Authenticity: Christopher Plummer, The Sound of Music, and Donald Trump

American Thinker ^ | 01/19/2024 | Andrea Widburg

[SeekAndFind]

A friend from Australia sent me a link to a newly released video with the original “Edelweiss” vocals by Christopher Plummer, who played Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music.

He noted that the laudatory comments all spoke of Plummer’s authenticity versus the polished singing of Bill Lee, who was dubbed in his place, and said that this might go a long way to explaining Donald Trump’s appeal. I thought his insight was interesting and accurate enough to share with you at greater length.

[SNIP]

...You’re all familiar with the final movie version of Captain von Trapp singing “Edelweiss” with his family, the first sign that his rigid shell is finally crumbling.

CLICK ON THE ABOVE LINK TO HEAR CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER's ORIGINAL UNDUBBED VERSION OF EDELWEISS

It's a very nice, polished performance, with vocals by Bill Lee, a frequent dubber for movies in the 1960s. It’s also completely without personality. It’s generic.

However, the new Deluxe edition of The Sound of Music includes Plummer’s own voice. It’s a nice voice—a little rough, a little hesitant, and much more consistent with a tightly wound man who hasn’t sung in decades and is finally breaking free of the constraints he imposed on himself:

Aside from the pleasure of the video itself, what’s fascinating is reading the comments, all of which are thrilled by Plummer’s authenticity instead of the usual smooth studio fakery. Here’s a sampling of the most popular comments:

@Randystudio217: Something about Plummer’s version truly delivers. he plays it as written; a man unsure of himself who hasn’t sang or performed since losing his wife. A man reluctant to show the slightest vulnerability to anyone in that room who, swept up in emotions of love both old and new, plays his favorite piece. Christine’s Plummer’s rendition is superior.

[SeekAndFind]

In a time of Deep Fakes, Artificial Intelligence, endless hoaxes, and the plasticine version of people who swarm politics, media, and entertainment (it’s not a coincidence that a movie about a plastic doll was one of 2023’s most popular films), people crave someone who is obviously unstaged, unscripted, unscrubbed, and un anything else the political world does to give us a simulacrum of reality.

Looking at the dubbed and real Plummer videos, on the one hand, and American politicians versus Trump, on the other hand, I keep thinking of Alan Sherman’s classic line in the song “Jump Down, Spin Around,” about shopping at a discount retailer. In the song, he trills out, “Here’s what I’ve been praying for: A genuine copy of a fake Dior.”

We Americans have gotten used to but still hate genuine copies of fake politicians. When a real one comes along, we resonate with that authenticity and believe him when he promises to take America back to a more normal time of fiscal, racial, sexual, and national security sanity.

Image is a true AI fake.

[SeekAndFind]

MORE COMMENTS ON CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER’s ORIGINAL PERFORMANCE:

@faith2461: Gosh, as much as I love Bill Lee’s rendition that’s used in the film, there’s just something so lovely and sincere about Christopher’s somewhat shaky, imperfect cadence. Really makes me weep. This album is what we’ve all been waiting for, truly 😭. And Irwin Kostal was a gift.

@lauraopper2571: His rendition may not have been perfect, but it was authentic. He made the viewers feel as if he was just singing a folk song to entertain his family in an evening spent with friends. I love it...

@eleonoramaciel6273: This rendition makes his bashful shrug at the end so much more meaningful. It would be lovely to get a version of the film with his voice in streaming platforms.

@ritawetterhan5232:

His singing is so real and slightly vulnerable— a fitting juxtaposition of his rigid military demeanor and his love for his children, Maria, and his country ❤️

[ansel12]

That was strange, I almost gave up until I finally found the singing videos way down the page.

[nopardons]

BTTT

[telescope115]

One of my favorite musicals. I did not know Christopher Plummer’s voice was dubbed. Now I want to hear him sing it.

[Right Brother]

He only starts out shaky. His pitch and timbre are fine. So authentic. I have no idea Why they felt the need to dub over it.

[b4me]

I like the original voice of Christopher version, at one point while singing with the daughter he kinda chuckles, makes it real.

