COTD extra credit: Harold and Maude

 xc - COTD2. Watch "Harold & Maude" and write up 3-5 paragraphs analyzing the significance of the theme of funerals and death in the lives, practices, and beliefs of the three main characters.

Harold and Maude follows the struggle between a young man, Harold, with an extremely morbid sense of interests (Even after watching the movie, I'm not sure how to describe him other than bizarre and startling) and his conservative mother who constantly tries to straighten out his act. In the first half of the movie, funerals occur constantly as Harold introduces them as where he goes in his free time though this is never fully explained. Later on, after meeting Maude, he narrates a time when he nearly died at school and there was a mis-communication in which his mother was told about his death. She collapses into the arms of the police. Being dead, Harold tells Maude, is the best thing that he has ever felt and so, this maybe explains his constantly attempts at faking suicides in front of his mother to try and draw the same reaction from her. Instead, he only gains disgust and scorn from her, effectively distancing him further and further. For Harold, he sees death as a comfort that brings you closer to you family, even though you can no longer be with them. As the movie goes on, he comes off as jealous of the dead for how they get spoiled and lavished by their family, all completely sincerely, things that he never gets from his mother.

His mother has a strong contrast against Harold. She follows the rest of society today - death is a taboo and not meant to be discussed or even thought of. Even with all of the constant faked suicides of Harold, she never once considers going over a proper funeral with him or asking what he wants done with his body. Even in his death, it seems, she will control every aspect of him just like she tries to control the girls she sets him up with by filling out the personality survey for him. The constant scowls and remarks she directs at her son make it clear that she doesn't think that he's as sane as he should be, one of the reasons why she sends him to therapy. This perhaps reflects our own classes reactions to some of our guest speakers - the idea that someone could seem so comfortable around death seems obscene.

The last character, also comfortable with death, is Maude. Maude is constantly counting down her days and teasing Harold about living them out with her. She is the Morrie of the movie, only fictional. Vibrant and with a tendency to steal things from funerals, with little respect for the dead because she sees little value in them. There's nothing left.