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Sentimental Garbage
The Sound of Music with Katherine Rundell
01:21:49
God bless those sinful car sabotaging nuns
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- [00:00]
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- [00:30]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Hello everyone. As you can see, I just can't help myself from participating in the valiant art of podcasting at the moment, even though I said I was quitting for a little while, because first of all I love doing it. And second of all, I have things to promote, shill and sell. The first of which is my collaboration with Warchild, which is Sentimental Garbage's first ever merchandise drop. The first time we've ever done T shirts or totes or sweatshirts. And we're doing it with 100% of the profits to the charity War Child. You can get that on everpress.com we've already sold something like 500 units, which is incredible to me, and I really want to keep that going all throughout the Christmas period. If you order before, I think December 11th, you can get it before Christmas, but we're likely to keep the campaign going in the new year if it does well enough. So please help me make it do well enough and get some more money to this amazing, amazing charity. The second thing is that I am doing a gig at the Union Chapel on February 6th, so please get your tickets to that. We've got a couple left. I think we're about 75% sold out at the moment and those tickets will go. So yeah, get involved and please enjoy this kind of next suite of episodes that we have running over the Christmas period that are mostly to do with movie musicals. First, because I find movie musicals to be an incredibly Christmassy thing without necessarily being Christmas movies, and second, because I'm kind of continuously inspired by the idea that musicals are about things coming together. And right now the world sort of feels like it's all coming apart and we need sort of reminders on how people who are different can come together to make amazing things. And that's kind of what I want to keep in mind as I go forward with this Christmas season and into 2025, to not lose hope and to believe in the beliefs of musicals as I go. Okay, that's all from me. Enjoy today's episode. Hello and welcome to Sentimental Garbage, the podcast where we talk about the culture we love, that society sometimes makes us feel Ashamed of. My name is Caroline O'Donoghue. And what is it, Maria, that you can't face? Joining me is the nun wearing curlers under her wimple. It's Katherine Rundle.
- [02:50]
Katherine Rundell
Hello. Thank you so much for having me. What a complete delight to be talking about the Sound of Music.
- [02:56]
Caroline O'Donoghue
I've come into the studio today with a slight cold, so I just need to go straight to the point with this one. How has it evaded everyone's notice that this movie is dripping in sex?
- [03:08]
Katherine Rundell
It's one of the hottest things I've ever seen.
- [03:10]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It's one of the sexiest movies ever made.
- [03:13]
Katherine Rundell
The reason that we haven't noticed is we all saw it for the first time when we were six years old.
- [03:17]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah, yeah. And we remember curtains, we remember schnitzel with noodles, bright copper kettles and not Captain von Trapp meeting Maria for the first time and saying, turn around, I want to have a look at you. And then criticizing her dress, buying her material and then almost firing her immediately.
- [03:36]
Katherine Rundell
And we don't notice when we are 6 years old that Judy Andrews has a staggering figure. Yeah, she's just really genuinely hot. But we didn't notice because she's a nun.
- [03:47]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It's, it's. And she's got short hair. And nobody could have told six year old me that a woman with short hair could. It took the L word to do that to me. Like, it's so straight. This is like. I mean, people talk about things changing upon many watches all the time, but I think almost nothing like proves that more than the Sound of Music, this movie that we come to know so well as children because there are so many children in it and there aren't a lot of musicals like that, I guess the King and I maybe. But that sucks.
- [04:19]
Katherine Rundell
That really profoundly sucks. And if you try to think, especially when we were young, musicals that had more than say two children and where the children, you can really get your teeth into them. There are almost none. It was just this. And I watched it over and over and over.
- [04:37]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Oh, God. So tell me your first. Tell me your first experiences of it. And when did it become more than a when and how to go? More than a kind of a casual movie from childhood to like profound thing of your heart.
- [04:51]
Katherine Rundell
I was in a school play of the Sound of Music when I was maybe like seven years old. And I spent the ages between about four and eight with cropped hair, very like Friedrich in the Sound of Music. And therefore I played Friedrich in the Sound of Music.
- [05:10]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Wait, were you in an all girls school, or did you just really. No.
- [05:15]
Katherine Rundell
I also doubled up as the Reverend Mother.
- [05:18]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Oh, my God.
- [05:19]
Katherine Rundell
It was. I think we have a video of it. Not a really profoundly excellent dramatic performance in that I think I literally said, hello, I'm the Reverend Mother, which wasn't in the script. But at that point, we would watch it and watch it and watch it, you know, soak in, osmotically, the sense of what artistic endeavors we were engaging in. And I was just wildly in love. I was so in love with Fraulein Maria and with Christopher Plummer and with all of the children and with Liesl and with the creepy Nazi blond boy. For me, it felt different from other things I had seen. It felt kinder and bolder and brighter. And then as I got older, I don't think I really watched it that much in my teens, but I watched it again in adulthood and thought, oh, but this is. This is spectacular.
- [06:15]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [06:16]
Katherine Rundell
In what it tries to do. It does it with such pinpoint precision. And it's spectacularly hot. It's so hot.
- [06:23]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It's so sexy. I can't believe I just put. You know, obviously, I've seen this a million times as well. It's a big thing in my house, too. And then I threw it on yesterday as I was doing my tax return, because I was kind of like, I don't need to a thousand percent look at the Sound of Music to do a podcast. I've seen it a million times. I have all these scenes in my head already. But something about this. Watch around. Maybe it's, I don't know, something going on with me at the moment, but I just had to look. I was like, every time Maria and the Captain were in a scene together or the Baroness was in a scene, I was just, like, completely stricken with the charisma and the sexual tension that feels so real. And also, for a movie made in the 60s, feels kind of dangerous. It's like, she is staff. She is a nun and she is staff. I mean, I know she's a novice, but, like, it's this instant sort of power play stuff they have going on together that just feels so hot to me. And he's obviously just the most beautiful man who's ever lived, which helps.
- [07:19]
Katherine Rundell
The most beautiful man who's ever lived. I think when I was young, I didn't understand how deeply it was getting under my skin. And now my definition of beauty is men with enormous noses, which is Christopher Plummer and that kind of rigor that he had. And, of course, a lot of His. A lot of his sharpness in the role is. Cause he fucking hated this film.
- [07:44]
Caroline O'Donoghue
And that's what makes it work so well. The Sound of Mucus used to call.
- [07:47]
Katherine Rundell
It fabulous and said that working with Julie Andrews was like being hit over the head with a Valentine's card every day. But they, you know, they did love each other. And I think that just that reservation from truly, like leaping into a saccharine pool of treacle is what keeps the film bright. It's what allows it to just still cut through its own sentimentality.
- [08:12]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It's so interesting because generally a musical can fall apart if you can. If you. It does fall apart when you sense that, like, actor isn't giving his all into it kind of thing. There's a musical I love called the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. And everybody's amazing in it, apart from Burt Reynolds, the star. And you can tell he's embarrassed to be in a musical. And that's. And that, I believe, is why nobody remembers that musical is because he is embarrassed. And it makes you not trust that you're watching something good, even though you are. But for some reason, Christopher Plummer, uniquely, even though he hates this musical, doesn't want to be there. It works totally and perfectly well with.
- [08:47]
Katherine Rundell
It's the ideal thing. Because Captain Von Trapp doesn't really want to be there most of the time. That's how he is imagined as somebody who doesn't really know where he does want to be. Someone who doesn't really understand joy. Someone who is a little bit at sea and. And that's perfect for a man who is throughout, like, really, really, really. I. I just think, thank God he didn't love it because it means that that slight element of disdain that he has in the early scenes is so perfect. And of course, the other thing is they did become lifelong friends.
- [09:22]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [09:23]
Katherine Rundell
And by the end, you know, they are. They are beloved to each other. And it does shine.
- [09:28]
Caroline O'Donoghue
That makes me like, oh, because they're just such, like. What's so beautiful about those two characters is they're such freaks. They're both freaks. And they're trying so hard to be normal because it's like Maria is this. I did. You know, as. As one must. You have to do the kind of scouring through the real Maria von Trapp sort of biography, which is always satisfying to revisit. You know, it's one of those Wikipedia pages that you visit and you realize all the links are purple because you've clicked them all.
- [10:00]
Katherine Rundell
I had the book.
- [10:02]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Did you? Written by her. Right.
- [10:05]
Katherine Rundell
Written by her.
- [10:05]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [10:06]
Katherine Rundell
It was one of those gifts where when you're. I know, really quite young tennis, people think, you know, what does she like? Well, she likes books. She likes musicals.
- [10:15]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [10:16]
Katherine Rundell
This might join them, too. It is not a book for children.
- [10:18]
Caroline O'Donoghue
How does it read?
- [10:19]
Katherine Rundell
Dry.
- [10:20]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Cause it's very. She's like a super Catholic. Right. Cause, like, she was gonna be a nun and then didn't and got married instead. But that doesn't mean you stop being a nun in your heart. Right, right.
- [10:28]
Katherine Rundell
And, you know, have vision of what it was. She has a vision of duty that I think would feel somewhat alien to a lot of certainly children reading that book today. But it is dry. But it is also full of. The thing that just, like, punches through the pages is she loved those children. She was obsessed with them. And famously, as you know, because you have clicked those links. She didn't want to marry him.
- [10:57]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yes.
- [10:58]
Katherine Rundell
You know, when he proposed, she didn't love him. She liked him, but she didn't love him. She wasn't in love with him. And he said, will you marry me? And the children. And she said, there is no other way he could have proposed than that. That would have made me say yes.
- [11:13]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Oh.
- [11:14]
Katherine Rundell
Because those kids. And they were gifted. They were an unusually gifted musical family.
