Delightful

Rating: Null/10 (26 November 2012)

I have a confession to make. I helped torpedo this film's rep in the late 90s on a couple of other BBSes in the late 90s by making fun of it in a light hearted sort of way. After that I remember every one getting on the band wagon and stating how silly they thought the movie was. My poking-fun had "gone viral" so to speak. Well, I won't say what I did, but it was one of the last major cultural influences my posts would have for a very long time. Now that the net is a bit more democratized I don't have to worry about my words hitting major network outlets like they used to. Fortunately "The Sound of Music" was resilient enough to endure a little ridicule.
But I digress. To the film.
This is essentially a musical remake of a German film entitled "The Family Von Trapp", which tells the same story with less music and more drama. The Rogers and Hammerstein version was another Hollywood take on Nazi Germany, but keeps the fair light as it is understood when the deplorable political situation was in Germany, ergo the focus is on the Von Trapps and their escapade to form into a family and leave Austria which is under the German sphere of influence.
I've always loved this film as a film. I'm a guy who's comfortable enough with his masculinity to say that I liked the song and dance numbers in this film, and have always done so. So, when I "paid homage" to the songs in this film in the late 90s, I wasn't trying to ridicule the film, nor create the social tidal wave of "that musical movie is silly and stupid" (which, again thankfully retreated into obscurity), but I was honestly trying to just use some well know references in the film in other forums. I think the songs, the story, and just over all production values are first class. And one could expect no less from one of Hollywood's first class directors, Robert Wise. The man who brought us "West Side Story", "Run Silent, Run Deep", "The Desert Rats" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still" to name but a few of his landmark films.
Julie Andrews gives us a free spirited novice who is trying desperately to become a nun by showing her devotion to what she loves most about living; the great outdoors and the music that it inspires within her. Christopher Plummer is in his prime when he portrays Captain Von Trapp, formerly of the Austrian Navy, and we can see his serious side as an actor come forth, along with an underscoring of tenderness.
The supporting cast all do their parts to help sustain and suspend both the film's reality and the reality we are trying to escape when we watch the "Sound of Music". No one misses a cue here in terms of performance, and performances carry this film from frame one.
Technical notes; on the DVD documentary it is mentioned that Captain Von Trapp did not like the Nazi regime for a variety of reasons, but this is only every touched on in one dramatic scene, and the emotional thrust of the captain's position is given, but we are not privy to the more real and pragmatic reasons of why and what makes him and us not like the Nazis in the first place. But, the film works regardless, because it is a musical and not a political diatribe. The cinematography is basic, but also breathtaking, particularly in the opening sequences. We are given some very inviting panoramic vistas of settled regions within the Alps-incredible stuff. The musical numbers are well crafted and help suspend reality outside the film to make the fantasy we are watching more inviting and enjoyable. If I had one critique, it's the same critique that I have with all films prior to 1970; studio rear-screen projection car shots. I remember the hack tour guide at Universal telling us how "realisitic" this process was when shooting a scene that required the actors/characters be inside a moving vehicle. My reaction then is as it is now; give me a break. If you need characters in a car, then put them in a car and have a grip truck tow them with a camera mounted on the back, or mount a camera on the car itself, and let the actors drive for goodness sake.
Otherwise the film is marvelous. If you're in the mood for some light entertainment, something with familial appeal, that has some seriousness to it, but is not weighed down by political overtones, then give "The Sound of Music" a chance.
Until then; so long, fare well, alveterzane, good bye.