There is a Film Festival in town this week. Lots of hoopla going on, some big stars to see, and lots of films showing, all day, all over this little burg. We are excited to go watch a movie at the beach... hopefully the weather will hold. A bunch of Pixar shorts. Sounds like a good time.
The thing that got me writing, though, is that one of the films they are showing is an all time favorite of mine, and a classic, to boot. "Harold and Maude". Bud Cort, Ruth Gordon, and magic. They are showing it in conjunction with a conversation with a former Paramount Studio exec from those wacky 70's. He's going to talk about those wacky 70's. I'm glad that it's "Harold and Maude", and not "Smoky and the Bandit". Just saying.
Having grown up in a small town, knowing your pals since pre-school, it was huge to be moving away at the start of junior year in high school. Actually we moved in November of that year, so class was already in session... brutal.
I was at the most awkward of ages, and kind of a weirdo, on some levels. Sure, I was nice, and polite, did ok in school,but I was fixated on vampires, zombies and Neil Young. I had just started spreading my teenage wings, meeting up with some of the cool "art class" kids at parties, and even delving into the evil weed. I was in the marching band, and on the swim team... just a semi-normal 70's teenager waiting for my life to start. Then we moved, and it was like starting from scratch.
It was so scary, because all the old pals sort of knew who I was, and what to expect from me. Vampires. Zombies. Neil Young. Swimming. Tomboy girl. The one who pretty much gets along with most groups of kids, not cute enough to have a boyfriend, always has a crush on the unattainable cool guy... we all know the type. These days I might be a goth kid. "Look at me, but don't look at me".
So. New school. No friends. What's a girl to do?
Well, this girl found salvation at the local "art house" movie theatre. Soooo early 70's, with no seats, just big old pillows on the sloping, thickly carpeted floor. "Healthy" choices at the snack bar (my first taste of Tiger Bars!), real popcorn. And all the best of the art house films. Of course "Rocky Horror", but also stuff like "The King Of Hearts", "400 Blows", "Nosferatu", all the classics. And the late night concert movies, where everyone in the place was smoking pot.
I'm not sure just how I found this place, but it's a small town, and I must have searched it out. I was just old enough to drive myself into town to catch a movie. My dear parents, wracked with the guilt of moving me at such a dicey time in my life, let me do pretty much anything I wanted. God Bless Them. It was heaven, to enter the darkness, curl into a pillow, and be taken way away for a few hours. It was a way to spend a few hours at night, trying not to feel like a loser with no friends. Hell, it was the perfect escape.
So. "Harold and Maude". Sigh. The perfect tincture for what was ailing me, which was loneliness. A story of 2 odd people finding comfort and love in each other. I related to Harold like I had never related to anyone in my young life. I don't think I even knew what it was to relate to a character in a movie until this. Well, except vampires. And zombies. This was a whole different feeling. He was lonely, and decidedly odd. He liked... no loved, the dark side. He hated his Mom, which I did not relate to. His family was filthy rich, too...another difference. But he was a weirdo, dressed in black suits, drove a souped up Jaguar he turned into a hearse, and that's what sealed the deal. The strangeness. See the film. Ruth Gordon is amazing. I loved her gentle hand with Harold, and how she helped to heal him, and transition him into adulthood. And he helps her transition into the next life. I wanted to be Maude. I wanted to be Harold. And let's not forget the soundtrack...Cat Stevens singing "Trouble" still brings me to tears. That banjo bit at the end...I mean come on. Plus it was filmed in the Bay Area, so some of it was like seeing home again.
I remember seeing the movie with my cousins at one time, and we got obsessed with it. They lived a couple of hours away, but at some point we saw it together and bonded over it. We all needed something that it provided us. We were each going through our own particular version of teenage hell.
Then, in a new town, and on my own, I binged. After the 15th or 16th night in a row, they started letting me in for free. I brought my sweet little brother, my only "friend" at the time, to see it. I brought my dear mother to see it. I brought my older brother, home for a week from college, to see it. I could not get enough. I believe I saw it 28 nights in a row, by the time it left the theatre. Really. I don't know what my parents must have thought, or if they even knew I was going night after night like that, to the same movie. I just love that they understood, and gave me the freedom to "go see a movie", not really knowing that they were making my life a little less like hell.
"Harold and Maude"..... just another little art house film from the 70's.... yeah? For me it was more. For me, it saved my life.
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