But One Life to Give

Embedded in a time when the Vietnam War was ongoing, Harold & Maude plays out Harold's adolescence on the verge of adulthood against the backdrop of the United States coming to terms with two failed wars.  His mother pushes him into being a man by looking for his dates so that he can be married and fulfill her view of what adulthood means.  She is bound up in forcing him into being what she wants and not what he, and by extension, the United States, wants to become.

In Greek myth, Calliope is one of the muses, in particular the muse of poetry. By the time Maude and Harold are at an amusement park, enjoying the mid-way rides, it should be clear that she is Harold's Calliope with calliope music in the background. She has shown him wonderful contraptions and art that hint at how wonderful the world can be if he embraces it and choses what he wants to do rather than accepting the choices of others.

Uncle Victor is representing an older view, wishing that the Germans could be setup again for a "good war" because the more recent wars "...have been a national disgrace." An older view that needs to pass away so that the younger generation can move on. For one moment, Maude is linked to the older world of Uncle Victor when Harold notices a numbered tattoo on Maude's arm.  The tattoo, put there by Germans during World War II, is another representation of something old that should be allowed to pass away and be left behind.

Victor's focus on Nathan Hale links Harold's theatrical fake deaths to Hale's famous quote, "I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country." Maude is pulling Harold away from his dramatic death scenes to show him that there is much more to life than the dramatic and shrill deaths he enacts.  You can see that Harold is already taking this message to heart before Maude passes away when, instead of faking his death with his second date, he cuts off his fake arm, like an animal biting off a leg to escape a trap.

And of course, there is the issue of Maude's age. When I watch Ruth Gordon's performance, I can see a younger person who is inside her aging body.  If taken as a tale about the adolescence of the United States, it is a good lesson about avoiding the obsession of youth in our culture and enjoying the good parts of age as much as the young. The last words of dialogue spoken in the movie are between Harold and Maude, "I love you" says Harold, and Maude responds "Oh, Harold, that is wonderful. Go and love some more."

I hadn't connected an influence of Wes Anderson's work with Hal Ashby.  The visual style and pace of story telling are very similar between Ashby and Anderson's work.