Julie Andrews strode into The Lower 7 at the Arclight to the podium. The audience which had been made restless waiting for nearly an hour after the announced start time, for the stars, among them Billy Crystal, to introduce When Harry Met Sally, Jack Nicholson, to introduce One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest, Kirk Douglas, to introduce Spartacus in the original Sunset Dome, Warren Beatty, to introduce Bonnie and Clyde, and of course, Julie, to introduce The Sound of Music in their respective theatres in this Hollywood stylish megaplex, stood and applauded the woman who, a mere 42 years ago, was the young Maria Von Trapp, finding her bliss with the Captain and his seven children at a lake mansion near Salzburg. One of the children, then "16 going on 17", was there too, Charmian Carr, as well as the widow of the director, Robert Wise.
After Julie made the mandated thank you to Target, the main sponsor of the AFI 40th Anniversary salute that brought together the stars and the movies together for the retrospective, she told a couple of stories, including one about filming and re-filming the opening sequence where she glides through the mountain field and turns to proclaim the hills alive, each time thrown to the ground by the whirling blade's bold breeze, she was gone, leaving us to her younger self. I had forgotten how extraordinary she, those children, Christopher Plummer, Richard Haydn, Eleanor Parker, were against that real life backdrop of mountain and trees, and sky, and lake. This is a film to be seen on a big screen. I think I still remember the opening sequence as I first saw it as an 11 year old, with an aunt, at the Rivoli Theatre in New York, a classic Manhattan theatre, like so many others, torn down without a thought of its cinematic, its cultural importance.
I had seen pieces of the film since then, always on television, and it had never matched its original impact. But on this modern day big screen, I felt it again, first, an incomparable innocence, and energy and hopefulness, even a spirituality, no doubt brought on by the chant, the Mother Superior who sends the young postulant back to find and face her life and the wedding in a great ancient church and then, of course, as the Nazis take over Austria and ordinary lives, a darkness, and then a hope again as the family escapes far too easily than would really be the case, on foot, over the mountains into Switzerland.
When I heard what films were available for us to see, I knew all were classics, but this one, in a way the others could not be, maybe were not meant to be, this one is enheartening. There was 19 year old girl next to us, with her mother. I had no idea that anyone that young would be so enthralled with Julie Andrews, old enough to be her great grandmother (as I am old enough to be her grandmother, the once 11 year old), and with a film so out of sync with the crashes and explosions, or at least the machine gun fire of Bonnie and Clyde, that define her generation's entertainment. And enthralled she was. Almost tearful in her joy. I wish I could have spoken more to her about how this movie and this actress became important to her such that of all the movies she chose to see, this was the one in the group. Was what resonated with her, a bit of what resonates with me still so many years later? Perhaps it was the exhortation in song to Climb Every Mountain. Or the comforting idea that "when the Lord closes a door, he opens a window." I'll never know. But I feel a kinship to that teenager I'll never see again.
It is late. I am off now to peruse my AFI 40th Anniversary Program and maybe to make a small prayer of thanksgiving, before seeking sleep.
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