tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2458465103162971589.post8562488675660204632..comments2023-05-28T21:17:11.258-05:00Comments on Look What Danny Made!: Project Valentine, Day 7: Harold and MaudeDannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02528188612235068004noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2458465103162971589.post-31159730354895224062011-02-08T13:48:27.200-06:002011-02-08T13:48:27.200-06:00You make very thoughtful points. I hadn't con...You make very thoughtful points. I hadn't considered the angle of Harold also giving something back to her, in the form of a release, but that's a good point, as is the Vietnam-era context.Dannyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02528188612235068004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2458465103162971589.post-37080111167753590172011-02-08T10:09:57.527-06:002011-02-08T10:09:57.527-06:00With all love and respect, I think you're miss...With all love and respect, I think you're missing a key piece of context for Harold & Maude, in the scene where he offers her a ring and she tosses it immediately in the water - romantically. This is when he sees the number tattooed on her arm from the Concentration Camps.<br /><br />It's such a brief, beautifully understated moment by Hal Ashby; it's just whisked away. I still think it would be a wonderful movie without it, but it deepens her character considerably: she has lost a shitload of people, she has nothing left but old belongings, said goodbye to everyone. She has seen the absolute worst in people, but instead of falling into that blackness, she decides to turn toward whimsy.<br /><br />Now, perhaps she is in denial, some would say, and the movie certainly masks what a pest she's being (its hippy strains, perhaps), but I do think there is a willful way she is trying to drive herself forward with her quirks. And I do think she comes alive when she meets Harold. Certainly not as much as he does, but she finds a good recepticle in him to pass on what she feels is a positive message: to live. He is dwelling on death, probably to an unreasonable degree (he's wealthy, young, vibrant...), and she is able to teach him to enjoy what he is able to enjoy.<br /><br />So, when she kills herself, perhaps it is a selfish act; but she is paying tribute, rather, to the ghosts of her past. Harold has helped release her, in a sense, and fortunately in his whipping car ride back home, he is able to recognize that she will be for him what so many others were for her - those who disappeared, but always remained, in the heart.<br /><br />Don't forget, too, the whole Vietnam-recruitment shenanigans. This is 1971, when a lot of loved sons and friends were coming home in coffins.<br /><br />-EricAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com