- [11:20]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah. But like, technical singers. They were like choral, technical. They were not show tunes.
- [11:24]
Katherine Rundell
Right, right, right. They were not. And they weren't, you know, they weren't, if you read the book, particularly carefree, even.
- [11:30]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [11:31]
Katherine Rundell
But she just. She adored them.
- [11:34]
Caroline O'Donoghue
And they. They were like a. You know, they were singers up until, like the late 50s. Right. Until the oldest one was in his 40s, and he was like, this is quite enough. But you do get this. This. The kind of The. So much was changed between the real Von Trapps and the Von Trapps that we know on screen. But one of the things that does remain is this idea that she. So she was this kind of orphaned kid who was kind of shuffled around from pillar to post and had this kind of mental uncle who was always punishing her for things she didn't do that turned her into this kind of teen rebel and that he was also an atheist. And the way in which she was a teen rebel was that she was sort of like, answering back, full of kind of joy, full of mischief, but also became a mega Catholic.
- [12:13]
Katherine Rundell
Yeah. As a rebellion.
- [12:15]
Caroline O'Donoghue
As a rebellion.
- [12:16]
Katherine Rundell
And she had, as you say, like, she was born on a train because her mother was wanting to visit her family in the Tyrol. But her father was determined that she born in Vienna partly for class reasons. And so she was born on the train. The train conductor delivered her. And then she had this incredibly painful and difficult childhood, as you say, Epin. Her mother died when she was three. She was put out to foster. Her uncle beat her over and over. And as a result she became, she was a compulsive liar. She was a wild tearaway, she was incredibly funny and she became an obsessive Catholic. That was her way of fighting.
- [12:58]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It's so the representation we Catholics need.
- [13:02]
Katherine Rundell
It's just spectacular of her that she talks in the book about this moment where she was walking when she was young and she was struck by the beauty of the world itself, of the living world. And she, in the book, she said, she threw out her arms and said, I, I must, I must love this.
- [13:23]
Caroline O'Donoghue
And that's all there. And that's the thing. And I think that's what makes it so powerful and what makes Maria, Julie Andrews, Maria so powerful is that like. Because the real Maria von Trapp, it's not like she's Anastasia Romanoff. She is very much the author of her own story. Her books were adapted into several films which then became the stage show, which then became the movie. And she was consultant at everything. And so even though so much of the facts and numbers and dates change with the Sound of Music story, the Maria ness of Maria is just this bolt of truth that goes through it, which is this like this freak lady, this freak lady who like cannot fit into the abbey and it's just kind of all over the place, but has so much kind of love and joy and purpose in her that hasn't just been directed yet. And then you see all that being directed into this kind of immense love, immense bravery. And it's, it's just so beautiful and satisfying and that all of that is referenced throughout the film. The kind of. From the first moment of her throwing out her arms to the mountain to the, to the kind of. One of the final songs, which is, you know, somewhere in my youth, a wicked childhood, I must have done something good. And when you know the story of Maria, it's like you did have a wretched childhood. It was terrible. But look at you now. You got this big house that you have to leave.
- [14:36]
Katherine Rundell
It is. I find it so incredibly moving, Maria. Exactly that reason when we were growing up. So I was born in 1987 and a lot of the films I adored had in them a transformation scene, a makeover montage, the idea of a girl being made more lovely, more socially acceptable, more Ready for the boys?
- [15:02]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yes. Princess Diaries.
- [15:03]
Katherine Rundell
Princess diaries and 10 things I hate about yout. And you know every scene where a girl who doesn't know how to dress is taught to dress.
- [15:11]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [15:12]
Katherine Rundell
And the Sound of Music felt like a talisman against that. Because though those have real delight and deliciousness in them, the Sound of Music requires her no change. And it doesn't. At no point in the film does he say, you're beautiful. Because realistically, although she has the figure of a goddess, she's also got a fabulously funny face. The nose turns up. And it's not a classic beauty. It doesn't matter.
- [15:41]
Caroline O'Donoghue
She'll have that mad hair.
- [15:42]
Katherine Rundell
Got unbelievable hair. I mean, she has a shit lid in the front.
- [15:50]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It is a shit lid. It really is Miranda Hobbs, sort of circa Season three shit lid.
- [15:58]
Katherine Rundell
And it just doesn't matter. And they don't really fix it. It's just.
- [16:02]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah. And she gets nicer clothes, but not that much.
- [16:05]
Katherine Rundell
Wedding dress, but nothing. There's no fabulous frock. There's no iconic image in which she stands at the top of the stairs and everyone's breath is caught by her beauty. Because her beauty is not the point. Because what is the point is her, like, charisma so hot it could burn a hole through the core of the world. And her passion and her care and the character, this sense that she is just able to power through any situation on force of character and force of love. And I just. As a kid, it felt like being given, like, a draft of cool water.
- [16:47]
Caroline O'Donoghue
But that's the thing is thinking about it now, that sort of thing of the movie that avoids a makeover scene. It actually doesn't avoid a makeover scene. Everybody else gets made over.
- [16:56]
Katherine Rundell
Christopher Plummer gets made over.
- [16:57]
Caroline O'Donoghue
The kids get new outfits. Like, the iconic outfit of the Sound of Music is this fucking curtain. Like, that's what we. Whenever we see. Sort of like. I remember me and my brother came to. Went to a thing recently, and we were both wearing. And the exact same color palette. By accident. We were both wearing kind of beige with sort of red accessories. And like, the Von Trapp thing that we got all night was just. He had to go home. You know, it was awful, as you say.
- [17:22]
Katherine Rundell
Like, of course there is a makeover. And it's a fabulous makeover. They get less well dressed.
- [17:27]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yes.
- [17:28]
Katherine Rundell
You know, they wear lederhose in a chintz. And it's just. It's just majestic. When I was a kid, I loved those clothes. I really, really wanted them. I wanted them.
- [17:40]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Of course, you Wanted them outfit. They're Playcliffs.
- [17:42]
Katherine Rundell
They're Playcliffs. Running around Salzburg in a pair of old droops and having a marvelous time.
- [17:49]
Caroline O'Donoghue
The way those two spark off each other. Love it. Oh, my God, I love it when he calls her Captain by mistake.
- [17:57]
Katherine Rundell
Right? And of course, I'm sure, as you.
- [17:59]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Know, as I know it was an actual slip that was kept in. Oh, we're supposed to. Nerds. I love it. I love it. I know. We're, like, flipping all over the place. I'm trying to get us back on track. Maybe we should just go through.
- [18:13]
Katherine Rundell
Let's do that.
- [18:15]
Caroline O'Donoghue
I find it easier with musicals to just go through the soundtrack and then we can talk about all our feelings. Just. Okay. Starting with. I mean, we obviously have the Sound of Music at the beginning. I think we talked about her throwing open her arms. But just to say that is a fucking mad way to begin a movie. It is. It's.
- [18:32]
Katherine Rundell
It's insane.
- [18:33]
Caroline O'Donoghue
And also, what made me think, you know, both you and I are tangential to the movie business. We've both written screenplays, and one day one of those screenplays will be made. But the. The. What really occurred to me in the opening shots is like, wow, they're really trying to prove from the off how expensive this movie is because of all those helicopter shots of the mountains. Right. Like, that is. This is the 60s. Like, helicopters are not everywhere.
- [18:59]
Katherine Rundell
It's a statement of intent.
- [19:01]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It is.
- [19:01]
Katherine Rundell
And it says, we are going to put money behind making this film beautiful. And it's going to be a little bit unlike the kind of beauties you've seen before. It's going to be really expensive. Yeah. But there is no. Usually the way in a film that you would establish character is by seeing a character immediately interacting with other characters.
- [19:20]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah, yeah.
- [19:21]
Katherine Rundell
You know, they're rushing through a city and they're bumping into a. Bump the alarm clock.
- [19:24]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Late again.
- [19:27]
Katherine Rundell
Whereas we just have this girl alone spinning in a field. When I first saw it, I was some. I was at someone's house. I think I was 6 years old. And this little girl was like, we have to watch this. And that opening scene came on the screen and I was like, absolutely not. What? Yeah, no, no. I want the hand on the alarm clock. I want, like, a little crowd of children. I want some kind of interaction. And now I think it's one of the best openings of a movie.
- [19:56]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It's gutsy as hell.
- [19:58]
Katherine Rundell
And gutsy as hell.
- [20:00]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Well, also corny as fuck. Right?
- [20:02]
Katherine Rundell
It is in no way cool. It's no way pretending to be cool. No, it is. Like, it's saying, this is expensive. It's also saying, brace yourself, guys.
- [20:09]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah, this is expensive and incredibly uncool. Like a Kate Spade bag.
- [20:18]
Katherine Rundell
Now, they're not going to sponsor you, Caroline.
- [20:23]
Caroline O'Donoghue
No, I guess they're not. I guess they're not. And then we go straight to like. And then that's when we have our hand in the alarm clock moment of like, oh, God, oh, I'm late. Blah. And then she goes down to the convent where she lives, and all of the nuns just having a little bitch about her, which I think everybody sort of secretly wishes to be the subject of. That little bitch.
- [20:46]
Katherine Rundell
That little bitch. It's a perfect bitch. It's wonderful. They don't say anything really bad about her. Her faults are very obviously coded as actual virtues. She climbs a tree and scrapes her knees her dress has got a tear. That's fine.
