CinemaLit - Harold and Maude (1971)

January 10 - Harold and Maude (1971), 91 minutes, directed by Hal Ashby, starring Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, and Vivian Pickles.

Harold and Maude is about as off-beat as a romantic comedy can be. Set in the San Francisco Bay Area, it tells the story of 79-year old free spirit Maude and her relationship with a young man who’s obsessed with death and stifled by his dictatorial socialite mother. A modest success on initial release, Harold and Maude developed an enormous cult following over the years, appearing regularly in repertory cinemas and midnight screenings. Its quirky edgy life celebrating charms never grow old. Harold and Maude was added to the prestigious National Film Registry in 1997.

January 2025 CinemaLit - Directed by Hal Ashby

We recently screened two films by Hal Ashby, The Landlord (1970) and The Last Detail (1973), at CinemaLit. Both went over so well that we’re dedicating January to him and three of his classics.

Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Robert Altman are better known, but no director personifies the renegade free-wheeling style of the 1970s “New Hollywood” more than Hal Ashby (1929-1988). Certainly no one was more committed to films that were as socially conscious and quick to expose injustice and hypocrisy in American society. Born into a Mormon family in Utah, Ashby dropped out of high school and subsequently moved to Los Angeles, where he became an assistant film editor. He won an Oscar for cutting In the Heat of the Night (1967), a tense drama of racism and M**der that proved to be his stepping stone to directing. When a conflict prevented Heat director Norman Jewison from accepting The Landlord, a pointed comedy-drama of race, class, and wealth in America, he suggested Ashby as his debut. The resulting film immediately established Ashby as a uniquely irreverent and invigorating voice in American film.

Ashby thrived by tackling subjects that had been previously ignored or forbidden on the screen. Harold and Maude (1971) features a May-September romance that’s more like March 1-New Year’s Eve. The Last Detail (1973) tore open dysfunctionality in the military. Shampoo (1975) treats Beverly Hills as a decadent hothouse of greed, political apathy, and sexual immorality. Bound for Glory (1976) is an evocative biopic of folk singer-songwriter and political activist Woody Gutherie. Coming Home (1978) confronts the enormous domestic cost of the war in Vietnam.

Ashby’s preoccupation with politics and sociology may sound like a recipe for sermonizing pedantic movies, but not so. They are often funny, even hysterical, always avoiding preachiness while deftly balancing their more serious commentary. Join us for three Hal Ashby winners: Harold and Maude, Shampoo, and Coming Home.

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