Transcription

• Rachel Barbanel-Fried

  Why do people see this movie and want to see it again? What is specific to Harold and Maude that pulls people in? Cat Stevens has a genius soundtrack. It's beautifully shot, right? The pacing is really done. All of those things are true. But it's really a timeless story. It's a love story.

• John Gaspard

  It's one of those movies that you bring your friends to, and depending on how they react to it, sort of determines whether or not they're your friends.

• Timothy King

  I don't know. I can really articulate what it is about the film, other than just saying it's kind of everything.

• Tim Kirkman (Host)

  Welcome to Real Lives, a podcast about movies and the people who love them. Each episode, we focus on one film and hear from people about how it made an impact on their lives. My name is Tim Kirkman, and today we're talking about Harold and Maude.

• Timothy King

  What's your name?

• Michael LaRocca

  Harold. Harold Chasen.

• Film Clip

  Oh, how do you do? I'm Dame Marjorie Chardin, but you may call me Maude. How do you do? Nice to meet you. Well, thank you. I'm going to be great friends, don't you?

• Tim Kirkman (Host)

  When it was released in 1971, a reviewer for Variety said Harold and Maude was about as much fun as a burning orphanage. Other reviews were not much better. But over time, Harold and Maud has become a cult classic and one of the most beloved films of all time. The story is simple. Harold Chasen, a wealthy, death-obsessed young man who stages fake suicides and attends funerals to provoke his detached mother, meets Maud, a vivacious 79-year-old woman who lives every day to the fullest. Over the course of a week, Maude teaches Harold about life and love. The film was written by Colin Higgins and directed by Hal Ashby and stars Bud Cort as Harold and Ruth Gordon as mod.

• John Gaspard

  When you try to describe it to people, you tend to get a lot of what Arlo Guthrie called a hairy eyeball. What is that? What is that? Because if you approach it just from, well, it's a young man who falls in love with an 80-year-old woman, that's a little odd. I'm John Gaspard. I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I'm a filmmaker and novelist. I saw it when I was in ninth grade. I'd heard about it soon after it had come out. It was not doing well throughout the country. A lot of theaters had given it a week or two and it went away. But in two places, it sort of latched on. One was Paris, France, and the other was what you would call the Paris of the U.S., Minneapolis, Minnesota. It's landed at and stayed at the Westgate Theater. in Minneapolis for over two years, I think two and a half years. And that was the only movie they played for two and a half years. Now this is back around 1971, 72. So there are not multiplexes. I rode my bike over there on a Saturday night to see it. The place was packed. And I believe I went back the next day for the Sunday matinee. And I watched it again. And I continued to watch it and continued to watch it to this day. But I was there a lot during the two and a half years. that it played at the Westgate. But it was a while before it became a cult film that everybody today knows and loves. Now, the things that I didn't know about it that I have eventually learned. It was written by a guy named Colin Higgins. Colin Higgins went on to write and direct Foul Play. He co-wrote and directed Nine to Five. He did the musical version of Best Little Warhouse. And he was a student at, I believe, UCLA. And I. understand that he had written Harold and Maud as his thesis project. It was a 30-minute short, and he showed it to his landlady. Now, this being California and LA, there's no simple stories. His landlady actually was a woman named Mildred Lewis, whose husband was a film producer. Colin lived in their guest house and did errands for them, took their daughter to school, cleaned the pool, that sort of thing. And he showed her this 30-minute script, and she said, this is great. Gave it to her husband, who was a producer. He took it to Paramount Pictures at the perfect time because at the time Paramount Pictures was being run by Robert Evans with assistance by Peter Bart. And they weren't afraid of weird ideas and they loved filmmakers. Hal Ashby was brought in to direct. At the time, he had only really directed The Landlord, which was a modest hit. He'd worked for years with Norman Jewison as his editor. So you have a second time director who's back is in editing. understood editing. And that, I think, is the reason Harold Maud is a hit. Yes, Colin Higgins wrote a great script, but Hal Ashby made it into a great movie by cutting things out. And it is an emotionally fulfilling experience for most people. I'll give an example. I was set up on a date when I was in college. I said, well, let's go see Harold and Maud. And I said, I think you'll like it. It's my favorite movie of all time. So we go in and we watch the movie and we come out and I turned to her and I said, what do you think? And she said, I don't know, it kind of stunk, didn't it? I admire honesty. Sure, that's fine. But that was it because she was really on the other side of the fence for me on Harold Maud, which probably meant she was on the other side of the fence for me on all kinds of things. And there was no moving forward. If this movie didn't touch you, then I don't know what's wrong with you.

