
The Empty Nostalgia of ‘The Sound of Music’ - tintinnabula
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/01/20/so-long-farewell/
======
jasode
Instead of the useless title _" So Long, Farewell"_, the webpage's html has a
meta <title> which better describes the author's thesis: _< title>The Empty
Nostalgia of ‘The Sound of Music’</title>_

My tldr: the author Kate Guadagnino describes her changing assessment of TSOM
from being obsessed with it to being dismissive of it.

The obsessive stage included being hooked by the songs' earworms and reading a
book bio from the actress playing the oldest child. [js2 corrected]

The dismissive stage is noticing that the Nazi depiction is too tame and not
historically accurate of all their evils. In other words, she now sees the
movie more like critics who derided it including Pauline Kael and Joan Didion.

I think I've captured the essence of her essay but I didn't find it to be
_interesting_. Perhaps other readers who upvoted the story to the front page
can tell me if I missed something.

To me, an analogy would be writing about not listening to Prince's song "1999"
because she's come to the realize that annihilation from nuclear war is a
terrible thing. She saw the photos of Hiroshima victims and was horrified by
the layers of burned skin peeling off. Therefore, to write a song that has
bouncy major chords with a dance beat about nuclear destruction is "empty".
Even though she loved the song as a teenager, she will now bid _" farewell to
'1999'"_ and tell us all about it.

Or one could write an essay about no longer visiting the Disney amusement
ride, "Pirates of the Carribean" because it trivializes the _real violence_ in
the 1500s[1] of slavery and murders (including beheadings).

I think the author wants to convey that switching the perspective about TSOM
from the naive innocence of "songs with hooks" to a more enlightened criticism
of "inaccurate Nazis" as a maturation.

I disagree and think it's perfectly reasonable for people to continue watching
TSOM reruns for the _" doe a deer a female deer"_ and not care that it doesn't
try to be a Ken Burns documentary film.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_in_the_Caribbean](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_in_the_Caribbean)

~~~
js2
The author is upset by the Trump presidency. The film, which used to be
escapist for her, no longer is. Instead, it's become more like salt in a
wound. She's not going to watch it again while he's president, and instead try
to make better use of her time, reading and writing, and showing up for others
instead.

The piece in fact, is more about the author than the film. :-)

Also, the book is by Charmian Carr (Liesl). The lead actress is of course
Julie Andrews.

edit: I want to thank you for your tldr. I'd initially only skimmed the
article, but your tldr got me to read through it in earnest and I'm glad I
did.

~~~
avn2109
>> "The piece in fact, is more about the author than the film"

There is a whole loathsome, solipsistic genre like this. E.g. novels about
wealthy privileged young authors living in Brooklyn struggling to find meaning
in their lives, written by---you guessed it---wealthy privileged young authors
living in Brooklyn struggling to find meaning in their lives.

The Paris Review is just one of many participants in the proverbial plays-
about-playwrights game.

~~~
qwrusz
What's so loathsome about it?

I can believe there are wealthy privileged young authors living in Brooklyn
struggling to find meaning in their lives. What's the problem?

------
iak8god
Did anyone else think the following seemed implausible?

> Thinking it was a real folk song—and the Austrian national anthem to
> boot—Reagan famously played ["Edelweiss"] for the Austrian president at a
> White House state dinner in 1984.

It turns out this is at least a gross exaggeration, as Reagan's remarks at
that dinner show:

> Your visit is a celebration of something real, tangible, and enduring: the
> friendship between the people of Austria and the people of the United
> States. At one point in "The Sound of Music," the character who plays Baron
> von Trapp sings a song about the edelweiss, an Austrian flower. And before
> the song ends, the lyrics become a prayer for Austria itself. It is a prayer
> Americans join in—"Blossom of snow, may you bloom and grow—and bless your
> homeland forever." \-
> [http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=39575](http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=39575)

~~~
solidsnack9000
Maybe many stories about Reagan as fool are legends. The Buffoon Prince.

------
yardie
I saw it in grade school as a kid and I saw it again last year on Netflix. I
liked it. It has aged well compared to re-watching a lot of other shows and
movies from my youth. It was filmed from the point of view of a child. Of
course they wouldn't know much about how terrible the Nazis were. Hell most of
the adult world didn't know how terrible they were. I'm sure the Baron just
told them these guys are terrible without mentioning the ovens and medical
experiments and kept it moving.

~~~
clock_tower
I think the movie portrays them pretty accurately, from Captain von Trapp's
perspective in 1938: thuggish, low-class, irresponsible, violent, and
regrettably alluring to the young. The really foul stuff hadn't started yet --
and you'd have to know a lot more about the Nazi inner circle than von Trapp
did (or cared to) in order to know that it was coming.

