COTD2

In this 1971 movie, the main character Harold, a young man in his twenties who is obsessed and passionate about death. His mother is a wealthy, controlling, cold mother who wants to marry Harold off in a respectable marriage, but every time she sets him up on date he scares them away by re – enacting suicides. In the first scene, he hangs himself and his mom walks in looks at him calmly then continues with her phone call, his mother is used to his hobby for her benefit. The scene changes and he is in a funeral, then you realize he doesn’t know the person who has died, he simply goes for his own enjoyment. At a funeral is where he meets Maude, at first he notices her because she is not easy to miss with her demeanor and dress. Then the second time he sees her, she approaches him and offers him licorice, and this is when director focuses on the word “permaseal” on the coffin of the man who died. A visual metaphor, I believe meaning that the coffin had a permanent seal and will never be opened again representing death. At first I was confused on why he did these sorts of things on his free time, but then there was a sentimental scene between Maude and Harold that lets audience understand why. After having a few drinks, he becomes tearful and says, “ I haven’t lived. (Pause) I’ve died a few times”. Before meeting Maude he was “dead” metaphorically because he never enjoyed life the way Maude did. He retells the time of when he performed his first suicide, it had been an accident he was mixing chemicals in a lab at school causing an explosion. He was fine, so he went home going straight to his room. Police officers came to tell his mother he had died in the explosion and she faints. For the first and last time ever, his mother showed affection and she cared about him. So he would perform them again and again, hoping to get the same response it got him the first time. Before meeting Maude he wasn’t afraid of death, he didn’t care if he was going to die someday because he didn’t enjoy life. But Maude opened his eyes making him in the final scene throw his hearse over the cliff, a new start.

Maude character is free and caring, she had been an activist in her youth and with a close-up of a concentration camp tattoo, you can make the assumption that she had a hard life before and now was making the most of it. In a scene, where they drink Harold mentions drinking is a vice and she responds, “ It’s best not to be moral. You cheat yourself out of too much life”. Maude unlike Harold’s mother doesn’t care about morals or rules. She lives her life, as she wants not letting morals, authority or religion get in the way. Maude has the best lines, in another scene where they are both in a sort of greenhouse and she says, “I like to watch things grow, they grow and bloom, and fade and die and change into something else” Maude compares life to the natural world in this case the flowers, flowers like us grow up then “fade” in our case get old and then die, and can change into something else. She sees death as part of the cycle of birth and death, and believes 80 years old is the perfect year to die. She is not affiliated to any religion, like I mentioned before she lives life without following any standards. I found it comical how Maude would steal or “borrow” things from others like cars or objects in her home, her explanation for this was “ Some people get upset because they think they have a hold on something. I’m merely acting as a gentle reminder. Here today gone tomorrow. So don’t get attached to things”. Which I found was true, we are all going to die one day and sometimes we forget it and become attached to an object, materialistic. But why should we be? It’s not like we can take our iPod with us to heaven or wherever we believe we will end up after death (which reminded of funeral director who came in and told us people would throw images of MacBook or iPhone hoping it would leave with them).

Harold’s mother throughout the movie shows she is religious; a devoted Christian because when Harold tells her, he wants to marry Maude she sends him to priest. Also when Harold is leaving after telling his mother (Mrs. Chasen) this, you can see a cross with Jesus on it in the background in a sort of alter, again showing she was religious, unlike Maude or Harold. In another scene where Mrs. Chasen is asking Harold questions to fill out a dating questionnaire, she begins to answer them herself not letting Harold respond. One of the questions that she read said something like, “ The religion, you practice believe in life after death?” and she of course respond “Yes, indeed!” Mrs. Chasen believed in life after death, because it kept her sane and it was the reason why she act the way she did with Harold. She wanted him to follow the morals she had for herself and wanted him to marry to take adult responsibilities.