• Film Clip

  Makes me want to do somersaults. Well, why don't you? I'd feel stupid. Harold? Everyone has the right to make an ass out of themselves. You can't let the world judge you too much.

• Nikki Nyne

  Taking life and just doing whatever you want, that was really something that I struggled with for a long time. I struggled with my weight. I struggled with my looks and my confidence. Just accepting that I was just very different and I wasn't going to stick, you know, blend in with the crowd. I was going to stick out. I was going to be the yellow umbrella in a sea of black, you know, like that was going to be who I was. And I needed to accept that. My name is Nikki Nine. I am from Cranston, Rhode Island. I have a boy who is 12. His name is Tesla. And then I have a little girl named Jaylee, who is seven. I want to say that I was around the age of 14 or 15 when I first saw the movie and I'm pretty positive that I found it through the channel guide on the tv and I always tended to go towards the quirky independent or you know different kind of movies so I think I just randomly came across it one day and I I told my mom about she's like yes I know that movie um so as a edgy Thank you. teenager and you know I connected with Harold at that moment as time has gone on and I've re-watched the movie many many times I feel like I'm slowly becoming Maude um and I just love the movie for everything that it is and from you know when I first saw it I would introduce it to you know my friends if I was trying to date a guy I'd be like hey let's watch this movie together um just to see you know what they thought of it I was definitely struggling with my own mental health issues. I was actually diagnosed as bipolar back then and I was expelled from the public school system because of like an assault and battery on a staff member but it actually wasn't. It was like a weird self-defense kind of thing and so I was homeschooled for a little bit. I was also in between different treatment centers, group homes. My mom was actually put in a really weird catch. 22, kind of, if she had me back in the home, I was endangering my two younger brothers with my behavior so that if she brought me home, they would take my brothers. But if she didn't bring me home, then she was like neglecting me. The system was so messed up back then. So for a little bit of time, I actually was in the foster care system. I also struggled with a lot of sexual promiscuity and I had a very inappropriate relationship with a 23-year-old while I was 16. I had had him watch the movie with me. And, you know, I thought, oh, we're so cool. Like, I'm so cool. Like, he likes this. He likes me. I will say I knew what I was doing. I knew what I wanted. But at 16, you're almost expected to... be closer to 18 and act closer to 18 and as an official adult than you really are and it's tough and eventually what ended up happening is I got put into this great program called St. Vincent's Home and it was in Massachusetts and it was like a residential and you also went to school there. I didn't just get like my GED, I actually got my high school diploma through the school system that I got expelled from. They were able to credit me and I got my diploma for high school from that program. And then I transitioned out of the program because I, you know, became an adult. And it was great because they helped me out with putting together like a list of like things that I would need for my first apartment and, you know, things like that. And they had a Christmas thing that was sponsored by the community and the churches and stuff. And I was able to ask for like a toaster, you know, and things like that for my apartment. So it was really great to like, and of course, my mom helped and everything because I was still involved with my family.

• Film Clip

  I like to watch things grow. They grow and bloom and fade and die and change into something else.

• Nikki Nyne

  When I was in my early 20s, before I had my son, I was living alone for the first time in my life. And I had taken my medication and flushed it down the toilet. So it was very bad timing. I was really trying to... get out in the world and to try and experience things. And I had found online that they were going to be showing the movie Harold and Maude in a theater. I want to say it was Pennsylvania. I could be wrong. And I was so determined to try and get to this, this theater. And I didn't drive at the time. So I was looking at like bus schedules and, and trains and and hotels and I was trying so hard to be able to like come up with a plan that I could like do this by myself and unfortunately my social anxiety did get in the way and I was never able to do it. Looking back I really wish I had. I think about that often about man I if I had just been able to go I wonder like who could I have met or you know what I mean not that my life would change drastically but I could have probably met some really awesome friends.

• Film Clip

  I think about that a lot. Harold, I ask, do you have any friends? No. None at all? No. Maybe one.

