THE MASTERPIECE
Harold And Maude
A DISAPPOINTING, PREDICTABLE sort of outrage greeted Harold And Maude when it first reached cinemas in the winter of 1971. The peculiar yet enduring love story between a 20ish-year-old man and his 79-year-old girlfriend tanked financially, while critics not only brayed at the subject matter but dismissed its unbridled, vivacious approach to life entirely. “Harold And Maude has all the fun and gaiety of a burning orphanage,” read the Variety review upon release.
And yet, like the sickly tree that Maude wrenches from a city sidewalk and rehomes in forest soil, this giddy rumination on life through death foundcrawled into college dorms and cult cinemas, and subsequently the hearts of the romantic and the marginalised, with its galvanising messages of love and liberation. In 1983, it finally turned a profit on its paltry $1.2 million budget, and today its macabre wit and inventive cinematography can be seen echoed in the films of Wes Anderson, Cameron Crowe and Alexander Payne.