- [21:00]
Caroline O'Donoghue
No one's worried by that. I'd like to speak on Maria's behalf. Maria makes me laugh. It's so, like. Because it's like, you know, you live in the world, and the price of living in the world is that when you leave a room, people will talk about you. And that's just like how we have. And we have to live knowing that. That our dearest friends have said them the worst shit about us. And, like, I think it's so much healthier for everyone to pretend that every time anyone's talking shit about you, it's just the nuns.
- [21:28]
Katherine Rundell
It's just the nuns. It's just the nuns. I think it's a fabulous message to be telling young children. Like, people will talk about you, but don't worry too much. It's largely going to be in rhyme. And it's going to be nuns.
- [21:40]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It's going to be nuns. And they all love you, really.
- [21:43]
Katherine Rundell
My friend was in a garden the other day that turned out to be a nunnery near Hoxton. And the gardener had been gardening there since he was a little boy. And he is now an old man said, I love the nuns. There are only nine of them left. And you wouldn't think it, but because they're nuns, you know, you'd think that they are gentle and sweet. They fight like cat and dog. And I loved this.
- [22:07]
Caroline O'Donoghue
I love that. I got a lot of love for nuns as a concept.
- [22:11]
Katherine Rundell
I always never went to a convent school or anything like that. But I once spent a couple of days at a convent and I was writing a book about John Nunn and one of the wonderful nuns gave me a novel about. They had a big library of novels. She gave me a novel about Ann Donne and John Donne. John Donne, the Renaissance poet. And I didn't read it at the time. Then I got it home, and it was borderline porn, which I just loved.
- [22:35]
Caroline O'Donoghue
She's in the. Hanging around.
- [22:37]
Katherine Rundell
It was in the Nunn library. Wow. Yeah, it was sexy.
- [22:41]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Again, it sort of takes you to, like. This is one of the most successful films of all time. Probably the most successful movie musical of all time. And how odd this is. The plot of, like, starting in a nunnery. Woman getting kicked out of a nunnery for being too something.
- [23:00]
Katherine Rundell
Yeah. Too. What is it that we are suggested in the film? She is too much of. Too disobedient to the. Too unable to fit herself into the strictures of the rigor of the life that these women have chosen, I guess.
- [23:14]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah. Too hot.
- [23:16]
Katherine Rundell
Too hot. Too. Too wild.
- [23:19]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Too hot for the convent. Not hot enough for normal life.
- [23:23]
Katherine Rundell
A problem many of us have.
- [23:25]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It really is. I find it every day. And then I just. To go on to. She gets her sort of assignment with the Von Trapps. And then I realized something on listening to. On watching it this time that I had never realized before. Are you by any chance a fan or a. A previous audience member of the Book of Mormon?
- [23:45]
Katherine Rundell
I have seen the Book of Mormon.
- [23:46]
Caroline O'Donoghue
What do you think of the Book of Mormon?
- [23:48]
Katherine Rundell
I remember thinking that it was beautifully sung and much, much less scandalous than we had been promised.
- [23:56]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yes.
- [23:56]
Katherine Rundell
It felt like it was just right for your great aunt to come down from Kent.
- [24:00]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah. It's a real. The thing is, I have this conversation with Tasha all the time about Operation Mincemeat and how a lot of Operation Mincemeat's success is similar to Book of Mormon success, which is a musical you can bring your dad and brother to. There's very few of those.
- [24:12]
Katherine Rundell
I went with my bro to the Book of Mormon.
- [24:14]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yes. Yeah. We've all been with our brother to the Book of Mormon. It's where we go. But I realized when I was watching Maria perform. I have confidence that I believe in the Book of Mormon directly. References and riffs on. I have confidence. Literally the line, a captain with seven children. What's so fearsome about that? Like, literally a warlord who shoots people in the face. What's so scary about that? And, like, there's. There's so many lines in it that reference. Like, specifically the Book of Mormon. Specifically references. And I had this crazy thing of like, oh, yeah, the Book of Mormon is also a play about missionaries and people of faith trying to like, operate in the real world after like cloistered life. And it was so strange about like the cheesiest musical that most mainstream thing ever, paired with the kind of the edgiest, sort of like, wow, I can't believe they said that musical so anti establishment. And they are essentially mirrors of one another.
- [25:12]
Katherine Rundell
I mean, perfect. And of course, the other thing is, if you're writing a musical now, it will be in the shadow of the Sound of Music. And the side story, there is no way not to know that anyone who comes to you to see a musical deliberately has those already in their blood. And so you're gonna have to do something about that. You're gonna have to rise to it, you're gonna have to nod to it, you're gonna have to something to it.
- [25:35]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Because ultimately these, like, you know, you and I are novelists, so we know very much about what plots need when and. But there's a lot of elasticity with that. Like. Like, for example, you know, the meeting of the elder is a plot point in most novels, but that elder can be anyone. It can be a talking dragon, it can be, you know, a finance manager. Do you know what I mean? It can be anybody. But musicals are a little bit stricter. Like, it's kind of. There's certain songs that need to be there and are the same in most musicals. And this kind of the I have confidence, the kind of g yourself up for your big task is basically in every musical. And it's crazy to me how there are like these stations of the cross in musicals that cannot be fucked with and you must follow whether you are the Book of Mormon or the Sound of Music.
- [26:23]
Katherine Rundell
Absolutely. You know, which makes perfect sense because when we go into a musical, we are going to be given something very specific, something much more specific than a novel, especially as a novel can be 60 pages or 700 pages in a musical, broadly speaking, has to be between.
- [26:37]
Caroline O'Donoghue
About 2 hours 40.
- [26:38]
Katherine Rundell
About 2 hours 40.
- [26:38]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah, exactly.
- [26:41]
Katherine Rundell
I. I love the idea that you can take an archetype, take a really intense structure and make something fresh with it. It's the same reckoning as a sonnet or a haiku. That, that the discipline of the form that you have to fit into can be a way to liberate yourself. That sometimes that discipline is the way that magic happens. It's not despite. It's because that you have these strict.
- [27:04]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Completely and because when people expect certain things and then you give it to them, the Amount you can also say while they're relaxed because they know they're in good hands is kind of incredible. Which is why I think the thematic sort of optimism and ambition of the Sound of Music works so well, because it just fit into these strictures. It's like a movie that begins to be about a nun who's nervous about being a nanny, becomes about, like, you know, defying the Nazis and. And the Anschluss. Do you mean like. Like specifically the Anschluss, which is like a part of World War II that people just do not care about? Do you know what I mean?
- [27:36]
Katherine Rundell
It doesn't really get into people's curricula in the same way people forget about Austria, they forget about 1938. I think so many people learn about the war basically from 1939.
- [27:46]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah, yeah. And they learn about the French Resistance and the Holocaust and the Americans getting involved and sort of the kind of later stage things. But.
- [27:54]
Katherine Rundell
And of course, for Austria, truly a thing that changed and reshaped the country forever.
- [28:00]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [28:01]
Katherine Rundell
And it's a really interesting one. Maybe we talk about it later, but the idea that one of the main plot points of this film is Nazis, because that was true to their life. The real Georg von Trapp was indeed an anti Nazi who did suffer real fear that he would be persecuted for it. He refused to sing at Hitler's birthday. He refused a job with the Nazi Navy, and his son refused a job at a hospital that had just recently fired all of its Jewish doctors, which did put you in the firing line for arrest for persecution. So they were in danger. But of course, when the film came out, one of the criticisms that was leveled at it by Joan Didion was, I do not think it is fair to have something so dark made to the service of something so slight, because she felt that it was. She said it makes it look like history need not happen to people like Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, that you can whistle a happy tune and the Anschluss goes away. And I don't think that that criticism is entirely fair, but I can absolutely see her point that it gestures towards the Nazis, but it doesn't fully recognize the horror of the decimation of the entirety of the European Jewish population, of the way that Europe would be reshaped in terrible ways forever. And I don't know how did you feel about that when you were.
- [29:38]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Do you know what? Because my Wikipedia is as purple linked as it is, there was a moment. I do agree with Didion in many ways in that it is maybe it's because the timing of the film, because it was just 20 years after the Second World War, I think things could be said in subtext that need not be explicit. Like, if we were making it today, we would need far more explicit Nazi references to really drive home the point of, like, you know, for. For 7 and 11 year olds kind of seeing it like, this is what the Nazis were. This is why we can never repeat this kind of fascism again. Although. Yeah, but I. It wasn't necessary for an audience to be taught why the Nazis were terrible. It was enough to have those fl. And to have, you know, Georg von Trapp tearing them down. But there was this moment where, again, we're skipping ahead. That's okay. We all know. We all know what 16 going on 17 is about that moment where they realize that they're going to have to leave Austria. And then Captain von Trapp looks around and he said, we're going to have to leave Austria. And then he goes and this house. And of course, the house was later taken over by Heinrich Himmler. And this. I found it so sort of chilling about like that. Yeah, this is. We have. We have learned to become at home in this grand house. The first time Julie Andrews enters that home, it is so enormous and the grounds go on forever so far that he needs to have whistles to call his children because he's gonna be shouting across them. But then by the end of it, we're like, it's Julie's house and it's our house too, you know, and then they have to leave. And we know that Nazis are gonna have their headquarters there. And that's really what happened. And I think actually what the Sound of Music accomplishes with its subtlety is far greater than what it could accomplish with being explicit. Like, nothing makes me more upset than both the Edelweiss, sort of the initial playing of it. When Captain von Trapp is sort of like. He finally sees his children singing. He realizes that joy can come back into his house. He melts, he takes the guitar, his children gather around him and, like, it's the act of song that, like, brings him back in union with his family and makes life good again. And then at the end of the film, we have this reprise where, like, this song that was. Was just an hour ago about union is now about sort of dissolution, where he stands in front of the kind of newly Nazi territory that is his home. He knows he's going to be leaving after this song. He knows he will never come back. And he leads the Austrians in This kind of defiant song of like, Bless my homeland forever. And I find that so moving and it speaks for so much kind of experience of people who did have to leave their homes forever. And I find it so effective because it's subtle. What do you think?