• Michael LaRocca

  I've never thought of a parallel between someone who likes the movie Harold and Maude and someone who would join the Jehovah's Witnesses. Jehovah's Witnesses are outliers in the American... Christian society. So maybe there was something there. Maybe I thought, oh, I'm a misfit. These people are also misfits, or these are people who are not afraid to be different. My name is Michael LaRocca. I currently live in Joliet, Illinois, and I'm a home care provider. I grew up in suburban Chicago, youngest of five kids. I was definitely the mama's boy all throughout. my childhood. I was definitely the type who wanted to stay inside and read books, stay in and watch all my children with my mother rather than go out and play sports. She and I were very, very close all throughout my childhood. I do remember being 15 years old and being in high school and having this conversation with this classmate and saying that I was very interested in religion. And she said well maybe you know, do you know what religion I am? And I said, yeah, I think I heard someone say you're Jehovah's Witness. And we started talking about that. And we had great conversations. We got along well. We had a very similar sense of humor. We really did click. So I pursued membership in the church, I guess you could say. And I pursued my relationship with her. And we got married when we were both 20 and were married a little over three years. But I knew that I could not continue living a lie. I knew that secretly I was gay. So being gay and being a witness, just not possible. It's just not going to happen. Homosexuality is lumped in with adultery and murder. That is how Jehovah's Witnesses viewed, and as far as I know, still do view homosexuality. Anyone who grows up feeling that they are different, anyone who grows up queer, understands the concept of forbidden love. And Harold and Maude is a movie that speaks to non-conformists, non-traditionalists, and certainly queer people are non-conformists. We're not conforming to a traditional relationship, what we're told, how we should be living our lives or who we should be loving. When we meet people, when we're younger, we question ourselves and we question the other person. I didn't have to do that with George because when George and I met, he had just turned 40, I had just turned 45. We knew ourselves very well. So it was a wonderful feeling after 20 years to find someone and say, yes, I could very easily marry this person. We just celebrated our five-year wedding anniversary.

• Film Clip

  Maude, do you pray? Pray? No. I communicate. With God? With life.

• Timothy King

  I've always been attracted to older women. ever since I can remember. Like people had, had Farrah Fawcett on the walls. I had Angela Lansbury. My name is Timothy King. I live in Burke, Virginia. I teach middle school theater. Middle school was the worst time of my life. There was a lot of, a lot of bullying aimed at me. I would wear black because there's nothing darker. I, I knew that in my rural town, I never fit in and movies were one of the main ways that I escaped. I was trying to remember the first time I saw Harold and Maude. I do remember being shocked because I mean, it starts with a suicide and you're like, what the hell am I watching? And then you realize, oh my God. I love this so much.

• Film Clip

  Tell me, Harold, how many of these suicides have you performed? An accurate number would be difficult to gauge. Were they all done for your mother's benefit?

• Speaker #10

  No, no, I would not say benefit.

• Timothy King

  It's seeing Harold crying out for attention, but also crying out to be seen and to find someone who took the time to understand him. I think I really kind of bonded with that part of his psyche. When I found theater really in high school, finally I found my people and we were all weird. When you do theater, you can be anything. You put on someone else's problems for an hour or two hours and you explore their perspective and their life and their experiences. And it just, it gets you out of yourself. But as you get older, you realize theater actually brings you back to yourself. I started dating this woman. I was doing a show. She was a volunteer at the show. And all night we were just laughing and... flirting. And after the show, I just said, Hey, would you like to go out to dinner? And she said, sure. So she gave me her information. I called her, we went out to dinner. She's older. I was 30 and she was 60 and funny and crazy and a little accent. She was from Poland. I introduced her to a friend of mine and she said after she left, she goes, Oh my God, she's mawed. And I paused and I went, she is mine. But I mean, she really, she was in almost every way. And she almost looked a little bit like Ruth Gordon, a little younger, but, you know, that sort of same look. It's very funny. She had been a lawyer in Poland and she had. She vacationed in America, and when she was here, martial law was declared. And her mother said, don't come back. We were together for about two years.

• Film Clip

  What is that up there? Oh, that's my umbrella. That's just a relic. I found it when I was packing to come to America. It used to be my defense on picket lines and rallies and political meetings, being dragged off by the police and attacked. by thugs of the opposition. What were you fighting for? Oh, big issue. Liberty, rights, justice.

• Timothy King

  When I was student teaching, I was teaching in a high school. And we were doing a unit on comedy. And I said, here's a very different kind of comedy. And I showed it to them. And out of the 30 students in the class, one kid said, ew. But most of the kids saw it for being really funny and unexpected and all that. But it was one kid in particular who was in tears. It had such a profound impact on him. And the next day. Next class, he said, thank you so much for showing me that movie. I'm trying to help students feel comfortable in their own skin. And whatever that takes, if you just need someone to say, you know what? You're okay. You're enough. What happens if you just try? Try this scene. Try this role. Try this song. Try the banjo.

