Harold and Maude

United States

1971

91 Min

Color

1.85:1

English

Currently 4.1/5 Stars.
1
2
3
4
5

PROD Colin Higgins, Charles Mulvehill

CAST Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, Vivian Pickles, Cyril Cusack, Charles Tyner, Ellen Geer, Eric Christmas, G. Wood, Tom Skerritt

ED William A. Sawyer, Edward A. Warschilka

SOUND James Richard, Frank E. Warner

Synopsis

With the idiosyncratic American fable Harold and Maude, countercultural director Hal Ashby fashioned what would become the cult classic of its era. Working from a script by Colin Higgins, Ashby tells the story of the emotional and romantic bond between a death-obsessed young man (Bud Cort) from a wealthy family and a devil-may-care, bohemian octogenarian (Ruth Gordon). Equal parts gallows humor and romantic innocence, Harold and Maude dissolves the line between darkness and light along with the ones that separate people by class, gender, and age, and it features indelible performances and a remarkable soundtrack by Cat Stevens. –The Criterion Collection

Director

Hal Ashby

Hal Ashby was born the fourth and youngest child in a Mormon household in Ogden, Utah, on September 2, 1929. His father was a dairy farmer. After a rough childhood that included the divorce of his parents, his father’s suicide, his dropping out of high school, getting married and divorced all before he was 19, he decided to leave Utah for California. A Californian employment office found him a printing press job at Universal Studios. Within a few years, he was an assistant film editor at various other studios. One of his pals while at MGM was a young messenger named Jack Nicholson. He moved up to being a full fledged editor on The Loved One (1965) and started editing the films of director Norman Jewison.

A highlight of his film editing career was winning an Oscar for the landmark In the Heat of the Night (1967). Itching to become a director, Jewison gave him a script he was too busy to work on called The Landlord (1970). It became Ashby’s first film as a director. From there he delivered a series of well-acted, intelligent human scaled dramas that included The Last Detail (1973), Shampoo (1975), Bound for Glory (1976), Coming Home (1978) and Being There (1979). Great reviews and Oscar nominations became common on Ashby films.

Ashby was always a maverick and a contrary person and success proved difficult for Ashby to handle. He became unreliable due to his dependence on drugs and a reclusive lifestyle. He actually collapsed while making the Rolling Stone concert film Let’s Spend the Night Together (1983) in Arizona. Although he recovered, he was never the same after that. He began taking too much time in post production on his films and actually had a couple of his later projects taken away from him to be edited by others. He tried to straighten himself out, but in the 1980s, he was considered by many to be unemployable. Just when he felt he was turning a corner in his life, he developed cancer that spread to his liver and colon. He died on December 27, 1988. Actor Sean Penn dedicated his first film as a director, The Indian Runner (1991) to Ashby and John Cassavetes, even though Penn was never directed by either one. Because he did not have a set visual style, many mistake this for no style at all. His career is not discussed as often as the careers of some of his contemporaries. —IMDb

read less

Wall

Displaying 4 of 71 wall posts.

see all

ΞRIC B∆D TASTΞ

8Apr13

"what gives you a special pleasure?" - "i go to funerals."

Trolley Freak

26Feb13

Ashby's unique black comedy features the oddest of odd couples in one of the screen's most offbeat and touching romances. Propelled by a brilliant script and decorated by the songs of Stevens, the film is a tribute to the small joys of life seen through the eyes of disturbed rich kid Harold and concentration camp survivor Maude. Great performances all round, especially from Pickles who's splendid as Harold's mother..

Gylfi and 3 others like this

Emily O, Tom JF, HKFanatic

CarlosEsquives

23Jan13

Una tierna fábula sobre dos personajes que han complemento. Uno libertino, otro cohibido, uno con ánimos de vivir, otro con ánimos de vivir. "Harold y Maude" es definitivamente un filme de culto, con personajes excéntricos, escenas absurdas, momentos hilarantes y también los hay tristes y nostálgicos. Es una oda a la rebeldía, un rechazo a la conducta aristocrática y otras normas anti-libertarias.