided by many critics and its reputation has been reduced to that of bland pablum.
I decided to take another look at the movie after many years and was truly surprised not only by how well it held up, but at how relevant its themes are to our current benighted situation.
Rodgers and Hammerstein produced three essential musicals at the very start of their storied collaboration: “Oklahoma!”, “Carousel,” and “State Fair.”
These works are essential to the canon of American musical theater as they draw a vivid picture of a mythical American culture that is truly timeless and rooted in the complex details of our national identity in a way that expertly presents themes of love and sexuality, death and decay, loyalty and betrayal with a deep understanding of the psyche of this country.
Looking at the film adaptations of these three musicals today we see not only the populist nature of their artistic values, but the truly odd and eccentric ways in which they draw a picture of American life.
It is an artistic process that speaks to a general optimism, but also to the dark underside of our fears and obsessions.
The early work of Rodgers and Hammerstein represents a normative view of America which is often undercut by a subversive thematic that remains intriguing and cutting-edge. These musicals are pure Americana, but are also subtle critiques of our culture that can be seen in the contentiousness and eccentricities of characters like Jud Fry in “Oklahoma!”, Billy Bigelow in “Carousel,” and Pat Gilbert in “State Fair”; characters who have a deep emotional yearning that contains negative feelings and obsessions.
The art of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals is both comforting and disturbing at the same time. Under the calm and sunny veneer of the American Dream, the composers dealt with the complications of our culture and its contentious competitiveness, as well as its cruelty and ignorance.
“The Sound of Music” premiered on Broadway in 1959. The movie adaptation was released in 1965, five years after the death of Oscar Hammerstein.
The musical is noteworthy for the way in which it deals with the Nazi scourge as well as its critical treatment of European culture.
The basic plot-line of the work is rather simple: The story takes place in late 1930s Austria. A young novitiate named Maria, charmingly played by Julie Andrews, fresh off her triumph as “Mary Poppins,” does not seem to be very good at suppressing her joyful “secular” impulses and is constantly finding herself in the offices of the convent’s Mother Superior for various infractions of the nun’s strict code.
She is quickly shipped off to become the governess of the Von Trapp family where she meets the crusty Captain and his rambunctious, but repressed, children.
Maria soon puts a monkey-wrench into the Captain’s harsh disciplinary regimen and exposes the children to the many joys of play and of music.
The songs in “The Sound of Music” are the most indelible in the Rodgers and Hammerstein canon: The title song, “Do-Re-Mi,” “My Favorite Things” and “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” remain to this day essential classics of the American Pop Music tradition and reflect the true genius of the composers. The blending of music and lyric has rarely been equaled and the manner in which the songs reflect and refract the themes of play and joy presented in the work is truly brilliant.
I cannot help but think specifically of the legendary Jazz icon John Coltrane’s superlative version of “My Favorite Things” and how it has marked that song so indelibly on the consciousness of American culture. The way in which “The Sound of Music” has been adapted and integrated into the American cultural ecosystem is a testament to its superlative quality and relevance to our national identity.
Captain Von Trapp slowly comes to see Fraulein Maria’s point about his kids and begins to process play, music, and joy in the larger context of the impending Anschluss that is set to engulf his beloved Austria.
We will of course recall the cosmopolitanism of the Hapsburg Empire which elevated Austrian culture and made Vienna the center of civilized Europe. But both the Hapsburgs and the Ottomans found themselves outside the new Nationalist consensus of the late 19th century. The new Nationalism was the result of a long philosophical process that culminated with the thought of Hegel and the idea that each nation had its own Geist, or national spirit.
Captain Von Trapp represents the civilized, humane manners of the Old World which is now being challenged by the barbaric ways of German National Socialism.
It is critical in this context that Maria comes from the Austrian Catholic Church which presents a counterweight to the nihilistic barbarity of the Nazis. The Church will play a critical role at the end of “The Sound of Music” as it shelters the Von Trapp family as they seek to escape the Nazi terror.
The Church does not censure Maria, but seeks to help her find a constructive and productive outlet for her many talents and buoyant energy.
Maria does indeed remind us of the American exuberance that is central to the Rodgers and Hammerstein worldview as expressed in their canonical works. She is allowed to express her inner feelings and passions, and passes on this blithe spirit to the children who have hitherto been repressed by their widower father who has become morose and bitter since his wife’s death.
