I watched The Sound of Music today after a long time and I realised that each time I have watched it, I have found new meaning in it.
When I first watched it I was eight and I related most to Brigita’s role as the perceptive ten year old daughter who reads and is close to her father. But I watched it many times after that over the years and each time I related to the ages of the older children. When I was fifteen and sixteen, I sang ‘I am Sixteen going on Seventeen’ many times and related to Leisle who had her first crush and was told there is more to the world than ‘the old ideas [that] grow dim’. And when things get difficult, I do ‘cry a little and wait for the Sun to come up again’ because ‘It always does’.
This time as I watched it, it occurred to me that I was now around Maria’s age. And the Reverend Mother’s song about finding a dream which will take ‘all the love you can give, for as long as you live’ struck me deeper than before. I also related to the Captain who needed to leave his home country for an unfamiliar land and the emotion which chokes him as he sings of his love to his people.
I know every frame and dialogue of this movie and yet each time I watch it, it speaks to me differently. That is what a Classic is. It has definitely been worth watching 86 times over 15 years and will be many more times in the years to come!