[ought-six]

One of the best versions of “Edelweiss” I’ve ever heard is the one performed by an Armenian school choir.

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=armenian+choir+edelweis&mid=DD950CF77399BC9E1E57DD950CF77399BC9E1E57&FORM=VIRE

[FamiliarFace]

Widburg is right about the authenticity of Trump. What you see is what you get. He’s not a fake, like all the others.

[ought-six]

That’s one of Trump’s attractions: He’s genuine; there is nothing plastic about him.

[Gnome1949]

The problem in music is FAR WORSE than most people know.

Almost every modern popular recording has had the lead vocal pitch-corrected and/or auto-tuned. It is done with modern digital software. You are not hearing an authentic singer as the recording microphone actually delivered the raw performance to the recorder.

In fact, many vintage, live concert recordings of bands and singers have had the vocals “corrected” long after the live performance. You are not hearing the singer(s) on youtube as the concert audience heard them on the night.

I could name popular singers today who cannot carry a tune in a bucket. Without the fraud of “tuning,” you might NEVER listen to their recordings.

What is coming are artificial intelligence manipulations that create a singer’s voice not delivered by any human being. There will not be a need for any living, breathing singer.

The human voice is inherently imperfect because each person’s singing is unique. Some singers are better with pitch than others but NO SINGER IS MACHINE-PERFECT.
Many singers have a vocal vibrato that creates a pleasing sound moving slightly above and below the actual pitch of the note attempted. This vibrato is a compensation for imperfections of the human voice.

One terrible result is young, aspiring singers hear a recorded performance and are devastated that they simply do not have a voice good enough to sing the same song as perfectly as the celeb singer. The original singer DOES NOT HAVE THAT ABILITY EITHER. It’s fake.

We should insist on authentic performance with human emotion and embrace the human voice as God has gifted each singer.

If you wonder why today’s music is GARBAGE, it is being created by SKYNET !!!

Even tempo today is usually machine-created with a “click” track precise as to beats-per-minute. Many of our greatest, older popular songs had variations in tempo because a human drummer kept the time throughout the song.

Like almost everything in our modern world, music is becoming just another massive fraud.

[catnipman]

to me, auto-tune makes all the female so-called “singers” sound exactly the same: BORING ...

[Jane Long]

One of my favorite musicals. I did not know Christopher Plummer’s voice was dubbed. Now I want to hear him sing it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, here you go ... it’s posted at article’s link ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1TaI4NvVBQ

As one commenter said ... w/Plummer’s actual performance of this beautiful song/setting, his bashful shrug, at the end, has even more meaning. I agree

[Jane Long]

Pinging you to this thread :-)

[telescope115]

Thanks! I did watch it and I agree as well. I remember reading once an interview w/Christopher Plummer where he had a somewhat negative experience with filming The Sound of Music . I wonder if dubbing over his voice had anything to do with it.

[left that other site]

Thanks! :-)

[Carriage Hill]

Good explanation. There is a LOT of GARBAGE out there.

[Buffalo Bob]

If you have a DVD or Blu-ray of The Sound of Music, play the ending of Edelweiss (at 2:38) they performed in that theater. That song is one of the best audio captures of a large audience singing in harmony ever recorded.

Played loud on a good sound system (5.1), the last 15 seconds of that song are awesome, especially the last note sung.

When everyone all cease singing together, that theater reverberates for almost 2 seconds before the audience claps.

Perhaps the sound engineers of that film utilized the convolution reverb, the “acoustic fingerprint” of that theater to produce this breathtaking sound.

[Glad2bnuts]

The performance of the song rings in our souls, because we feel our country is being destroyed. Even before the events of modern times, we have that feeling in our gut. When spontaneous singing, praying, or an event that evokes emotion, it simply triggers emotional crying.

I remember my folks crying when Kate Smith sang God Bless America. It reminded them of the time when people were united, and needed to be.

If they only knew how much of the events of the early 20th Century were scripted and manipulated to destroy the economy. Get us into Wars for Empire, and destroy the money supply. They likely do, and weep from the grave.