Movie Review #15: The Sound of Music - Rodgers and Hammersmonth

The Sound of Music (1965)
Director: Robert Wise
Writer(s): Ernest Lehman... as adapted from the work of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II
Starring: Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Charmian Carr

This is the big one. Watchmojo.com's greatest movie musical ever. The AFI's third greatest musical ever. The fifth highest grossing movie (accounting for inflation) in human history. The Sound of Music is arguably the most beloved musical ever made, with both critics and laypersons adoring it equally. And... it deserves it. Though it lacks the musical and thematic complexity of Carousel, The Sound of Music proves to be the better movie musical on the strength of its superior acting, production design, and cultural relevance. It may be three hours long, but it's three hours that disappear quickly. Just why is The Sound of Music so good? Let's find out.

Maria (Julie Andrews) is a nun-in-training in 1930s Austria; her passion for life and singing proves problematic for most of the other nuns. As a result, she is sent out into the world as a governess for the von Trapp family. Captain von Trapp (Christopher Plummer) has run his family like a military unit ever since his wife died. Thus, the von Trapp family life is one without playtime, social interaction, or music. Maria thus works to teach them the art of song, enchanting both the children and the Captain. All the while, the Nazis take over Austria and try to force the Captain into military service.

It's hard to summarize the story of The Sound of Music without spoiling anything, because the story is incredibly simple. Yet The Sound of Music is a movie much more about the "how" than the "what." It is one thing to make a movie about a governess changing a group of children's lives. There have been dozens of movies tackling this same subject, from masterpieces like Mary Poppins to garbage like Mr. Nanny. The Sound of Music, though, is the only film able to create a truly epic three-hour tale out of this story. And, unlike what one would think, the film rarely needs to fill out its run-time with padding or excess musical numbers. Each song is placed with intention; every relationship gets the appropriate amount of time to develop. In this regard, The Sound of Music is a musical triumph.

But why is The Sound of Music a better movie, say, than Carousel? Carousel, after all, is Rodgers and Hammerstein's most challenging libretto and intellectual drama. It comes down to two factors: character and production design. Nearly every character in The Sound of Music is a vibrant expression of great writing. Maria is the single best role model of any Rodgers and Hammerstein character, bringing life into a room with her very presence (thank you, Julie Andrews). But she's not just a goody-good. She has fears, insecurities, and struggles to surmount. Unlike Mary Poppins, Maria actually has to work to earn both the children's and the captain's respect. Christopher Plummer's captain captures most of the loathing Plummer himself had for the role, and it works. Plummer somehow manages to channel his hatred for the role into his hatred for both disorder and the Nazi regime. Charmian Carr's Liesl is one of the most underrated performances in musical history. Her vocal delivery is much more indicative of lounge/jazz than Andrews' classically trained soprano; the change in musical style is very telling of Liesl's budding sexuality. All of the children do very good jobs, even if the script doesn't give them enough time to grow as much as the eldest. I think Frederick, Brigitta, and Kurt give some very nice understated roles. The ever infamous Rolfe gives us one of the great romantic betrayals in film history. Uncle Max and the Baroness are also great foils to the Captain and Maria, respectively. The villain, though somewhat cliché, is even reflective of the corruption of the Captain's rigor by a foreign, evil presence. With Carousel, the only strong characters are Billy and Julie Bigelow; the rest of the characters fade into the background, acting only as foils or plot devices.

Furthermore, I also think The Sound of Music offers enough rich themes to compensate for some of its libretto's simplicity. After watching the film for the upteenth time, I think I got a firm grasp of the movie's fixation on fear. Every single character has to face some kind of fear at some point. Maria has to surmount her fear of leaving the abbey and her love for the von Trapp family. The Captain must face his fear of familial commitment and loss of cultural identity. The children must face their fear of submitting to authority. All the characters must face the ultimate fear - discovery by the most evil force on Earth - in the film's climax. It's a terror explored in subtle ways, through both song and acting. Perhaps it is not as complex the themes of sexuality and narcissism in Carousel, but it is certainly far more profound than those of Oklahoma!. Indeed, I think The Sound of Music tackles its ideas with much more grace than even The King and I.

