A Complete Curmudgeon's Guide To 'The Sound Of Music'

NPR ^ | 11/08/13 | Linda Holmes

[Borges]

NBC has released the first trailer for its live version of The Sound Of Music, airing December 5.

Now, some have chosen to focus on the negative; on the nostalgic sense that to remake this show — or, more precisely, to remake the movie version, as they may well do, at least in part, owing to its ubiquity — is a mistake. No matter the talent involved, like Audra McDonald (as Mother Abbess) and Laura Benanti (as the Baroness), it will be an NBC remake.

But if we truly want to be fair to the new version, we must allow our inner curmudgeon to truly let loose upon the original. The bad news is that you may not have an inner curmudgeon. The good news is that I do. In fact, I have several. It's quite possible that several other people's inner curmudgeons have taken up residence in my soul, which is why they frequently throw parties.

Let us begin. We will not start at the very beginning, because that is not necessarily a very good place to start; it is actually a rather arbitrary place to start, Maria.

1. Out of "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do," the only one Maria apparently can spell is "la." This is no educator.

2. Rolfe is presented as a romantic hero despite the fact that he is clearly intimidated by Liesl's burgeoning sexuality to the point where he calls her "timid and shy and scared" at the very moment she is leaning in, if you know what I mean. "Innocent as a rose," Liesl sings while spinning around so her boyfriend can see her underpants. Soon after, she engages in one of cinema's more erotic instances of fully clothed head-rubbing. As Melinda Taub once rather brilliantly wrote at McSweeney's on behalf of the Baroness, Liesl is in fact rather "intent on losing her virginity to the mailman."

3. You only have 17 favorite things*, and one of them is "doorbells"?

4. Maria claims that the hills are alive with the sound of music, despite the fact that the opening of the movie clearly establishes that they are, in fact, alive with the sound of wind.

5. Maria is apparently sent off to the von Trapp household in the early summer, "until September." At the time she leaves, she wants to be a nun. Before the end of the summer, she has decided she wants a military husband and seven children. Maria needs a gap year, or she's going to enter into a series of unsatisfying short careers.

6. When Mother Abbess tells Maria, "Climb ev'ry mountain," she is setting a very unrealistic expectation of success, especially since they are in the Alps. It's one thing to use a metaphor about uninterrupted mountain climbing if you're in Nebraska, but when you look out of the window every day and see more mountains than you could ever climb in your entire life, that's just setting you up to feel like a failure. Even if it's only until you find your dream, getting up every day and saying, "Well, I haven't found my dream yet, so I guess it's mountain-climbing all day long" isn't necessarily helpful.

7. Mother Abbess also tells Maria that her dream will be "a dream that will need all the love you can give, every day of your life, for as long as you live." So basically, you are going to live the life of Sisyphus until you die of exhaustion because your insatiable dream forces you to throw all of your energy into its gaping, unsatisfiable maw.

8. Winning children over by ignoring the fact that they tried to injure your behind with a pinecone is no way to build character.

9. The "Lonely Goatherd" puppet show is all about coerced mountain marriages, including coerced goat marriages, which send a bad message to children and anthropomorphized goats.

10. Certainly, becoming a Nazi who turns the family in, thus exposing both the family and a large building full of nuns to grave danger, makes Rolfe much worse. But even before that, let us be honest: Rolfe is a smug punk, unless you think being called a baby is romantic. Not "baby." "A baby."

11. The problem isn't really that Maria makes clothes out of curtains. It's that she makes clothes out of ugly curtains. And Maria didn't pick the curtains.

12. You would start by teaching untrained children to sing in unison. There's nothing wrong with unison. Having them sing in seven-part harmony is overly ambitious and likely to create stress.

13. If Gretl is really dozing off in the middle of performances, she probably needs to focus less on her singing career and more on going to bed early.

14. See once again Melinda Taub: He should have married the Baroness. (Younger, more pure-hearted people often believe the best line in the movie is "You can't marry someone when you're ... in love with someone else." More mature people often conclude it is instead, "Why didn't you tell me to bring along my harmonica?")

15. It is possible that once upon a time, we lived in a world where a greedy but good-hearted opportunist might try to make big bucks by scouring Austria for roaming bands of folk singers, but at this point, it does seem rather quaint.

16. "You look happy to meet me," sings a man to a plant.

17. "Heil Hitler" might be the worst way I've ever seen a young man get out of being caught tapping on his girlfriend's window.

18. Sure, the Captain perhaps overreacts to discovering the children playing, but ask yourself this: if you hired a nanny and later saw your children, under her supervision, hanging from trees over a road without so much as a safety rope, would you find that whimsical?

19. "My heart wants to beat like the wings of the birds that rise from the lake to the trees." Do you know how fast birds' wings beat? This would be tachycardia. It's dangerous.

20. That's a very short time for children under 15 to all become accomplished puppeteers.

21. Sending Liesl to bed at the same time as Gretl seems like bad practice.

22. It's pretty convenient that the musicians at the fancy party know an orchestration of the song about the goats who get married.

23. Not a single person at that fancy party sees that they're about to enjoy a musical number from the host's children and can be spied making an "Oh, goody" face? Does Captain von Trapp really seem like a guy who wouldn't know any cranks? Not even the guy who wants him to prepare for the arrival of the Nazis?

24. "Adieu, adieu, to yieu and yieu and yieu"?