- [32:27]
Katherine Rundell
I think it is possible that the film allows itself to. To be maybe lighter. The film offers the chance for you to watch it and feel a kind of softness and not to have to face the actual truths about that war and about that holocaust. But I think if you watch it now as an adult, I find the ending very dark because you bring your own dread and you bring your own knowledge. And I think maybe the film can be watched by people and sentimentalized and dismissed. And you can watch it, I think, and not really have to come face to face with what truly happened. But if you know what truly happened, if you're an educated adult, which we all are, we all know, then I think it's a much darker film as an adult. And when I watch it now in those final scenes, you do know that behind it all there is horror. And it does just have those gestures towards horror. And I'm so grateful for them.
- [33:42]
Caroline O'Donoghue
But this actually leads us really nicely into like one of the few actual Nazi characters that we have in the Sound of Music, which is Rolf and him as being like this incredibly effective thing of like, we only meet him maybe three or perhaps four times during the musical. The first time is for 16, going on 17, delivers the telegram to Liesl and they have that astounding greenhouse scene which is just.
- [34:08]
Katherine Rundell
And when you're a kid, of course, when I was 6, I wouldn't have experienced Christopher Plummer as an object of sexual intent because he was an old man.
- [34:17]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yes, he's a bit like Richard and Friends, right? When you're 11, you don't get it. And then you watch again at like 22 and you're like, excuse me.
- [34:24]
Katherine Rundell
And the two boys are not projected to the audience as objects of any kind of desire, even for children. You know, there is no one coming and flirting with them.
- [34:34]
Caroline O'Donoghue
There's no Zac Efron in the Von Trapps, you know. Exactly.
- [34:37]
Katherine Rundell
But what there is is this beautiful boy who comes to dance with Liesel and he is offered to, you know, the seven year old viewer as the one that you might adore because Liesel adores him and we all adore Liesl and so, you know, she is.
- [34:54]
Caroline O'Donoghue
And he dances around with their Fred and Ginger Rogers. Like, when does that character ever become the villain? Or like evidence of villainry? Do you know what I mean? Like, if that's. That's crazy that that happens. We have this gorgeous thing where she's, like, jumping on the benches, he's leading around the gowns, going out. In what other movie does that end up being the villain?
- [35:11]
Katherine Rundell
Become the Nazis?
- [35:12]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [35:13]
Katherine Rundell
And in what other film is the only point of sort of romantic projection for young viewers. Twisted. And you suddenly see that he is, in fact, the Nazi. I mean, in some ways, this film teaches you do not fall in love with plausible, beautiful blonde boys who. Who turn haughty on you. Because at the heart of it, there's. There's something terrifying that he does have this weakness for power and for oppression.
- [35:46]
Caroline O'Donoghue
But even though he's such an important part of the movie. And this is why I'm so in awe of the Sound of Music, structurally, in its storytelling. And how every character is doing several jobs at once. And that thing of. Yes, he is there to show the kind of. Liesel's coming of age and first romance. And that's so important in her character because really, of the children, there are only two characters, which is Liesl and Gretel. And the rest of them are just like meh. And that's important. But the thing of. We see him first in this beautiful scene that all girls grow up just wanting to be Lisa Lewis.
- [36:22]
Katherine Rundell
The leaping between the benches. We used to try it, of course. I have fallen off so many benches because of that scene.
- [36:28]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yes. I lost my front tooth because of that scene. Because of jumping from bike rack to bike rack. It's very hard. And then the next time we see him, I think his demeanor is strange. And then he meets Captain Montjo. And then he kind of, like, says as an afterthought, oh, hi, hi, Hitler kind of thing. And he kind of sticks his hand up. It's very clumsy, but it's like he's. You could almost argue at that point. You're like, well, this is just a teenage boy growing up in Austria who's kind of has to do this now. But then the next time you see him, he's a full fucking Nazi. And he's just like. And we're just completely transformed. And then the final time we see him, he's calling.
- [37:10]
Katherine Rundell
He betrays them.
- [37:11]
Caroline O'Donoghue
He betrays them.
- [37:12]
Katherine Rundell
You know that second scene where you see him where he gives Liesel a telegram and she says, don't you want to come and deliver it yourself?
- [37:19]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [37:20]
Katherine Rundell
And he. I think that it is in. One of the suggestions is he is romantically confused. He doesn't know what to do. And his final Heil Hitler is what he does to cover his uncertainty. And in that sense, that is exactly how fascism flies. That you take somebody who is awkward and resentful of their own awkwardness and resentful, perhaps, of the way that the girl is making them feel awkward. And they just step into totalitarianism. They step into a kind of brutal choreography that is waiting for them to welcome.
- [38:01]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yes. Oh, God. Brutal choreography. Fuck me up, Katherine Rundle. Jesus Christ. Yes. And of course, there's a thing that doesn't really get talked about either, which is that they're like, he is a telegram boy and Liesel is the favored daughter of a naval captain living in a huge house. There's already a class died. Realistically, they cannot really be together kind of thing. If their relationship were to ever progress that far. Like, I don't think Captain von Trapp wouldn't be pleased about Ralph, you know, Nazi or no. And that kind of thing of. He looks at her differently, even though she hasn't changed and she doesn't understand why.
- [38:35]
Katherine Rundell
Yeah. Yeah. And it's done so lightly.
- [38:37]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [38:38]
Katherine Rundell
And when you're seven, you don't see it. You just see this sort of sudden arrow through the heart that this boy that you loved sort of 18 minutes ago is turning dark. But I think as an adult, I am in awe of the script. How much it manages to thread through its fundamentally quite simple story.
- [38:59]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah. God, it's pretty simple, but weird story.
- [39:02]
Katherine Rundell
Deeply, deeply weird. I mean, the idea that this was what they thought would make one of the world's finest musicals.
- [39:08]
Caroline O'Donoghue
And they were right. Right. You know, God, far simpler stories fail all the time. You know, it's crazy to me.
- [39:16]
Katherine Rundell
Can we talk about when we meet the children?
- [39:18]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Oh, yes. Okay. Sorry, we have skipped over that because that is adorable, that scene.
- [39:21]
Katherine Rundell
It used to be my favorite thing.
- [39:23]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Go on.
- [39:23]
Katherine Rundell
We used to rewind and rewatch it. And one of the things that I love most about it is their accents are unhinged. Maria sounds British. Christopher Plummer sounds British. Their children are a mixture of Americans, Canadians, English, and one like little twang of Australia. And it's course faintly like transatlantic British. But when I was, I don't know, like 10, as a present, someone took me to a sing along Sound of Music with my best friend.
- [39:52]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Oh, fun. I've done one of those with Prince Charles. They're really, really good.
- [39:55]
Katherine Rundell
They're fabulous.
- [39:55]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah. We should go.
- [39:57]
Katherine Rundell
Yes. And I thought so many people dressed up, it was divine. But as the little one says, I'm Kurt, I'm 11. I'm incorrigible. A boy at the back of the sing along sound of Music shouted, y'all sound so Austrian. And ever since then it is true. Like, where have these children been schooled? Why are their voices so many and.
- [40:18]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Varied by a succession of governesses, all with different accents also, just like complete model. That bit. It is such a lovely bit that when they all march forward and have.
- [40:27]
Katherine Rundell
Their little say, it's such a perfect. One of the things that when you're writing the fictional film that we think about all the time is if you have a bigger cast, how do you introduce people to that cast, to your ensemble, to your heist crew? You know, how do we introduce the characters in Ocean's Eleven? And the best way that has ever been invented has been Christopher Plummer blowing a whistle.
- [40:48]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Oh, it's so good. Because like that. Then it kind of reminds me later on, later in the movie where she's screaming at Captain von Trapp that he doesn't know his children, which is another extremely hot scene where they yell at each other. I love when they yell at each other.
- [41:01]
Katherine Rundell
She's very wet. She's just been in the lake. It's fantastic.
- [41:04]
Caroline O'Donoghue
No one's ever looked wet like that. All of her body clothes just stuck to her tiny waist. And she says something like. She kind of goes through a long list of what the children are like and what they need and how they love him and whatever. And there's one of the kids and she's like. And I don't really know what so and so is like, but someone needs. I find that so funny and so real.
- [41:23]
Katherine Rundell
It's Louisa. Louisa, Louisa, I don't know about yet, who is also the blonde actress, I think, who is slightly too old for her role. That's Louisa, isn't it?
- [41:31]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Maybe.
- [41:32]
Katherine Rundell
And I think it's the one we're all slightly puzzled by. We and Julie Andrews both.
- [41:38]
Caroline O'Donoghue
I don't know what she wants yet, but someone needs. So it's so well delivered. The way she delivers those lines is so. And like. And it's so strange to, like, have her Julie Andrews occupy both the kind of Mary Poppins and Maria von Trapp role because they are similar in that they're both full of this kind of stardust and whimsy or whatever. But Mary Poppins knows everything and Maria von Trapp is making it up as she goes along and it really feels that way. And what makes it so lovely and why you do believe you'd have, like, the Best day ever with her.
- [42:09]
Katherine Rundell
Yeah. The idea that she has a gift for, like, the improvisation of delight, that is something that we don't know that many people who can do that, but everyone knows one.