This is where the production design really comes into play. Movies like Carousel and Oklahoma! do look dated and cheap. The Sound of Music is absolutely beautiful. The opening shots of the Austrian mountains, the look of the abbey, the rivers, the streams: everything pops. The mise en scene of The Sound of Music is the most pronounced of all those found in the R&H films. Consider the absolute symmetry of Captain von Trapp's house, symbolic of his own rigidness. The two scenes in the gazebo capture the spirit of romance perfectly, using shadow and backlighting to their fullest. The climax is also near-perfect, with almost absolute silence abounding. The abbey's cemetery provides the appropriate context for the Captain's showdown with Rolfe, adding that much more gravitas to the situation.

Is there anything that need be said about the songs? The Sound of Music has one of the most legendary set of songs ever. "My Favorite Things," "Climb Every Mountain," "Do-Re-Mi" - everybody knows and loves these songs. Some complain about their being kid-oriented, but I am still astonished at how well these compositions hold up. I was never particularly fond of "Do-Re-Mi" as a song, but making a song that uses every note of the major scale to frame a melodic line is so much more difficult than it looks. Rodgers and Hammerstein made a song that will forever teach students the fundamentals of musical composition. "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" is one of the most clever songs Rodgers and Hammerstein ever wrote; it inverts the patriarchal attitudes of the 1930s while simultaneously setting up the final conflict of the film. "Edelweis" is so spiritually resonant that some people even think it is the national anthem of Austria; it works that well.

The Sound of Music only has one problem, a relatively minor one at that. Yet it remains one of the most insufferable experiences in Broadway history: "The Lonely Goatherd." Some people criticize "My Favorite Things" and "Do-Re-Mi" for pandering to children. Such criticisms are almost wholly ignorant of the compositional brilliance behind these songs; plus, they all but ignore the clever wordplay for the mere sake of criticizing children's fare as intellectually sophomoric. "The Lonely Goatherd," however, deserves every inch of ire thrown at it. As a song, the melody is both repetitive and tepid. It is lyrically clunky, with Hammerstein trying so hard to rhyme various things with "goatherd" that he ends up with truly laughable results. The yodeling is beyond annoying. But, worst of all, "The Lonely Goatherd" comes out of nowhere and services the musical in no capacity whatsoever. Every other song in the musical plays a key role in either story or character development. "The Lonely Goatherd" appears, disappears, and is never mentioned again. One could skip the scene entirely and not miss a thing. As a result, the song is a melodically irritating waste of the audience's time.

But if that's the only thing I can criticize, then I've got very little to complain about. I always knew The Sound of Music was a good movie, but I never realized just how good until I watched it again... and again, and again. This is one of the greatest family films, period, with material that can challenge children and even adults. It is warm, welcoming, and absolutely wonderful. Tragically, Oscar Hammerstein II never got the chance to see The Sound of Music make its way to the silver screen. The Sound of Music was the last musical project the pair ever made. While it might not be their greatest stage achievement (Carousel), it is certainly their greatest cinematic achievement. The Sound of Music may not be my choice for the best movie musical ever made, but it is one of the greatest. It's an undeniably great film.

Recommendation: Seeing as this movie is one of the most popular ever made, I'm guessing most readers have already seen it. For the startling minority who have not, then I think The Sound of Music is worth three hours of anyone's time (just so long as said three hours aren't needed to pay off one's bank loans/perform open-heart surgery/stop a nuclear reactor from melting down). As my review makes abundantly clear, The Sound of Music is the height of Rodgers and Hammerstein movie musicals. The only people I would not show this movie to are those sticklers who just hate musical theatre in general. Those readers have my pity.

I give The Sound of Music 9.2 stars out of 10.