Analysis of "Harold and Maude"

Harold and Maude is a 1971 dark comedy-drama film directed by Hal Ashby. Harold is a young man played by Bud Cort. He contrasts sharply with the woman he develops a controversial relationship when they meet at a funeral. This woman is Maude, the 79-year-old fun-lover played by Ruth Gordan. 

The film, as the name suggests, is about 2 people, Harold and Maude. Harold is a young man, obsessed with death, thought to be about 20 years of age. Maude is a fun-loving spirit, days away from turning 80 years old. The pair form an unlikely relationship as they are total opposites. They both enjoy attending funerals but for very different reasons. Harold attends the funerals as he enjoys the idea of death, he often pretends to commit suicide in various ways, which is how we are introduced to Harold at the start of the film. Maude attends funerals for the opposite reason; for her, the funerals represent life, and she references “the great circle of life.” The film is set in the 1970s over a few weeks. Harold comes from a family of great affluence, another stark contrast to Maude, an immigrant to America who lives in an abandoned train carriage. This part of the characters also creates another interesting contrast between the two characters, Maude has a few financial restrictions, but she is free with no one holding her back and no respect for laws and rules, whereas Harold has no financial problems but is held back by the people surrounding him (His mother, the therapist and his uncle) 

Two main narrative storylines eventually interconnect throughout the film. The first one is Harold’s obsession with death and destruction, he tells a therapist that for fun, he visits funerals, and we see him go to multiple of these funerals where he sees Maude a few times and eventually becomes friends with her. Another part of this narrative is his disturbing habit of faking committing suicide, and he admits to doing this around 15 times, although he seems unwilling to answer, suggesting he has most likely done this a fair few more times, the plot point of Harold faking suicide over and over again comes full circle at the end of the film when Maude commits suicide on her 80th birthday, an action she had previously hinted towards her first meeting with Harold when she said 80 years old was a good time to “move on.” The second storyline is that of Harold’s search for love. Harold’s mother wants him to grow up and decides he needs to find himself a wife, she signs him up for a dating service, and (despite his reluctance) Harold meets up with 3 women, on each of the dates, Harold scares away the girl with another fake suicide. It is ironic then that in the end, Harold finds love with a woman 60 years his senior, whose fun and free spirit is the exact opposite of Harold’s fixation on death.

At face value, Maude is a mysterious character with little known about her past. However, on further analysis, we can discover her history and why she enjoys life to the fullest. One thing we know from Maude herself is that she came to America when she was a young adult, probably the same age as Harold is at the time of the Film. She doesn’t specify where she came from, but towards the end of the film, it becomes clear. Around 1 hour and 10 minutes into the film, Harold and Maude are sitting looking out to the sea; for a brief few seconds, we see a shot of Maude’s arm with a tattoo. This is very easy to miss as it doesn’t last for very long, but when we examine that tattoo, Maude’s past becomes clear. Engraved on Maude’s wrist is a 6-digit number; while this part of her past is never explicitly mentioned, it is clear that Maude is a holocaust survivor. This gives us a deeper insight into why she embraces life with such a passion.

After working as an editor on numerous films in the 1960s, Hal Ashby decided to give directing a go, Harold and Maude was his second film, and it is thought to be one of his best. Ashby’s unique style suits the 2 main characters of the film very well, both Harold and Maude have unique stories, and they are shown off brilliantly with Ashby’s introductions to the characters. The first time we see Harold, he does one of the fake suicides that becomes synonymous with his character, and it’s that moment when the first time we see Harold’s face, it appears he has just hung himself, that sets the tone for his character throughout the film. Maude’s introduction happens in much the same way; after a few brief moments earlier in the film, we finally meet her for real at an unknown person’s funeral, she says, “I'll be eighty next week. A good time to move on, don't you think” a moment referencing her eventual suicide at the end of the film. But it is the moment  shortly after this that truly sets the tone for Maude’s character, when she drives off in her car, we suspect nothing until the priest runs out of the church in anger as he exclaims, “That woman… she just took my car.” We see here Maude’s total disregard for any form of rules in her pursuit of life and fulfilment. It’s this then that I think the Director, Hal Ashby, does best in this film, the introduction of the characters sets the tone for their journey throughout the course of the film. 

In the final scene, when we see his car shoot off the top of a cliff and swiftly flattened, we see that Harold’s obsession with death finally comes to end once he witnesses the death of the person that he loves. It is in this way then that it appears Maude arrives in Harold’s life to change him, to pass on her own ideals, to set him free as she is. Maude is the free spirit who loves life but accepts death as a part of nature, and Harold sees death as a joke; he doesn’t care about life or death. It’s the irony of the final 10 minutes, then, with Maude being the one actually to kill herself and for Harold to accept life as a beautiful thing that needs to be protected as he walks off into the distance playing his banjo after he sends his hearse (a vehicle synonymous with death) off a cliff. Harold was obsessed with death, which led him to meet Maude, eventually leading to Harold understanding why life is so important and why death is not something to be joked about. Over the course of the film, Harold essentially gains Maude’s understanding of life and her beliefs. We could maybe bring in Maude’s history in the holocaust into this idea, Maude might have been like Harold, who doesn’t see life as an important thing, something to joke about, but her time in a concentration camp, death and destruction around her could have made her realise how important life truly is and at the opposite side of the spectrum, death is just a part of nature.

Throughout this essay, I have talked about Harold being obsessed with death, but when you look at it a bit deeper, they are both clearly obsessed with death for very different reasons. Harold sees death as something to joke about, and he uses suicide to play pranks on his mother. In stark contrast, Maude accepts death as a part of nature, something not to be afraid of but celebrated.

In conclusion, the main narrative of “Harold and Maude” is Harold’s transformation from the immature young man obsessed with death and destruction to the mature young man who carries the ideals and legacy of the woman he loves, Maude, with him throughout his life and future. At the end of the film, he has learnt to accept that life is a beautiful thing and that death can be painful, but it is a part of nature, not something to joke about as he had been doing throughout the film. 

References

Ashby, H. (Director). (1971). Harold and Maude [Film]. Paramount.