- [42:19]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [42:19]
Katherine Rundell
And they are people who just do shine through their days. And she is one of them. She is also responsible for the fact that for like, a decade, I didn't know what the word incorrigible meant because little boy says I'm incorrigible. What's incorrigible? I think it means you want to be treated like a boy. No, it doesn't.
- [42:38]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Absolutely doesn't mean that.
- [42:40]
Katherine Rundell
It doesn't mean that even slightly. But for a decade, I thought it did.
- [42:44]
Caroline O'Donoghue
I'm Gretel, and that hurt my fingers. No. Is that. What's Gretel's intention?
- [42:49]
Katherine Rundell
No. She just holds up her little five fingers, and later she says, I got a sore finger. It got caught. Caught in what? Friedrich's teeth.
- [42:59]
Caroline O'Donoghue
I love them.
- [43:00]
Katherine Rundell
They're just magnificent. In the final scene. I read this this morning when they're hiking up over the mountain. Little Gretel, over the course of the summer, had got too big and heavy, and she couldn't fit on his shoulders. He refused to carry her. It's a stunt double.
- [43:18]
Caroline O'Donoghue
No. Oh, that's such a good little fact. I love that. Oh, little Gretel.
- [43:26]
Katherine Rundell
Poor little Gretel got big.
- [43:29]
Caroline O'Donoghue
I can't believe that. She couldn't even be in the final scene. She's like, no, we'll stand over there. God, I hope she was okay for the rest of her life after. Christopher Plummer says, you're too big to carry and you can't be when you're five years old. That is really the makings of a complex, isn't it? Ain't that Woof. And then. Oh, yeah. And they're very cruel to her. And I love when she makes them all cry. She's like. And how. You must have known how scared I must have been being my first day in this new house and a new job. How welcoming you've been. Tears. It's so good.
- [44:02]
Katherine Rundell
It's brilliant. And that feels like a brilliant joke for kids. Like, I remember loving that as a kid.
- [44:06]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah, fabulous. And then Liesel coming through the window and the storm and looking so beautiful.
- [44:13]
Katherine Rundell
And very much looking 22. But that's okay. We don't mind.
- [44:17]
Caroline O'Donoghue
I love how, like, both Julie Andrews and the actress who played Liesl have both come out about their enormous crushes on Christopher Plummer and how neither one of them sort of came to anything and how Christopher Plummer wanted to have an affair with Judy Andrews, but he couldn't because of geography and time. And the interviewer said, and the interviewer watched, said, what do you mean geography and time? She's like, well, she had her kids with her and they put her at a hotel the other side of town. And that it was a very busy shooting schedule. I mean, we were both married, but we should have had an affair. So cranky. I love him.
- [44:52]
Katherine Rundell
That makes me so happy. I didn't know that.
- [44:55]
Caroline O'Donoghue
That's fantastic. Just like, oh, they put her at another hotel. You can tell on purpose. It would have been like a taxi in Salzburg. There's no Uber.
- [45:10]
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- [45:40]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Okay, can now we talk about the baroness and Mags, because the thing about this movie is that it is seven movies. It is a whimsical musical for children. It is a romantic comedy. It's a romantic drama. It's a kind of society drama. It's a thriller in the last five minutes. And like it's probably something else as well. But like when she.
- [46:01]
Katherine Rundell
It's a puppet show for a brief five minutes.
- [46:03]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It's the longest puppet show probably ever in cinema.
- [46:06]
Katherine Rundell
We used to fast forward through the puppet show.
- [46:08]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah, I have no love for the puppet show anymore.
- [46:12]
Katherine Rundell
Fabulous as it is. Gifted and full of.
- [46:15]
Caroline O'Donoghue
I would love to know when they came in at this movie, like three hours, 10 or whatever, something crazy. Like, was there any point where they're like, you know, we could make the puppet show a little shorter.
- [46:28]
Katherine Rundell
Possibly there's some kind. I mean, we haven't thought about this carefully, but maybe in the puppet show there's some kind of symbolism or gesture or clue that we're supposed to be finding.
- [46:38]
Caroline O'Donoghue
I really, I really closed my tax return to watch to watch the puppet show very closely. If anyone knows anything, please tell me.
- [46:44]
Katherine Rundell
Please do write in.
- [46:45]
Caroline O'Donoghue
I almost never want people to write in, but like symbolic interpretations of the puppet show because I think there's nothing in it.
- [46:52]
Katherine Rundell
High on a hill, there's a lonely goat herd. Eunali. And then she yodels back. And then soon her mama cleaning goats. So her mother is involved yeah.
- [47:01]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Mother's involved.
- [47:02]
Katherine Rundell
And then there's a baby. And then there's also the two goats also have a baby.
- [47:07]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [47:08]
Katherine Rundell
And that appears to be the entirety of the story that we're offered by the Puff.
- [47:14]
Caroline O'Donoghue
And it's very strange because it's hard to know what they even serve as, like, narratively, because the whole thing is that Max Detwiler, Uncle Max, who's nobody's uncle, therefore, is a gay man who I think should be a lot more nervous about the Nazis than he is. Should. Yeah. He wants to exploit their talent for his. So he's some kind of agent or something. Or he's putting on festivals and all that kind of thing. And. And the puppet show. He has ordered but has charged Georg, which I think is fun, but he doesn't want them to be puppeteers. He wants them to be.
- [47:49]
Katherine Rundell
Singers sing beautifully in a row. It's bewildering to me. And I assume that they thought, kids will love it. And every kid I know was like.
- [47:59]
Caroline O'Donoghue
No, no, no, no, no. We love curtains and learning to sing.
- [48:05]
Katherine Rundell
We don't love that they've got slightly creepy puppets. Yeah. Their eyes are very alarming. And the involvement of the mother, even as a child, I was like, that seems unacceptable to me.
- [48:16]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Or the involvement of. Oh, yes, the mother.
- [48:19]
Katherine Rundell
Soon her mama with a gleaming glow.
- [48:22]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It's very opaque. Why won't you let me talk with Baroness Rex And Baroness.
- [48:28]
Katherine Rundell
Come. We must talk about the finest part in the entire film and the most beautiful woman. She is so.
- [48:36]
Caroline O'Donoghue
She's incredible, gorgeous and, like, again, doing several things at once in that movie. Because what's so interesting about it as well, when you kind of watch it again, is the sort of the splintering of the self that Captain von Trapp has that at home. He's this sadist freak with his whistle and hates his kids and hates everything. And then he just, like, goes off to be a debonair gent that swings among the parties with aristocrats and, you know, it's. So his personality around the Baroness and around Max is totally different to who he is with Maria when he has a sort of epiphany and who he is with his kids. Like, it's like this weird fake personality he has. It's so interesting to me. But they also seem, like, really quite happy together, those two. And there's every reason they should be married.
- [49:24]
Katherine Rundell
She has done nothing wrong.
- [49:26]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Nothing wrong.
- [49:26]
Katherine Rundell
I think this is the thing that when you were a kid, you're like, boo, Boo. She's getting into evil, right? And then you watch it again, you're like, wait, she's just elegant. And yes, she doesn't like the kids, but there's seven of them and they haven't been nice to her.
- [49:40]
Caroline O'Donoghue
You know, I love how awkward she is with them. I find that very sweet, actually, because she wants to try hard. And like that bit where there's her and Max are sitting on the terrace and he's a bit like, well, do I hear wedding pills, wedding bells or whatever? And she's like, I get the feeling I'm here on approval that like, basically the kids have to like me if we're going to get married. And crucially, the Baroness doesn't need this wedding. She's a very rich woman.
- [50:04]
Katherine Rundell
She is in love with Gale.
- [50:06]
Caroline O'Donoghue
She's in love, they're in love. They're canonically in love. They have a good time and you could. And her awkwardness, which kind of pairs with her elegance, just means she doesn't know what to do because she knows that everything depends on these kids liking her, but she doesn't know how to communicate with kids. It's really quite sad.
- [50:25]
Katherine Rundell
Although she does. Like, what is the classic and canonical way that we can signal that a stepmother is evil? You say, haven't you ever heard of a little thing called boarding school?
- [50:38]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Which again, I know, like McSweeney is a famously done article about this which everybody has read.
- [50:43]
Katherine Rundell
Everyone loves it.
- [50:44]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Everyone loves it. I will link it to in the. On Instagram if you haven't read it. But basically the. The Baroness writing to her friends to say the wedding has come. It's very funny. But what that article points out is those children should be in boarding school.
- [50:57]
Katherine Rundell
They don't appear to do lessons at any point. Can they read? We don't know.
- [51:01]
Caroline O'Donoghue
We don't know. And like, I don't think it's weird. I don't think it's good for a 16 year old to hang out with her 5 year old and be taught.
- [51:08]
Katherine Rundell
In the same room by the same one person. It's not a sound system of education.
- [51:13]
Caroline O'Donoghue
No, they should go to school. They should have friends their own age. They should. Those ones in the middle are doing good because they seem about the same age. But. But come on.
- [51:21]
Katherine Rundell
Exactly. Who's Liesl hanging out with?
- [51:23]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Who's Liesl hanging out with? Not her Nazi boyfriend anymore. Like, I just love that woman. And I also love that, yes, she manipulates Maria into quitting her job and leaving, but I think she does it very gracefully. And. And she does it in this Way where she's like, I kind of, you know. So they have the ball, and the captain and Maria have that beautiful dance together. And the Baroness sees it, and she sort of. And then Maria is invited to dinner and, oh, you know, I'll lend you something of mine. And they go upstairs so that Marie can change. And Baroness is like, I don't think you understand that this is kind of inappropriate, the relationship that you have with my fiance, your boss. It could be quite dangerous for him. And you. Have you thought about how you're behaving here? Because I know you grew up in a nunnery and you might not really understand the nuances of, like, heterosexual dynamics. Just so we're clear, which I find very fucking classy, actually. You caught your fiance dancing with his employee in a really sexy way right.
