In this episode I’ll focus on ‘how stories connect us’, as we continue the discussion about the feature film HAROLD AND MAUDE (1971) that we’re studying, along with it’s script, in our StoryTellers Film Club. What are we discussing ? Everything ! That means discussing all the mediums and tools used to tell a story in film – from story structure to words to acting, how an image is framed and lit, wardrobe, make-up, props, and the set and location, music and sound ! In real life we focus on people’s words. By studying the characters in a film and all the world that surrounds them -- you’re going to learn clues to people’s behavior and motivation that’ll make you more alert in your own world !
In this episode I’ll focus on ‘how stories connect us’, as we continue the discussion about the feature film HAROLD AND MAUDE (1971) that we’re studying, along with it’s script, in our StoryTellers Film Club. What are we discussing ? Everything ! That means discussing all the mediums and tools used to tell a story in film – from story structure to words to acting, how an image is framed and lit, wardrobe, make-up, props, and the set and location, music and sound ! In real life we focus on people’s words. By studying the characters in a film and all the world that surrounds them -- you’re going to learn clues to people’s behavior and motivation that’ll make you more alert in your own world !
EPISODE #2 – WHAT AGE ?! BE NOT DEFINED !
This is the One Black Woman podcast. I’m you host Trayce, your StoryTelling Shaman ! In this podcast you’ll discover the ins and outs of how stories are constructed. When you go beyond just enjoying a story -- to deriving it’s real meaning and how it worked its magic – you’ll become confident when shaping your own story. Follow Me ! As I help you portray you as you; increase your options for how you communicate your story; and understand how stories connect us.
In this episode we’ll focus on ‘how stories connect us’, as we focus on the ‘meet cute’ of the lead characters in the feature film HAROLD AND MAUDE from (1971) that we’re studying, along with it’s script, in our StoryTellers Film Club. I’m joined by Shannon who co-facilitates the StoryTellers Film Club with me. Hey Shannon !
Shannon: Hey Trayce, good to be back !
We’re studying the film HAROLD AND MAUDE over ten sessions with residents at Shads Landing Senior Living Complex. What better place to be discussing a film about a 20 year old man-child who is rich, depressed, lonely and obsessed with death who falls for Maude, an energetic, radiant free spirit in her 70s who lives for the moment. Hey, you heard me – falls for !
Imagine how HAROLD AND MAUDE was received when it was released in (1971) --- the taboo story of a relationship with a 60-year age gap – and between an old woman and a young man no less ! Even by the standards of the more adventurous and hipper 1970s movies – HAROLD AND MAUDE was considered shocking. The film, with little promotional marketing, hit the theaters the same day as the highly promoted film THE GODFATHER. HAROLD AND MAUDE was a big flop, gone soon after release.
This was also a year after LOVE STORY was the top box office film, which was a story about a beautiful young couple who get together only for one of them to die --- but not before saying "Love means never having to say you're sorry" – which ended up on many pillows and mugs. In LOVE STORY Harvard student and hockey player Oliver Barrett IV visits the library and ‘meets cute’ music major Jenny Cavilleri, who works in the library to help pay her tuition. Even though his father is old Boston upper tier, and her father is a poor Italian baker, and Oliver swings a big stick and Jenny reads --- we immediately get their connection --- they’re both hot !
Whereas Understanding and believing in how HAROLD AND MAUDE’s love story unfolds is to understand that deep human connections go beyond our same ages or our backgrounds --- it’s our stories that can connect us when we learn how to share them.
By the 80s HAROLD AND MAUDE had become a cult classic. Eventually it became #45 on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 most classic comedies! And on the American Film Institute’s list of the top ten greatest romantic comedies of all time – HAROLD AND MAUDE comes in at #9 ! It is technically a romantic comedy, but it’s unlike any modern rom-com we know !
Shannon: I’m not surprised it comes in at #9 ! It’s really a lovely and weird love story. I studied it in college in my film studies class. I was in my 20s. That I experienced it as a beautiful love story – was a wake-up call to me to see old people as still being relevant and who I could possibly learn from. When I watched it in my 20s I saw it from Harold’s perspective. But now rewatching it in my 50s and having been a Human Resources Director, I think more about Maude’s story and age discrimination and misinformation about aging – except Maude refuses to let anyone stop or limit her ! And in her thinking Maude is definitely ‘younger’ than Harold and inspires him.
Talk about an elder inspiring – Tara VanDerveer is Stanford College’s women’s basketball coach*. She’s 70 ! And she’s expected to win her 1,203rd game within the next few weeks and will then overtake Duke’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski (if I’m mispronouncing they also call him Coach K !) and she’ll become the most winning – man or woman – college basketball coach of all time ! Coach Tara says about inspiring her younger colleagues -- “we can take them to a place they can’t reach by themselves.”
Age discrimination often causes older people to shut down before their time because they stop being challenged. To keep our brain going we need activities that require mental focus, use our reasoning and problem solving abilities, lead us to question and reflect on the world around us, and connect us socially with others.
Shannon: Well our studying of a feature film and it’s script does all that for me ! And it’s amazing to see it doing that for the Shads Landing residents.
