The Hills Are Alive…

Wife and her cousin are going all Sound of Music tonight, so I put the movie on and start skipping around the musical numbers.

Ok, maybe this makes me officially gay to say this, but The Sound of Music is one of the best movies ever made. Certainly in the top 10.

Great music. Check.

Great direction. Check.

Great writing/screenplay. Check.

Great subtext. Check.

And this is one of the most subversive movies of all time.

It was done back when you had to be skillful enough to make a movie that worked on multiple levels because of censorship. You had to make adult themes invisible to the kids and discernible but not in-your-face to the adults.

The Sound of Music sizzles with sexual and political tension. The characters are deep and deftly drawn with only a few strokes. The actors aren’t great, and they don’t need to be. They just hit their marks and let the music and story elevate them. Except for Julie Andrews, who, well, got the role of a lifetime, and treated it like that. Nobody can imagine anyone but her as Maria now.

This movie is in love with music, which is weaved throughout the story and ties everything together.

Scene after scene in this movie is self-contained perfection that supports what happens next.

It works on about 43 levels all at once, not a single level bumping into another one, all levels gracefully dancing around each other.

Every time I see this movie I like it more.

This is what enduring Art looks like.