- [52:32]
Katherine Rundell
After you are officially engaged in the ball that is taking place is essentially.
- [52:36]
Caroline O'Donoghue
A ball for your engagement.
- [52:37]
Katherine Rundell
For your engagement. I think that it isn't unfair to think that that is not fantastic behavior from anyone.
- [52:44]
Caroline O'Donoghue
The classiest way you can behave is to take that woman privately aside and say, I know you're young and naive, but you kind of need to see the bigger picture here. And the classiest thing for Maria to do is leave. So I just. I will never hear a bad worry against that woman. And, like, I just. I also just love how, like, this movie up and up, which up until this point is like this family, comedy, drama, musical thing, then, like, just Baroness and Max just bring this other movie in, like this other kind of sleek, 60s, sort of intelligent.
- [53:18]
Katherine Rundell
Yeah. They are gesturing to an entire other form of cinema. An entire form of cinema, an entire history of cinema, and an entirely different vision of the way the world operates and just hovers at the edges of the film, which is fundamentally a family film, broadly, for children. But there is just this edge. Like, we know that there are places where there are politics and money and class and beauty and a striving to be at the core of. Of a. Of a society, that there is ambition, that Max wants to be rich and established. And like this idea that there is a world where people are fighting for specific, socially nuanced.
- [54:02]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yes.
- [54:02]
Katherine Rundell
And it just hovers at the side as Maria is there in her boat falling into the water.
- [54:07]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's such a perfect little. I don't know, chemical balance or something of this entire other. Like, they're in the Philadelphia Story, you know, they're in some other kind of classic movie in which they are not villains.
- [54:21]
Katherine Rundell
Exactly, exactly. They are in films starring Katharine Hepburn in black and white and Cary Grant.
- [54:28]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [54:29]
Katherine Rundell
And then we just have this folksy little nanny, this fabulous nun with terrible hair. I love that. There's just this dusting of this sense that there is a bigger world and they belong to it.
- [54:43]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah. It's so good.
- [54:45]
Katherine Rundell
Fabulous.
- [54:46]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Can you imagine going to that party and it's like, oh, my God. Baroness von Schrader, the famous Viennese international beauty. Were going to Herbolt, but most of it would be the children singing. Can you imagine? It's like towards the end of the Weimar Republic, Germany and Austria have never been more liberated. It's all like, people are gay, people are trans, you know, like, oh, we're listening to a five year old sing herself to bed.
- [55:15]
Katherine Rundell
I mean, I would have been delighted.
- [55:18]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [55:18]
Katherine Rundell
I love that. At the end, the children sing Goodbye and the entire group of adults goodbye. Like a tabernacle. Quiet and a sensational.
- [55:28]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It is like that. Yeah. When you're in your friend's house who has a kid and like, they're like, oh, thingy wants to say good night. And you're like, good night. Go to bed. I want to drink wine and swear.
- [55:44]
Katherine Rundell
Can we talk about the scene where Maria and the Captain dance?
- [55:49]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Oh, yes, please.
- [55:51]
Katherine Rundell
So I. That was one of the things that, when I was a kid, I didn't care. I didn't particularly enjoy that scene. I think we were probably slightly fast forwarding through that too. And as an adult, she's dancing with Kurt and on the inside, the ball is going on and they're dancing the same dance that everyone is dancing. And you can just see them in the background and they're sort of like older couples. And so she's trying to teach this little boy. He's not good. She's. Julie Andrews is not a sensationally good dancer.
- [56:19]
Caroline O'Donoghue
No.
- [56:20]
Katherine Rundell
And then you get Christopher Plummer and he comes and he stands in the doorway and he's wearing white gloves and he just pulls them tighter on his wrists. And it's spectacularly erotic. It's just fantastic. And you know that famous scene in the modern Pride and prejudice where Matthew McFadden just flexes his hand, which Gen Z just wild for. But I. My allegiance will always be to Christopher Plummer and his gloves. And the way that that scene is lit and the softness with which they shine, it's just brilliant. Even though neither of them are brilliant dancers. It doesn't matter.
- [57:03]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It's such a wonderful thing when you notice a. When you're looking at a really studied performance, always noticing what a character's Hands are doing because, like, it is sort of the part of the body that is exposed and unadorned. All the. If you think of, like, an actor like Christopher Plummer or even Matthew McFadden, Pride and Prejudice, we are seeing the face, which is doing what the acting tells it to do, which is to say the words in a sad or happy or anguished way, and then everything else is covered up. The only Bear on Dorne thing we see is the hands. And so the kind of the Matthew McFadden sort of flexing slightly because basically that's the one place where he can show his sort of, like, mammal body energy, where he's, like, not a refined man of society. He's just a man who wants to touch a woman. And you're right, it's the same thing happening with him. Just adjusting his gloves and making them tighter and being like, kind of control yourself, Georg kind of thing. You know, it's perfect.
- [57:56]
Katherine Rundell
And the scene, the dance involves, it's truly just delightful. It involves one of them stands still and the other one dances around the other and he claps as he dances around her and his. Again, I only noticed this when I watched it for this podcast, but his eyes just go up and down her and up and down her and up and down her.
- [58:18]
Caroline O'Donoghue
What's so deeply erotic about Captain Von Trapp as a character is like, he's what Dolly calls a camp dom.
- [58:27]
Katherine Rundell
He is.
- [58:28]
Caroline O'Donoghue
He's just like. He's like somebody who enjoy, really, at core, is silly. Do you know what I mean? And I think my favorite thing. I will only ever love silly people. And that is a love for me, for life. Because anybody who understands and is silly, it means that they have a part of their personality where they know what's worth taking seriously, and one must exist without the other. So it's like we have Captain Von Trapp who, like, loves the puppet show and loves to sing and, like, you know, is so obsessed with his kids and kind of is actually silly. And that silliness allows air for the deeply principled side of him to shine. And do you know what I mean? It's like, I will. I no longer have any space, time, effort, energy to respond to, reply to or whatever. People who are taking everything ambiently seriously. I want people who are taking huge swathes of life not seriously at all. And something's very serious.
- [59:24]
Katherine Rundell
Exactly.
- [59:25]
Caroline O'Donoghue
If that makes sense. Does that make sense at all? Like, I don't know.
- [59:27]
Katherine Rundell
Yes. I think this is in some ways a film perfectly about that. The idea that, like, there will Be some things that will be worth just throwing your entire soul at the feet of someone or a cause or a truth. And then sometimes, in order to make that possible, you do have to watch a puppet show with, like, singing goats.
- [59:50]
Caroline O'Donoghue
And you do have to be, like, with complete commitment.
- [59:53]
Katherine Rundell
Complete commitment. Like, commitment to the silly commitment to the idea of, like, humankind's eternal desire to laugh.
- [60:03]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yes.
- [60:03]
Katherine Rundell
Like, not to get all John Donne about this.
- [60:07]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Okay. No, you have to. You must. You've been very good so far. You've not mentioned it. Barely at all.
- [60:11]
Katherine Rundell
My academic background is in the Renaissance poet John Donne, and he was the dean of St. Paul's Cathedral. And he stood up in the pulpit at a time when there was a big puritan push to suggest that laughter itself was sinful.
- [60:25]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Right.
- [60:26]
Katherine Rundell
And he stood in the pulpit and he said not to laugh. That is the stupidity. That is the contempt. And I just think that the Sound of Music agrees with John Donne.
- [60:38]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah, Does.
- [60:39]
Katherine Rundell
And with you, like.
- [60:42]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [60:43]
Katherine Rundell
I think this is a film that does that thing that great films do, which is it teaches children how to rejoice.
- [60:50]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah. I love this. Love you. I just, like. We need to get to a position where we. Where we. We scold the scolds. People who are just scolding everything as their main form of political action. We must scold them, and it's not enough.
- [61:07]
Katherine Rundell
If. If your main force of political action is scolding, you will think that that is practice. You will think that that is. You will think that that is political action, but it isn't. And therefore, your energy will dissipate into a sea of nothing. And, you know, we need to keep that energy that the Skalds have because it's powerfully important. But it can't be spent lecturing people on the Internet. It's gotta be spent doing something bigger and bolder and sharper. Braver than that.
- [61:40]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Captain von Trapp would never have Instagram. He would never share a graphic on Instagram.
- [61:45]
Katherine Rundell
No, never.
- [61:48]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Because actually, this is the first part of the movie where, like, the Captain shows sort of, like, political, you know, what am I talking about? Rigidity, I guess, against the incoming Nazi party because he is scolded for having the Austrian flag up rather than the Nazi flag. And he says something like, to this character who I can't remember the name of, but he is just the kind of the old Nazi kind of thing who's excited about the Nazis. And he says something like, oh, when the Nazis do come, I'm sure you'll be Playing the tune very loudly. And then the other guy says, oh, you compliment me. And Captain Montrapp says, really? I meant to accuse you. Yes. He's just so direct and firm at this party where he's just danced with his nanny and it's just so fit, so hard.
- [62:40]
Katherine Rundell
And of course the film simplifies their actual resistance to the Nazis. The film makes it much tighter in time and space. Of course it has to. But it is true that they did resist. And it is true that people did resist. And I think perhaps the film. The film perhaps makes it look like more people resisted in Austria than they did that final scene, the extraordinary scene that I love so much when they sing Edelweiss on the stage, which is so moving and the whole crowd sings back in a gesture of designs. Where of course we know that Austrian citizenry in fact was eager to denounce Jews in hiding. That it was in it's dark, dark history that Austria has, especially the Austrian aristocracy and the Austrian upper class us. But nonetheless it is true that people did.