Well, to be clear – even though I’m leading a college level analysis of the film and script – we’re flying through the material ! We’re like high-end unprocessed fast food ! We’re looking at just parts of the script – enough for them to see how a visual story is written in words, and to understand that a script is a blueprint that the production team will edit and change on their way to making a film they hope will be successful.
Shannon: Talk about changes from script to film – in Session #1 we viewed the first (10) minutes of the film, and it was my job to do an analysis of the differences between it and its script. – almost three of the first ten pages were moved to later in the film and what added up to about another page was just deleted ! Then there were little changes in the descriptions of actions and the setting, as well as word changes in the dialogue.
Yes, it was important to explain to our Club members a script is always white pages with three holes punched, kept together with brass fasteners – because it is expected to change! You have to be able to easily take it apart. When there are significant changes they will take the old pages out and copy the new pages in a different color ! So you could end up with a rainbow colored script ! Be aware that when you find a script of a well known film for free online --- you never know what version it is ! Usually it’s an earlier version before all the changes that happen in production. And then after production when the footage is edited – major changes can happen then too – scenes moved or deleted !
Let’s talk about the first (10) minutes of the film that we screened in the first session. We met Harold, as he desperately seeks attention from his indifferent mother by staging elaborate and gruesome fake suicides. Then we went back and discussed what we saw beat by beat. I asked Club members to build a profile of the Harold we first meet in what was his ordinary everyday world. Some of the descriptions given was that Harold is precise, with exact time and planning. One member, Esme, said Harold must have been well read because some of the things he did – if he didn’t know how to do it properly he could have actually killed himself. So I said, yes, he had to know how to safely ‘execute’ his deaths – ha-ha! And this led to a discussion of how the film crew actually set up the fake suicides for the actor to do.
Shannon: The Club members were really astounded when they started to think about all the jobs involved in making the film that at first they had just enjoyed watching. It was great when they started asking ‘how did they do that’ and ‘why’ ? They really felt like they had entered a behind-the-scenes world when before they had never even thought about it existing. It was exciting for them !
And they identified that the three most important places in Harold’s life were:
#1: The dark mansion where he lived, with it’s heavy furniture and curtains, seemingly empty of people except him and his mother. The filmmakers didn’t show the many servants it would realistically take to upkeep a huge mansion like that. We talked about how that was a choice, not to show servants because they wanted to emphasize how alone Harold was.
The second important location in Harold’s life was his psychiatrist’s office. We talked about how the psychiatrist seems to be giving Harold reasonable advise when he says:
PSYCHIATRIST
There seems to be a definite pattern emerging.
And this pattern once isolated can be coped with.
Recognize the problem and you’re halfway on the
road to its solution !
But then we went on to discuss the visuals of this scene. Yes the psychiatrist’s office is bright and simply furnished, in contrast to Harold’s home. But we agreed the whole set-up is odd. Harold and his doctor are sitting side by side in identical big high back chairs dressed in almost identical suits –the message perhaps that everyone in Harold’s affluent world is supposed to end up being cut out of the same pattern ? One club member, Art, said it looked almost like they were equals – that Harold was just as smart and knowing as his psychiatrist. And indeed it looks like Harold’s just nodding along to whatever the psychiatrist says while mentally being absent. I asked the Club members if they had ever been in situations controlled by an authority figure who they felt didn’t see them as individuals – most of the members nodded !
The third environment that is important to Harold is identified when the psychiatrist asks Harold: ‘What do you find fulfilling? What gives you that special satisfaction ?’ And Harold answers: ‘I go to funerals.’
The last scene we watched in our first session was Harold outside at a cemetery. He’s dressed in a black suit, discreetly joining on the edges a group gathered around a casket that a priest is saying last rites over. We talked about what funerals are like and what might attract Harold to them. Funerals are where people are bonded together by human emotions, and indeed we see crying and hugs --- things Harold doesn’t see in his own world.
Then Harold is distracted from the funeral he’s discreetly crashing when he looks across the way and sees this older woman, dressed in a light color and sitting on a headstone openly enjoying watching the funeral proceedings -- while eating an apple! Harold does a double-take and then looks away confused, almost embarrassed by seeing something improper.
This is our ‘meet cute’ for Harold and Maude ! At a funeral where neither of them belongs – and it’s not a ‘meeting’, it’s a first ‘spotting’. The audience is immediately curious and wants to know – ‘Who is this woman ?!’ – more so than Harold because he doesn’t expect to see her again. But we all know he will ! Stories are most effective when there is vivid contrast -- and boy, have we been given a contrast !
I opened this episode by saying it will be about ‘how stories connect us’. I hope you have gotten a sense of the rich discussion we had in the Club as we begin to understand the story of Harold and Maude, and how the members became one brain working together to understand what they saw. Well I hope this episode has also connected you to both the story of the film and to the StoryTellers Film Club ! We hope you will want to return and join us for our next episode: “A Look Under The Hood”.
This is One Black Woman ! Until The next episode, here’s to inspiring each other !
* On Jan 22, 2024, Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer became the most winning college basketball coach -- male or female - ever !
Copyright 2024 – Trayce Gardner / catering2us@gmail.com