The joy and passion explodes on the screen in the form of song and dance.
This exuberance is an expression of the humanity of the characters, which is acted out in the face of the impending threat of Austria’s Nazification.
A critical moment in the film comes when the Captain, expertly played by Christopher Plummer who had just starred in the Anthony Mann epic “The Fall of the Roman Empire,” is given a guitar and plays the very emotional “Edelweiss”; a song that contains all the raw emotion of the Old World charm and its civilized manners. The song is used in the movie as a weapon against the hateful barbarity of Nazism.
In his second performance of the song towards the end of movie, Plummer chokes up in front of the audience and is unable to finish it. Andrews must literally jump in to help him. It is worthwhile to note that the concert audience breaks out in deafening cheers and applause when the song is over. Conspicuously, only the Nazis in the crowd remain utterly silent and motionless.
Tellingly, we see the auxiliary characters in the movie slowly coming to accept the inevitability of the Nazi scourge, as they make the necessary adjustments to the New Order.
But Captain Von Trapp will have none of it.
With Maria’s help he has rediscovered his own humanity, and in the process reconnected to his beautiful children.
At the very moment that their lives are imperiled by the Nazis, the Von Trapps have returned to the love, compassion, and beauty that should be at the very center of our lives as human beings.
The dark shadows of Hitler’s Berlin begin to impose an ugly deformity on Austria just as the children dance, sing, and find happiness after the years of depression marked by the loss of their mother.
It is interesting to note that both Andrews and Plummer came to “The Sound of Music” after performing in two of the most important movies of the early 1960s.
“Mary Poppins” is of course a Disney live-action classic whose themes deal with Empire and the discontents of Western Civilization.
So too does “The Fall of the Roman Empire,” one of the last successful wide-screen epic productions to come from the Hollywood system, deal with the creeping debilitation of Empire and the violence that emerged which would eventually lead to the success of the warring Barbarian tribes of Europe and the collapse of Rome.
“The Sound of Music” is not just an astounding artistic-aesthetic achievement from the masters of American musical theater, but speaks to us today in the language of resistance and rejection of wickedness and conformity.
The Von Trapps represent the old Hapsburg culture and its cosmopolitan diversity. The sophisticated manners of this pluralism presented a rich thematic that clearly resonated in post-World War II America. The destruction of European civilization under the aegis of Fascist Nationalism can thus be seen in contrast to the expansive multiculturalism of the American tradition.
And it is this multiculturalism, the joy of song and dance in a liberal political framework, which is very much at stake in the Trumpworld we now live in.
“The Sound of Music” is a tribute to the American values of hard work and optimism, but also speaks to the sacred value of the individual in the face of the authoritarian State, as well as to the noble artistic impulses of humanity as expressed through song and the love and joyfulness which music brings to us.
Art allows for creative individual expression, but also acts a social unifier; bringing people closer together as a culture. It is the social glue of family, religion, and community.
The role of the Church in saving the Von Trapps from the scourge of Hitler is critical to the denouement of the movie. We see the merging of religion and humanity in a way that does indeed speak to the American condition and the values of Religious Humanism. It is a system that promotes the dignity of all human beings at the same time that it rejects blind adherence to the State and to the ignorant chauvinism of militant Nationalism.
It is in the genius of Rodgers and Hammerstein that American culture found its full flowering; a development that consolidated the Golden Age of Popular Music that was rooted in Tin Pan Alley cultural values, a product of the American “melting pot” immigrant culture which was in so many ways a rejection of the Hegelian militancy of the European state system so brutally expressed in the two horrible wars that nearly consumed our world.
As we are currently witnessing a resurgence of this cruel and callous Nationalism, with all of its racism, prejudice, and cruelty, going back to artistic works like “The Sound of Music” is both necessary and restorative. It presents a critical challenge to the warped nihilism of Trumpworld as it reminds us of what has always made America great. We have historically embraced the values of Religious Humanism, while at the same time fought diligently against the parochialism of militant Nationalism and its rejection of pluralism and individualism.
It is thus quite instructive and salutary for us to return to the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, allowing us to draw from the rich resources of an American popular culture that speaks to what is best about humanity, and which rejects the violent barbarity of the current Idiocracy that is now engulfing us as a society.
David Shasha
From SHU 776, February 15, 2017