The Sound of Music

Dear Son,

I hadn't seen this movie for a really long time - in fact, I'm not 100% sure I'd ever seen the whole thing all the way through. It's a classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, with all kinds of catchy tunes I knew by heart as a kid before I even knew there was any such thing as "The Sound of Music."

We saw it at our friends' house, and the occasion was that one of them hadn't seen it before. Of course, his wife had to tell him it was a war movie, but then there you go. I think he secretly enjoyed it anyway.

You know you're about to watch a good movie when you're already humming along with the prelude. The songs are truly timeless. And they're so easy, too. You can play "Do-Re-Mi" on one of those children's xylophones.

When I was in junior high, I went through my musical hating stage. Like any good thirteen year old, I was pretty snotty about the whole genre. "Please. Like anyone just bursts out in song like that. And like everyone would automatically know all the words. They're so unrealistic and stupid." I imagine you'll go through something similar, although I hope not. We'll just have to raise you on them from the beginning. Mine wasn't really cured until I was in a community theatre production of The King and I, which was just too much fun.

What I didn't realize is that they're meant to be enjoyed as they are, not as realistic portrayals, but as almost a caricature of life. It's the same reason we enjoy animation. (Funny that I had no such snobbiness about Homer Simpson surviving falls from cliffs, but there you go. If you're rational as a thirteen year old, you'll be the first one I've ever met.) And besides, wouldn't that be a fun world to live in if we all sang all the time, and could instantly know lyrics, dance choreography, and harmonies along with everyone else in town? I can think of worse things.

But The Sound of Music has much more than just catchy tunes. It's the story that makes it compelling, as is always the case with movies that are still watched and loved by millions of people 40 years after they're made.

It's a simple story - woman can't hack the convent life, tries out a nanny gig, falls in love with the children and the widower father, and then they all live happily ever after, leisurely waltzing away from the Nazis as they stroll over the ridges of the Alps into Switzerland. It's (VEEERRRY loosely based on a true story.)

In all seriousness, though, it's a story about family. There is a rigid father who loves his children very much, and wants them to grow up to be successful. Of course, his entire concept of success comes from the Navy, which means he controls them with marching orders, military discipline, and an intricate system of bo'sun's pipe signals. It's a fantastic illustration of the unfortunate inadequacies of a single parent, and how there needs to be a softer perspective on the whole parenting thing than just pure manliness (although they show strong men as necessary, too, which is also refreshing. Most movies now show fathers as bumbling fools who must be constantly rescued and trained by their wives and children, a disrespectful and dishonest view of what a healthy family should be.)

The interesting thing is that both Captain von Trapp and Maria wind up completing, and in the process, saving and strengthening each other and the children. They fit perfectly as a new family. That may be less realistic than the singing, although I don't really think so. Some of the transitions in acceptance and bonding in the relationships in the movie are a bit abrupt, but there's a large span of time that's tough to accurately portray, especially in this genre, that makes it make more sense. As the kids' governess, Maria would truly have become a mother to them. And while it's tragic the mother had died, they at least didn't have the baggage of having a bitter ex-wife piling some more poison into the relationship, which is how an awful lot of people of my generation instinctively view step families.

The movie changes in the third act, and turns dark. The Nazis take power in Austria, and the new family is feeling the heat from the fascists. The Captain is proudly Austrian, and wants none of the Third Reich. After bravely singing Edelweiss, a song which symbolizes Austria itself, at a public festival (in a scene which reminded me of the Die Wacht am Rhein/La Marseilles duel in Casablanca), the family escapes to Maria's old convent where the nuns help them escape (another thing missing in movies these days is religion as a force for good). The last scene is kind of unintentionally funny - I just don't think escaping from the Nazis in 1938 by hiking over the Alps with only the clothes on your back would so resemble a pleasant walk in the park.

Although, since they won in that festival in 1936, two years before the Anschluss, and actually took a train to Italy and then openly emigrated to America in 1939...

Eh, but who cares. The movie has no problem exaggerating or altering the reality of the von Trapp story, but then we again come back to the whole point of the thing and the reason it's so powerful. It's a simple story with simple characters who either represent or become the best of what we all can be. The themes are immutable and universal: Good overcomes evil. Love overcomes the tragedy of a lost mother. Music soothes the savage beast. Nazis are the best movie bad guys ever.

Ultimately, son, this musical will be as beloved and popular to your generation as it is today because of these things. And I expect you'll know some of the songs before you ever see it, and that they'll come to represent family and happy memories for you, just as they do for me. Well, that and my elementary school music teacher. And those toy xylophones. But either way, you'll love it.

Love, Dad.