- [63:37]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [63:37]
Katherine Rundell
And that the Von Traps did. And that, you know, when horror comes, people do. And I think sometimes these films, even though they're incredibly simplistic, just reminding people what it looks like to stand up.
- [63:52]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [63:52]
Katherine Rundell
It is worth having them. Even if they're romanticized, even if they're somewhat absurd, even if they gloss over really important bits of the reality. I think they do still say stand up.
- [64:05]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [64:06]
Katherine Rundell
And. And you know, I think kids watch that and I think it helps them build a blueprint for what it might look like to stand up.
- [64:14]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah. We've been here quite a long time, but there is still so much for us to say, I think.
- [64:21]
Katherine Rundell
Yeah. We can always.
- [64:22]
Caroline O'Donoghue
What would you not forgive yourself? I mean, we have to. We have to talk about the way this movie just simply becomes a thriller and such a taut, tight thriller. Although, hang on, we haven't talked about the sort of the realization of love between the captain and Maria. So what do you want to talk about first? I guess Captain Maria being in love happens.
- [64:42]
Katherine Rundell
First, Captain Maria being in love.
- [64:44]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Then the wedding.
- [64:46]
Katherine Rundell
Ah, the wedding. Tell me your thoughts about the wedding.
- [64:49]
Caroline O'Donoghue
I get very upset every time I was texting you about this. That the nuns have to watch from behind a cage. I hate when nuns are in the cage. I think it's scary. I thought it was scary when I was a kid and I think it's scary now.
- [65:04]
Katherine Rundell
I love that wedding. I love her dress. She is so beautiful. It's one of the first times you realize Just how fantastic her figure is. But as a kid. It doesn't cater to a kid's desires. The cathedral is enormous and grand, but the shots they use, they shine light on the grandness of the architecture than on her.
- [65:27]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yes.
- [65:28]
Katherine Rundell
Aren't that many glory shots of her as a bride. And I guess it's more that it's about the solemnity of the occasion and about the nuns watching her and hilariously singing a song about how difficult she is as she goes.
- [65:44]
Caroline O'Donoghue
They solve their problem called Maria.
- [65:48]
Katherine Rundell
I. I love it. When.
- [65:50]
Caroline O'Donoghue
When you were a kid, did you closely associate Maria von Trapp and Princess Diana?
- [65:55]
Katherine Rundell
I didn't, no.
- [65:56]
Caroline O'Donoghue
I really did. I sort of thought they were the same. That's a very, very, very early memory of mine. Because they kind of look the same.
- [66:05]
Katherine Rundell
Same vibe, similar dresses.
- [66:07]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah, similar. Sort of defiant, outspoken, but also weirdly shy and meek and. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I've got nothing more to say that. I just always kind of thought they were the same person in some kind of, like, weird toddler understanding of it. And then they go on their honeymoon. But while they're on their honeymoon, the Nazis come.
- [66:27]
Katherine Rundell
The Nazis come.
- [66:28]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Georg takes his eye off the ball for one minute, one second, and the.
- [66:32]
Katherine Rundell
Nazi flags are up.
- [66:33]
Caroline O'Donoghue
I love that bit where they. Because for some reason, for whatever reason, Max is in charge. Oh, my God.
- [66:39]
Katherine Rundell
So they don't have to introduce a new character.
- [66:41]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Exactly. And they say to the. The. The old Nazi who we saw in the party delivers sort of the. The kind of Captain von Trapp's military summons to go to Berlin and report for, you know, the war. And Max says, do you know many men who talk to their children on their honeymoon? And it's that kind of. That shot of sex that's just never goes away in this movie. It's like, yeah, this is a movie about kids playing in curtains, but it is about sex.
- [67:08]
Katherine Rundell
It is about sex. And it is, you know, and Max, who we know has been very relaxed about the Nazis. It's the one moment that the film gives him just for a tiny little bit of rebellion, Just a tiny little bit. To protect them, to gesture towards defiance.
- [67:22]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Just a little bit.
- [67:24]
Katherine Rundell
Not much, no.
- [67:27]
Caroline O'Donoghue
I love how he just, like, Captain Plant Trap is very specifically like, you are not allowed to put my children. Let my children sing in public. Which I remember when I was a kid, I was like, let them sing in public. Let them be in the show. And now, as I've seen hundreds of stories of child stars paraded before, I'm like, yeah, no, it's Good parenting. Don't let your children sing in public.
- [67:46]
Katherine Rundell
Unless it's a kid. I was like, but surely they would love it and other people would love it.
- [67:51]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [67:51]
Katherine Rundell
This seems like a character trait to show that you are still quite cruel. No, that wasn't what was happening.
- [67:56]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yes. Yeah. No, he's just being protective.
- [67:58]
Katherine Rundell
That was excellent parenting.
- [67:59]
Caroline O'Donoghue
He was excellent. And I love how Max just ignores it. He's like, well, I've put them in the. I've put them in the shell, eh? They come back and I love. What I find so fascinating about this is that I think all musicals rely on reprises because essentially all musicals have the same structure and pattern of, like, we begin, we meet all our little guys, all our little guys are having fun, the problem gets worse and now everyone's fucked kind of thing. And the. At that point, it's quite hard to introduce new melodies into a story that's moving too quickly to house them. And so what you have to do, and particularly with the Sound of Music, I think it does it more than any other musical. It relies heavily on the idea of reprises. And basically every song the children sing. Bar My Favorite Things, they sing twice. Yeah.
- [68:50]
Katherine Rundell
And in totally different tonal spaces.
- [68:53]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yes. Yes.
- [68:54]
Katherine Rundell
Which is incredibly smart. And as you say, it helps cement it in the public consciousness because you get the songs in various meanings.
- [69:01]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yes.
- [69:01]
Katherine Rundell
And so they go deeper under your skin. And of course, you get edelweiss as a moment of, like, gesture towards possible love. And then you get edelweiss as a gesture towards defiance.
- [69:13]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yes, yes. And you have. And you also have the kind of the kids singing, what are they saying? The hills are alive. The Sound of Music after Maria has left. And it's like this mournful dirge and it's this great way of being like. Yes. The film's subject has radically changed, but the spirit of the film remains the same. And these characters who were so happy in one scene, it's quite a cheap trick, but it's really effective.
- [69:37]
Katherine Rundell
Yeah, it is. It's a cheap trick, but one that you can do if you can pull it off. It's a cheap trick in the way that, like, rhyming couplets are a cheap trick.
- [69:45]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah. It's the exact same in novels. Like, if a character has a red scarf in chapter one and we see that red scarf trampled in the dirt in chapter 12, it's like, I remember the scarf. That was when I didn't know this book at all, and now I know it really well. This ritual is cheap.
- [70:06]
Katherine Rundell
It is a. Just. Structurally and imaginatively, it's a spectacular scene, even though everyone knows that's not what happened. In fact, the von Trapps left completely legally, by train. By train. First to Europe and then to America. And it was not particularly difficult or complicated for them to do so.
- [70:25]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yes.
- [70:27]
Katherine Rundell
So this, at this point, we have entered the realms of mad fantasy. This is not what protest looks like. This is not what, you know, escape looks like. But it is, for what it is, perfect. It is so perfect. And as a kid, it just. Just hammered itself into my heart where the kids are singing. And it's in a cold, dark amphitheater, not in a normal theater.
- [70:57]
Caroline O'Donoghue
And of course, which we skipped over. They have been forced there because they had tried to escape. They're wearing their traveling clothes. Stage clothes. The stage clothes. And they're pushing the car out and they're caught by the Nazis.
- [71:12]
Katherine Rundell
Yes. Because their butler has betrayed them. Which you just get him. One little shot of him in the window. Yes, everyone does. It's technically, the butler doesn't like them. And we see him looking at them once before, and then we see him in the window looking at them.
- [71:27]
Caroline O'Donoghue
That's a new color. I've never seen this film. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you're probably right. Yeah, I'm sure you are. God. Oh, don't like that.
- [71:35]
Katherine Rundell
So the Nazis come and they say, fix Captain von Trapp's car for him so that it will start.
- [71:41]
Caroline O'Donoghue
That moment where they started instantly is where, like the. So up till now, all of your concerns about this movie have been about interpersonal stuff. And suddenly the moment that car starts perfectly fine, it's when these adrenaline stakes begin. And I don't. I can't think of any other musical that does this, that manages to have this thriller aspect going for the final 45 minutes.
- [72:03]
Katherine Rundell
And in no way has the film sort of gestured towards that this is what it's going to do. Yes, but it's so. It's so. Especially as a young person, but even as an adult, it's remarkable how that cast starts and your heart just roars with it.
- [72:18]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah, yeah.
- [72:18]
Katherine Rundell
Frightening.
- [72:19]
Caroline O'Donoghue
And then, as you say, we get to this crazy amphitheater. It's like a weird crypt. Like, that is just kind of incredible, the way that we have been sort of on Max's side for so much of this movie, of being like, let the kids sing. They'll have fun. And the way they have set dress that entire. It's really remarkable of like. It's a space unlike any other space in the movie. Or in any movie of like, it's. It feels like a church with the roof blown off. Like it feels like a ruin or something. Why is it so fucked up?
- [72:51]
Katherine Rundell
Why is this where they're having their concert?
- [72:53]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Why is it in hell?