~~~
tptacek
Reprising
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13475183](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13475183):

It's true that the Nazi regime got worse (very) shortly after 1938, but it's
not true that Nazi Germany prior to 1938 was only superficially bad. The
history of the era suggests that Nazi Germany in 1938 was like North Korea in
the 1970s: a functioning murderous fascist dictatorship.

~~~
clock_tower
I wasn't meaning to say that they were "only superficially bad", but that they
were extremely ill-omened -- the sort of organization that was capable of
almost anything, and that no gentleman would associate with.

But, as you point out, they were very bad very early -- Roehm and the
Sturmabteilung were purged in 1934 (!), and Kristallnacht was late 1938 (while
restrictions on Jewish store owners etc. were earlier). "North Korea in the
'70s" sounds about right -- I'd underestimated just how quickly things
happened with that regime. The mere "no gentleman" phase was probably over
before they came to power...

------
andrewclunn
Kid's movies that touch on adult subjects, but at a simplistic level that apes
at understanding... Like Marry Poppins and Women's suffrage. It's in books
too, like The Whipping Boy, where oppression by the nobles is a whimsical
journey of discovery. How to introduce children to adult concepts through art,
without creating a false narrative that presents over-simplified half truths?
Not sure what the answer there is, but The Sound of Music definitely falls
into that... von-trap (couldn't resist the pun).

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technofiend
I'm ambivalent about the movie but consider it a cultural literacy
requirement: you have to watch it once so you can talk about it.

~~~
germinalphrase
I'm thirty and have never talked about TSOM in a meaningful or public way.
Really, my only memory associated with the film is my father humming Edelweiss
to comfort me as a child.

The film may clearly have that importance for others, but hasn't played that
role for me. Which makes me curious what other art/media are important enough
to stand in as a cultural literacy requirement?

Perhaps, "The Matrix"? I've used it as an entry point for real conversations.

~~~
phillmv
>Which makes me curious what other art/media are important enough to stand in
as a cultural literacy requirement?

The cultural cannon is rather large and you're likely steeped in it whether
you realize or not! Pierre Bayard rather humourously explores this in "How to
Talk About Books You Haven't Read" [https://www.amazon.com/Talk-About-Books-
Havent-Read/dp/15969...](https://www.amazon.com/Talk-About-Books-Havent-
Read/dp/1596915439), to wit:

The important thing behind the cannon isn't that you necessarily have consumed
every bit of the media but that you at least know what position it occupies in
the culture and your position relative to it - what signals your peers send
when they discuss a given piece of art.

The most accessible example of this is watching The Simpsons or Family Guy:
most of the time you see them make pop cultural references they're, arguably,
pointing to entries in the cannon.

------
leepowers
TSOM is the WWII generation looking back on the struggles and evils that
defined their world, and finding hope and beauty in it. The von Trapp family
does not defeat evil, they escape it - an archetype that maps neatly onto the
cold war era where evil persisted (the USSR) even after it had been defeated
(the Allied victory). It was also escapism from the turmoil of the mid-60's,
including the unfolding, slow-motion disaster of Vietnam. It's no mystery that
millions of Americans flocked to a romanticized version of the last great and
good conflict that occurred during their lifetimes.

The escapism of TSOM is still apropos, especially during times of conflict. If
you believe the world is a hard, cruel, unjust place, why would you only watch
movies or read books that feature hardbitten themes and tragedies? Wouldn't
you want to take a break and forget and clear your mind for a while? It was
the WWII generation's proximity to struggle that made them susceptible to
escapism.

 _> Most likely I will not watch The Sound of Music again for a long time,
four or maybe even eight years, and that’s okay._

Ahh, I see, this is about president Trump. It's remarkable how much people
will let an election define them and dictate how they will live and entertain
themselves. Scratch that, it's not remarkable, _it 's absolutely crazy._

------
coldtea
The song Edelweiss from The Sound of Music, mentioned in the article too, is
the theme song of the "Man in the High Castle" Amazon series...

~~~
jhbadger
Where its placement seems as bizarre as in the anecdote about Reagan playing
it for an Austrian official mentioned in the article. Unless the makers are
implying that Edelweiss _is_ a genuine folksong in the "High Castle" universe.

~~~
clock_tower
Embarrassingly enough, I always thought "Eidelweiss" was a show-tune
arrangement of a real folksong... It sounds like I'm in good company. :P

~~~
shoover
All the more credit to Rodgers and Hammerstein.

------
subpixel
I never realized that the film was made years after John Coltrane's "My
Favorite Things" was released. I've seen the film once, but have probably
listened to the album a thousand times and the title track gives me goosebumps
every time.

~~~
donretag
The original Broadway production was in 1959, with Coltrane's version in 1961.
I prefer Coltrane's version, but I love the musical as well.

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bshimmin
_Just watched the Sound of Music with Ivanka and the kids. Good movie, very
successful! Shows family values and when America was great!_

This is so perfectly Trump.

I've only seen it once under considerable protest and after quite a few
glasses of wine, but I detested _The Sound of Music_. If I need "the vague
threat of Nazism" and the golden age of something or other, I'll take
_Casablanca_ any day.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I'm not sure I should admit this here but I quite like _The Sound of Music_.

~~~
m_myers
I rather doubt that liking one of the most popular musicals ever made is a
minority opinion even on HN.

