The sound of music was not one of my parents’ favorite things, therefore I don’t have fond childhood memories like the Wizard of Oz or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which were always perennial Christmases in our house. When I was a teenager, I can remember that every time the movie came on TV, the channel would quickly change before Julie Andrews sang the first line of the title song. It’s easy to see why, because The Sound of Music didn’t pan and scan well on a 24-inch screen and it certainly didn’t sound good through small Mono speakers.
It’s safe to say that the film is often easily dismissed as too maudlin and terribly old-fashioned even by the time it was made in 1965, after the entire stage show had first been a hit in 1959 and would be its last. Rodgers & Hammerstein together. When I was finally able to see it in its entirety at age 20, I had the benefit of watching it on DVD on a 32-inch widescreen TV and was totally wowed. Director Robert Wise, who edited Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane, managed to tell the Von Trapp story with all the songs, but without the saccharin. He also captured the reality of The Anschluß without preaching or oversimplifying the politics of Nazi Germany and its occupation of Austria in 1938.
Now we come to the 45th anniversary Blu-ray edition and the movie blows my mind again and this time I have the benefit of watching it with my son who is 5 years old and I am surprised that he is entranced by the whistle. tour of Salzburg that is Do-Re-Mi, the stunning 70mm digitally restored print that fills the 50-inch plasma screen with a glorious 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 transfer that is among the best I’ve ever seen. Every note resonates crystal clear in pristine 7.1 DTS-HD quality and you realize that what you saw on the old TVs growing up in the 1980s could never do justice to the Oscar winner for Best Picture of 1965 and must be partially responsible for its bad reputation. cinema had for so many years.
The package comes with a second Blu-ray packed with extras, the best of which, in my opinion, is Rodgers & Hammerstein: The Sound of Movies, a feature-length retrospective charting the entire story of their successful creative collaboration presented by the original. internship Maria Von Trapp, Mary Martin. There is also a lengthy interview with screenwriter Ernest Lehman, who also wrote Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, in which he recounts the process of bringing his vision of The Sound of Music to movie audiences. of the script and inject it with authenticity and genuine wit.
I hope that now that it has been restored to its former glory, future audiences will be lucky enough to grow up with this wonderful story of one family’s struggle through song to travel over the Alps and far beyond the clutches of the Third Reich. by Adolf Hitler, featuring some of the best popular songs written in the 20th century; not just the title track and Do-Re-Mi, but also My Favorite Things, Lonely Goatherd and Edelweiss packed with standout performances from the indefatigable Julie Andrews and a dryly humorous turn as the dour patriarch of the fearsome Christopher Plummer. The sound of the music looks as crisp and bright as a new Blu-ray pin and as a testament to its enduring appeal, my son has asked me to play Do-Re-Mi every day this month!