EXTRA CREDIT: Harold and Maude (1971)

Harold is a young man intrigued with death, who drifts away from the life that his detached mother prescribes for him, and develops a relationship with an old woman named Maude. Harold meets Maude, a 79-year-old woman who shares Harold's unique hobby of attending funerals. He is entranced by her quirky outlook on life, which is bright and excessively carefree in contrast with his own morbidity. Harold regularly stages elaborate fake suicides, attends funerals, and drives a hearse, all to the annoyance of his mother, socialite Mrs. Chasen.

As they become closer, Harold announces that he will marry Maude, resulting in disgusted outbursts from his family, psychiatrist and priest. When Maude's 80th birthday arrives, and Harold throws a surprise party for her. As the couple dances, Maude tells Harold that she "couldn't imagine a lovelier farewell." He immediately questions Maude as to her meaning, and she reveals that she has purposely taken an overdose ofsleeping pills and will be dead by midnight. Restating her firm belief that 80 is the proper age to die. Harold rushes Maude to the hospital, where she is treated unsuccessfully and dies. In the final sequence, Harold's car is seen going off a seaside cliff, in one last faked suicide with the final shot revealing Harold standing calmly atop the cliff, holding his banjo.

I found Maude's love affair with life, and the fact that she was able to embrace both the dark and light sides of human existence gave a balanced outlook for her character. Maude knew that to understand the beauty of everything, you must understand the cycles of life, life, death, rebirth. Creation and destruction. Contrasting with the morbidity and dark outlook on life that Harold had.

"Maude: A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They're just backing away from life." I think this sums up Maude's attitude to life, just to be breathing doesn't mean you are living, and if you are not living then you may as well be dead. "Go team, go! Give me an L. Give me an I. Give me a V. Give me an E. L-I-V-E. LIVE! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room." I feel as though she is referring to an afterlife when she talks about 'the locker room' here. A possibility for her love for life may be that she is scared about her afterlife. She feels she needs to live life to the fullest as when she dies what is she going to be able to say that she has done with her life? I think this is prevalent in most people's attitudes to life as there is always a search to do something 'meaningful.' Whether this is to live life to the fullest or out of arrogance is each to their own.

Maude is constantly showing no fear of death, but rather an embracing attitude towards to it. "Grab the shovel, Harold."

Before Harold meets Maude, he is a disturbed individual with no friends. But Maude gives him the release from himself that he needs in order to find peace with himself. His obsession with death is a release from reality, as he feels like an outcast and would rather be seen as an outcast than not accepted for himself. When Harold says "I haven't lived. I've died a few times" it's obvious that he isn't in denial about being an outcast, realising that living through his obsession with death isn't really living at all.

"Maude: [at her 80th birthday party] I couldn't imagine a lovelier farewell!

Harold: Farewell?
Maude: Oh, yes, dear... My 80th birthday.
Harold: But you're not going anywhere... are you?
Maude: [long pause] I took the tablets an hour ago. I'll be gone by midnight."

Maude's short presence in Harold's life was significant enough to change his outlook on life, and make him take a more 'happyy-go-lucky' approach. At the end of the film Harold is seen with a spring in his step and playing the banjo, just lie Maude advised. Harold and Maude learnt from each other. Harold learnt through her death to love and let go of darkness, and to start living.

There is freqeunt imagery in the film which alludes to aspects of death.

For instance, when Maude is carried into hospital on a stretcher she is wheeled through big white doors and she reaches out for Harold. Which is symbolic of 'seeing the light' and the way death pulls you away from loved ones without you having a choice.

The ending, with Harold driving the hearse off the cliff is symbolic of him letting go of blackness and morbidity in his life, and because of Maude's presence in his life has learnt to replace the darkness with a lighter, more embracing attitude. He no longer has to hide behind the lurking shadow of death but can truely live.