"My heart will be blessed"

Rating: 9/10 (3 January 2011)

The 1960s were a time of transition in cinema, when independent producers began to take control from the old studio moguls, neo-realist influences crept into Hollywood, foreign language films became trendy, and for the first time pictures were being made in black-and-white for artistic reasons rather budgetary constraints. And yet the most popular picture of the entire decade was a bright, joyous and epic musical, a product of old-fashioned studio professionalism, crafted for pure entertainment. And there is no shame in this fact, because The Sound of Music is a truly wonderful classic of the screen.
Let's start at the beginning (a very good place to start) with the musical from which the movie was adapted. This was certainly the best of all the Rodgers and Hammerstein scores, the culmination of all their works prior to this. It demonstrates, in many instances, what was really exceptional about Richard Rodgers's tunes. His melodies have a subtle beauty which comes at you in ways you wouldn't anticipate. There are those sour blue notes in the title song, the haunting chord progression of "Edelweiss" through major and minor or, in "My Favourite Things", the shift from a minor key verse to a major key chorus while barely seeming to change melody at all. Filled with Oscar Hammerstein's deceptively simple yet rhythmically sensitive lyrics, this is music as gorgeous as the hills and mountains that provide the motion picture with its backdrop.
The director is the highly versatile and under-appreciated Robert Wise. Wise began his career as a sound editor and he really understood the musical genre. He doesn't give The Sound of Music that very precise, choreographed look of say, a Vincente Minnelli musical or his own earlier picture West Side Story. Instead he has the performers doing very simple "dances" of realistic movement, for example Julie Andrews speeding up her walk as the song gathers pace for "I Have Confidence". He also gently and unobtrusively makes the image match the scope and style of the music, a great example of this being in the opening number. For the slow, broad opening of the song, we have Andrews against the backdrop of the mountains. Then for the busier but quieter section he has her walking among trees, skipping between their trunks like the notes of the song, before having her running out onto the hillside as the music swells up again.
Star Julie Andrews, like Irene Dunne and Judy Garland before her, was one of those rare talents who could both sing and act. Of course her role here as an actress is mainly one of childlike earnestness, but the thing is she pulls it off with complete sincerity, never becoming too grating or too pathetic. And of course she is able to carry her acting performance through into the musical numbers, putting her character into every note and dance step. Male lead Christopher Plummer was reportedly not comfortable in his role, but he does an adequate job all the same. Apparently Richard Burton was also considered for the role, and he undoubtedly would have given an excellent performance, but he might have been a little too good, making the captain perhaps a bit too stern and menacing in those early scenes, so I'm glad the role went to the softer and more fatherly Plummer.
One criticism that is often raised about The Sound of Music is that its story is rather weak and short on substance. It is true that it lacks the compelling drama of say, My Fair Lady, that it never really builds up any true sense of danger over the Nazi anschluss, and that perhaps it is at times a little overwhelmingly cheerful. And yet the fact is that the weight of this picture is not in its story, but in its music. This is something that is significant about Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals. Think about those lyrics. Most of these songs don't say anything very specific about the story or characters; most of them just play around with a little idea like saying "goodbye" or going through the notes in a scale. With the exception of "How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?" these are songs about feelings, not expositions. The songs do not exist to tie the story together, the story exists to present the songs. And these musical moments are powerful enough to send shivers down spines and send hearts soaring.