- [72:55]
Katherine Rundell
But it's perfect. And it's perfect that it's suddenly so dark. And of course, realistically imagine that we were writing this. We would be like, well, I guess it has to be in a theater. And so it would be, you know, with sumptuous wings and everyone in their outfits. And it's a completely different, infinitely worse film that they managed to find. This, as you say, it's like a Roman ruin.
- [73:15]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah, it's fucking Hieronymous Bosch theater. Like, it's like. And I just can't believe how they did that of like. Again, we start the car, the adrenaline is going, our heart is pumping. And then, like, they're forced to sing for the N in this fucked up space that is just scary.
- [73:33]
Katherine Rundell
And the children, each one leaves. And we know that as they're leaving, they are leaving. They smuggling themselves away. And then just the two of them sing.
- [73:44]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah. Oh, God, it's so. And it also puts me in mind of like, you know, Casablanca, of that. That moment of the moles. Is it some kind of French song that, like. Do you know the story at all?
- [73:55]
Katherine Rundell
I do. I've seen it. I love it. I've forgotten what they sing.
- [73:58]
Caroline O'Donoghue
I can't remember what they sing. It is a French song, but it is essentially a kind of a defiant song of Get Nazis, get the fuck out kind of thing happening in Rick's bar in Casablanca. But also the reality of that shot is that most of the people on that set were themselves war refugees. And so you pan to. Oh, I'm just getting upset because I know it makes my dad cry. Now I'm thinking about my dad. And you just pan to all these faces of real tears, of, like, people who. Like, this is still shot during the war. People who can't go home. They still can't go home. And like. Like, I don't know, music and defiance, it's just. It's too much for me.
- [74:34]
Katherine Rundell
That's why we have it. Like, it is one of the reasons we invented it. Yes. It's not like we took it and used it for something it wasn't meant for. It's why it exists.
- [74:43]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It's why it exists and now why it all is being warehoused under techno feudalism that is Spotify, where you are listening to this podcast.
- [74:52]
Katherine Rundell
Oh, fuck.
- [74:53]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Oh, no. Anyway, they flee. They go to the convent. The nuns, come on, take me through it.
- [75:02]
Katherine Rundell
So this, I think, is one of the things that for children, if you've seen it young, you never ever forget it.
- [75:10]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [75:11]
Katherine Rundell
They leave, the announcements start of the winners. And of course, they've come first. So we get third place.
- [75:17]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yes.
- [75:18]
Katherine Rundell
Second place.
- [75:19]
Caroline O'Donoghue
And that woman who's bowing all the time.
- [75:21]
Katherine Rundell
And it's this moment of like gorgeous.
- [75:22]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Gorgeous, gorgeous wit in this crazy moment. Yeah.
- [75:26]
Katherine Rundell
And in the meantime, they are heading towards the nunnery to try to be hidden so that they can maybe take a car. But the cars won't work.
- [75:36]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yes.
- [75:36]
Katherine Rundell
And then back on the stage, it says, the family von Trapp. And they don't come out. And then someone just runs onto the stage and says, they're gone, in an American accent. It's fine.
- [75:47]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It's fine.
- [75:48]
Katherine Rundell
And. And then we have them hiding. The Reverend Mother hides them in the crypt of the nunnery.
- [75:55]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Another scary space.
- [75:56]
Katherine Rundell
Another scary space that was in no way shown to us beforehand.
- [76:00]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Exactly. And we've had a whole movie of blue skies and green mountains and grand houses. And now we're like. The spaces keep getting darker and smaller.
- [76:09]
Katherine Rundell
And they hide behind locked railings, behind gravestones. And little Gretel says, would it help to sing about our favorite things? And even as like a seven year old, I was like, shut up. Don't be ridiculous. No, Gretel. And they wait. And the flashlights, the flashlights come. It is an extraordinary. It just went very, very simple. It is perfect. And then Ralph comes and. And Liesel gasps.
- [76:44]
Caroline O'Donoghue
I gasp. Me gasp.
- [76:47]
Katherine Rundell
And he sees them as they're starting to leave. He pretends to leave. They start to run. He comes back and this extraordinary piece of script writing that he's about to betray them. And Captain von Trapp walks towards him saying, come away with us. Come. And he's torn between it. And then he says, you'll never be one of them. And it's the wrong thing to say.
- [77:16]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It's the wrong thing to say.
- [77:17]
Katherine Rundell
And he blows his whistle and he screams for them. And off they flee. And then the best moon in the film, they're about to leap into their cars to chase them. And the cars won't start. Yes. And the cars won't start because the two of the nuns, and the ones, the one that love Maria and the one that was a real bitch about Maria, they come and they confess to the Reverend Mother. And they say, I have sinned, Reverend Mother. I too have sinned. And they take from inside their Enormous wimples from their sort of nun coats. The car parts that they took from us. Bliss.
- [77:54]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It's so incredible. It is so perfect of, like, this balance of like. Like real adrenaline thriller and these comedy moments that punctuated every time. Like, we just do not have film anymore. Like, you can come through the cheese and the corniness and the sincerity of the Sound of Music, but in terms of, like, pacing, story, plot, script, perfect. You can't. It cannot be fucked with.
- [78:16]
Katherine Rundell
It is perfect.
- [78:17]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [78:18]
Katherine Rundell
And then, of course, you get that final scene, and they have. The colors are a perfect reprise of the opening. It's the same green and the same blue. And there they are hiking towards freedom.
- [78:29]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Which is impossible because that's towards Germany.
- [78:33]
Katherine Rundell
It's not how it would work. That's not how it would work. But, you know, the idea that they're going to start something new, that it's towards Switzerland and everything it promises and it's just perfect. And this film, I think you could come at it politically, and I think you could really come at it for treacle. Yes. But I think you cannot come at it for structure, for screenwriting, or for the fact that those songs are just breathtakingly good and that Christopher Plummer sings. I think he sings most of them himself.
- [79:11]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Does he?
- [79:12]
Katherine Rundell
I think so. Not all of them.
- [79:14]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Some of them have been dubbed.
- [79:14]
Katherine Rundell
Some of them are dubbed. I think anything that's challenging. But Julie Andrews sings it all.
- [79:20]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah.
- [79:20]
Katherine Rundell
And her voice has a kind of sweetness, a kind of, you know, angeline clarity. It's staggering.
- [79:30]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It's perfect.
- [79:31]
Katherine Rundell
You know, it was just this moment where this girl who had this talent was just captured like that so quickly. And, you know, her voice didn't last forever. She can't sing now. Of course she can't. She's 107 years old. But it was a real miracle, and they caught it on film forever.
- [79:52]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Ah. I love films. I love it. It is a miracle.
- [79:58]
Katherine Rundell
It's a miracle. She was a miracle at that moment. Just that voice, that capacity, that charisma. It's perfect.
- [80:08]
Caroline O'Donoghue
It's perfect. Thank you so much for this. I don't want to be presumptuous. I think this might be the definitive podcast on the Sound of Music. I don't think anyone should try. I think this might be the best episode ever.
- [80:27]
Katherine Rundell
I feel sure that. I bet you somewhere that there is a whole podcast series just about the Sound of Music. And I'm sure it's brilliant.
- [80:34]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Yeah. Interviewing all the kids and all this, but.
- [80:36]
Katherine Rundell
Oh, my God, there's a fabulous Scene much later, when a young Julianne Andrews sings with the real Maria von Trapp, who is also in the movie. At one point, when the kids are cycling, she's one of the two Austrian peasant women watching them go by. She has this one second flash of a cameo and then there's this wonderful moment where they do a TV show. And the real Maria von Trapp teaches Maria how. Teaches Julie Andrews how to yodel. And Maria von Trapp's voice is beautiful, but it's deeper, more sort of trained in the classic. And she's yodeling and Julie Andrews sings with her and it's just this sort of paean of clarity. It's glorious. People should look it up. It's great.
- [81:23]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Oh, I do want to see it. Oh, God. God bless von Trapps. God bless Maria. God bless Julie Andrews. Who else? Oh, yes. God bless Katherine Rundle. You have a million books. Which one of them would you like to promote?
- [81:40]
Katherine Rundell
Right now I have a children's fantasy book for probably ages nine plus called Impossible Creatures. It's one of a series, it's the first of a series. It's out in paperback and available now.
- [81:54]
Caroline O'Donoghue
And also if you enjoy Katherine's John Donne chat, she's got a whole big award winning book about John Donne called Super Infinite. And my favorite of your books, the Golden Mole, which is a little treasury of essays about animals that are slowly going extinct. But yeah, I just, I love it so much. I've been taken to calling you the Steve Irwin of our generation.
- [82:16]
Katherine Rundell
Very much what I aspire to, because.
- [82:18]
Caroline O'Donoghue
An important thing about Steve Irwin is because he wanted to teach people to love crocodiles so they would care about what was happening to them.
- [82:24]
Katherine Rundell
I want to teach people to love spiders. It's very much my plan.
- [82:27]
Caroline O'Donoghue
And moles and whales and things. I just think you're incredible. Thank you so much for coming on.
- [82:31]
Katherine Rundell
Thank you so much for having me. Bye bye. More than 125,000 podcasts trust Acast to connect them with their audience.
- [82:58]
Caroline O'Donoghue
Your brand can speak to your perfect.
- [83:01]
Katherine Rundell
Audience, too, by advertising with acast. We're home to the biggest names in.
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Caroline O'Donoghue
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Katherine Rundell
From true crime to comedy finance to fitness, your next customer's favorite podcast is an ACAST show. Your audience is already here. Speak to them with Acast. Visit go.acast.com ads to get started today.