The 1970s were a peak decade for innovation and creativity in film. Directors such as Martin Scorsese, Mike Nichols and Francis Ford Coppola are cited among the most important authors of the era, but Hal Ashby is a director whose name seems to be mentioned less and less as the years go by. Looking back, he is someone whose work played an important role in the Hollywood Renaissance.
Ashby died in 1988, but he made some of the best dark comedies and satires of the era, including Shampoo and Being There. He was also at the helm of one of the most controversial romances of the decade: Harold and Maude.
The film is now available for free on streaming services like Pluto TV and Kanopy this month, and it’s a great unconventional watch for Valentine’s Day. If you’ve never seen it (or if it struck you when you were younger and were hoping to watch it again), now is the perfect time to watch the film – which often disappears from streaming services as quickly as it arrives. The film’s lead actor, Bud Cort, died this week at the age of 77, which adds another reason to watch it.
Harold and Maude stars Cort and Academy Award winner Ruth Gordon as a young man and the elderly woman he falls in love with. Harold, 20, is rich and still lives at home. Maude is 79 years old, of modest means and lives in a covered wagon. Obsessed with death, Harold often stages elaborate suicide attempts: hanging, self-immolation, etc. And while these attempts seem realistic, his mother’s unimpressed reactions are the definition of deadpan comedy.
But even recognizing the film’s underlying dark humor, it’s hard to imagine that a film like this could be made by a mainstream studio these days. Critics didn’t really like the film in 1971 either – “Scary and off-putting” is how the New York Times described the two lead performances – but over the years it developed a cult fan base through long-running engagements in second-run theaters.
Harold meets Maude at the funeral of someone neither of them really know. Very quickly, they become inseparable. While Harold’s view of life and death is bleak, Maude’s fascination with death actually provides her with a reason to live. (Harold spots a number tattooed on his forearm that subtly alludes to his survival in a concentration camp.) Despite some ideas or performances that might be considered off-putting to many, Harold and Maude is a celebration of life, an existential drama that balances the heavy with the light, and a film that exemplifies the era in which it was made. This soundtrack by Cat Stevens!
Although the central relationship itself is unconventional, the film feels less like a search for true romantic love and more like a reminder of how life is meant to be lived on one’s own terms. As Maude tells Harold: “Everyone has the right to make a fool of themselves. You just can’t let the world judge you too much. »
Harold and Maude is available now on Pluto TV and Kanopy.