25. Louisa's middle-child thing is not going to be helped by sharing a verse with her sister.

26. The lack of meaningful exploration of the Baroness's status insecurity is perhaps the film's greatest flaw.

27. The Baroness is hardly a monster for not enjoying a game in which children hurl a ball at her pelvis.

28. Maria's struggle between house and abbey, between Captain von Trapp and Mother Abbess, is framed entirely as following your heart and facing your problems and fording streams and ultimately love, but no one wishes to say entirely explicitly, "Celibacy is not for everyone. Just ask Liesl."

29. "There's isn't going to be any Baroness." That is cold. THERE WILL STILL BE A BARONESS.

30. As is closing an iron gate on a bunch of children whose mother died who want to visit their governess that it was your brilliant idea to send to their house.

31. Everybody sings a song about what a flake Maria is. At her wedding. Etiquette fail.

*Yes, there are 14 in the song. There are three she mentions before that. Don't come at me.

[martin_fierro]

[Cloverfarm]

Big happy sigh. After reading the column, I’m looking forward to seeing the movie again.

I thought the scene of the captain and Maria dancing was the most romantic moment ever. *sigh*

[Fiji Hill]

The music in The Sound of Music seems to have been inspired by the dark side of human existence. Take for example, "Do, Re, Mi":

• "Do--a dear, a female dear"--In the context of the song, most likely a reference to a gangster's moll

• "Re--a drop of golden sun"--An obvious reference to marijuana, known in some quarters as "sunshine" or "Acapulco gold"

• "Mi--a name I call myself"--If you call yourself by an alias, you are probably up to no good

• "Fa--a long, long way to run"--A drug-smuggling route, in which drugs are brought a long, long way from the mountains of Laos or Peru to the streets of Los Angeles

• "Sol--a needle pulling thread"--needles are used to shoot drugs such as heroin

• "La--a note that follows sol"--The need for a follow-up suggests drug addiction

• "Ti--a drink with jam and bread"--"Jam" is another slang term for marijuana, purchased with "bread," or cash

• "That will bring us back to do"--the gang is in charge

[pbear8]

The person who wrote this takes everything literally. Must be completely joyless, lacking in humor and whimsy, and totally obnoxious to boot. But then she works for NPR, so that says it all.

While I agree with you, #17 made me laugh.

[Jeff F]

From Hotel Golden Hirsch in Salzburg (est. 1407):

[ctdonath2]

A delightful list, which I shall wisely make a point of not sharing with my “The Sound of Music” obsessed wife.

[CatherineofAragon]

I’ve just never been able to get into musicals. When people are talking onscreen and suddenly break into song, I just cringe.

[CatherineofAragon]

LOL

[jocon307]

“It’s one thing to use a metaphor about uninterrupted mountain climbing if you’re in Nebraska, but when you look out of the window every day and see more mountains than you could ever climb in your entire life, that’s just setting you up to feel like a failure.”

I LOVE The Sound of Music, but this was all pretty funny. And I do like how our gentle author sticks up for the Baroness. Hey, it’s not her fault, people!

[Tax-chick]

So basically, you are going to live the life of Sisyphus until you die of exhaustion because your insatiable dream forces you to throw all of your energy into its gaping, unsatisfiable maw.

Or in other words, marriage and motherhood.

[GreenLanternCorps]

Read this...

Not fluff...

[yarddog]

If he was a U-Boat commander and survived, that makes him a very lucky person.

[JmyBryan]

They make me feel funny as well. I find watching the actors who aren’t singing the most interesting. How do you “act” when someone breaks into song while you’re talking to them?

[CatherineofAragon]

LOL, they must be well-trained, I guess. I think I would start to giggle.

[workerbee]

I am 46 years old. This movie has aired on network TV just about every year of my life, and I have yet to watch it in its entirety.

We're the same age. I could probably recite the script by heart!

When I was growing up, watching this movie was an annual tradition in my family -- because, of course, "back in the day" you could only watch network TV, when they chose to air it, and there was no such thing as "recording." At Thanksgiving it was The Sound of Music, at Easter it was Ben Hur.

I don't know if it was because my mother just liked the movie... because we were Catholics and it was "about" Catholics.... or what. But my sister and I (and my brothers, I guess, by default LOL) would mark the calendar, pop the corn and get to stay up late to see TSoM in all its glory. To this day, I love the dance scene on the terrace between Maria and Capt. VonTrapp!

[dfwgator]

DOUGH... the stuff...that buys me beer...

RAY..... the guy that sells me beer...

ME...... the guy... who drinks the beer,

FAR..... the distance to my beer

SO...... I think I’ll have a beer...

LA...... La la la la la la beer

TEA..... no thanks, I’m drinking beer...

That will bring us back to...(Looks into an empty glass)

D’OH!

[workerbee]

Or in other words, marriage and motherhood.

You always have cool things like this to say. That's why I love your posts.

[workerbee]

Is your name really Homer?

[sphinx]

The movie becomes tedious after too many viewings, but only something pretty good gets to that point to begin with. Nowadays I appreciate it mainly as a period piece, from the era in which stage performances were being transferred as exactly as possible to cinema without the filmmakers feeling entitled to take liberties with the "authentic" original. Today most of us appreciate Sound of Music as, first and foremost, a movie. What it actually is, of course, is a classic Broadway musical which ran for 6,587,000 performances, give or take. Which brings me to:

We took the kids some years back to see a stage performance at Wolftrap. In that version, Rolfe, did NOT betray the family in the climactic scene. Which leads to the natural question, how did R&H originally script it? Reversing Rolfe's decision is a pretty big liberty to take.

[DManA]

One of my classmates wrote our class song. But it sounded exactly like the theme song of a popular cartoon (I can’t remember anymore which one). And everyone on the stage knew it - except the poor girl who was so thrilled to have her creation sung at graduation. I hope no one told her.