• Film Clip

  Just be a. repulsive, be fanciful, let the music flow out of you. You've got to make some chords. Put your finger on the second fret there, then this one on the third, then this one here.

• Rachel Barbanel-Fried

  We are, as humans, always looking to see ourselves reflected in the other, because there's a way that we can relate to something within ourselves when we see it outside of ourselves. because we see the best parts of ourselves and the worst parts of ourselves reflected. My name is Rachel Barbin-Alfreed. I live in New York, and I'm a clinical psychologist and an executive leadership coach. Both sides of me, and I think of all of us who are like pulled towards this movie, are reflected. We either see ourselves... as we feel we are, or we see ourselves as we wish to be. We see ourselves in Harold as the unseen, unloved, unappreciated, powerless one. And like, you know, I could relate more to Maude personally at this age, right? Like, I'm like, I could see myself being that crazy, you know, collector woman, right? Here we have this 20-year-old Harold who... is filthy rich, has something that we all sort of have this idea that we want. You know, if my life, if I was rich, then my life would be easy. Who is obsessed with death, right? And the shrink in me is like, well, he's obsessed with death because he doesn't feel like living because he doesn't feel seen. And he's falling in love with this pixie of a woman who is clothed in the body of a grandmother, but he's suffering. And he's suffering in this way that's entirely relatable, which is that he doesn't feel valued or seen or powerful or important. He says, it's just much easier to be dead. Maude's response is like perfect. It's so therapeutic.

• Film Clip

  I understand a lot of people enjoy being dead, but they're not. dead red they're just backing away from life, reach out, take a chance get hurt even, but play as well as you can. Go team go! Give me an L! give me an I! give me a V! give me an E! L-I-V-E Live!

• Rachel Barbanel-Fried

  The moment where she um reveals her her number tattoo that that I didn't catch that for a number of viewings because it's so subtle. He sort of goes to grab her hand to take her hand and her I think her tunic sort of falls away. And it's just a it's just a moment where you see this number tattooed on her arm. And there's no there's no other discussion of it. There's no recognition. He doesn't ask her about it. I don't even think she... acknowledges his seeing it. It's just this one moment. And so it is really easy to just miss it. I don't think it's clear that she's Jewish. They don't make that known anywhere. She talks about being a rabble rouser. And I found myself wondering, was she in a concentration camp because she was a political prisoner? There were those people. I mean, obviously. the vast majority of the people who died in concentration camps or who were interred in concentration camps, obviously she didn't die, you know, were Jews, but it wasn't only Jews, right? It was gays. It was Roma. It was political prisoners. I mean, there were lots of people. So there's like nothing in the movie that says that she's Jewish. The other thing that I picked up this time was the fact that she's living in an empty railroad car. My tagline is just like, nobody comes to me because everything's going well. So people come to talk about things that are going not so well. And we try to figure out how to, you know, make it go a little bit better. I professionally reside in the realm of suffering. I'm constantly sitting in this place of where people are grappling with these questions. And I struggle all the time with. like the grief of when we lose someone. And that scene between Harold and Maude, when Harold says to her, but you can't die, I love you. And she says, oh, Harold, good. Now go and love some more. That's the whole kind of overarching ethos of the movie. We all wish for connection. We all wish to be loved. We all wish to be accepted for who we are, just as we are, which is what Maud offers. I love you just the way you are.

• Film Clip

  Harold loves Maud.

• Tim Kirkman (Host)

  This episode of Real Lives was written, produced, and hosted by me, Tim Kirkman. You can support this podcast by subscribing to our Real Lives sub-sack, where I write about films each week. Real Lives podcast is made in collaboration with Transylvania University. The executive producer of the podcast is Mary Beth Greeley. Original music was composed by John Crook for Space Factory. Special thanks to our guests on this episode, Nikki Nine, Michael LaRocca, Timothy King, Rachel Barbinall-Fried. and John Gaspar, whose book Held Over, about the long run of Harold and Maude at a Minneapolis theater, is available in hardcover and paperback. Or you can buy those formats or the special edition with custom Harold and Maude endpapers directly from John's website, albertsbridgebooks.com. That's albertsbridgebooks.com. You can find that link in the notes. Follow us on the usual platforms and also at our website, reallivespodcast.com. That's That's R-E-E-L lives podcast dot com, where we feature original artwork specially designed for each episode. If you like what you heard, we hope you'll tune in again and share it with friends. And be sure to let us know what movie you'd like to hear about or maybe even talk about. Until next time. See you at the movies.