Fight the Power!

            Harold & Maude was a very interesting movie, and it carried out completely differently than I thought it would. The humor tended toward the darker side, and wasn’t really a laugh-out-loud type of movie. The humor was much more subtle in this movie and could be missed entirely if the viewer isn't really looking for it. This movie was definitely more of a character driven movie; the plot was a little lacking and hard to follow. Harold & Maude had a similar message as The Life of Brian and probably had its share of controversy as well. Throughout this film, the ‘do-whatever-you’re-going-to-do’ Cat Stevens song would play and carried the same weight as Brian’s lecture to the multitude and the ‘give a whistle’ song from The Life of Brian rolled into one. This movie wasn’t really that appealing to me, and trying to think of a target audience for this film was a little difficult, until I remembered the era in which it was made. This movie’s main message was basically to “fight the power” and the two main characters did exactly that… in every way possible. This point could be made in a mocking gesture, considering again, the time in which it was created and the extremes this movie goes to in portraying Harold and Maude's railing against the society in which they live is rather comical. Although, I think that the humor as a whole, is made at the expense of those in places of authority. 

In the scene after Harold announces that he is getting married, the viewer is shown in a first person manner how every person in authority in this film disapproves his action. The psychologist, the Father and his uncle all chastise Harold while there is a photograph of a person of power behind them. The Father has the picture of a saint behind him, the psychologist has Sigmund Freud and Harold’s uncle has Nixon behind him.  This, of course, symbolizes authority and puts these men as the authority figures that Harold and Maude are fighting against. Obviously the one character they would try to do the most damage to would be the army man that supports war and has a portrait of a president behind his desk. 

What really intrigued me about this film was the imagery and how each scene was seemingly set up carefully and precisely for each character. As an example, The first time imagery and visual symbols became obvious to me, was the first appointment Harold has with his psychologist. His office was very clean, very symmetrical, and how it was arranged worked against how a typical psychologist’s office is portrayed. Harold and his psychologist would sit in chairs that didn’t even face each other, but faced the lounge sofa like it was a television, or piece of art to behold. Whenever we saw the interaction between these two, there really wasn’t much discussion or progress being made, at least from the psychologist’s point of view. Whether it was making fun of protesters or those in authority, or both, Harold & Maude was a movie that fits perfectly into the era in which it was made, and probably hit the chords that it wanted to when it was released,