The Sound of Music

Last week markt the sixtieth anniversary of the premiere of The Sound of Music (on 2 March 1965), so I watched the movie again.  For the first time, I noticed a particular characteristic that attracts Captain von Trapp to Maria.

About halfway through the movie (just before the intermission), the captain hosts a party, which he uses to some extent as a political statement by displaying a large Austrian flag.  Later, he makes nationalistic comments in a conversation with an unnamed baron and Herr Zeller:

Baron:  Is there a more beautiful expression of what is good in this country of ours than the innocent voices of our children?

Zeller:  Oh, come now, Baron, would you have us believe that Austria alone holds the monopoly on virtue?

Von Trapp:  Uh, Herr Zeller, some of us prefer Austrian voices raised in song to ugly German threats.

Zeller:  The, uh, ostrich buries his head in the sand and sometimes in the flag.  Perhaps those who would warn you that the Anschluss is coming - and it is coming, Captain - perhaps they would get further with you by setting their words to music.

Von Trapp:  If the Nazis take over Austria, I have no doubt, Herr Zeller, that you will be the entire trumpet section.

Zeller:  You flatter me, Captain.

Von Trapp:  Oh, how clumsy of me; I meant to accuse you.

Near the end of the movie, when he gets a commission from the German navy, he says that "to refuse them would be fatal for all of us, and joining them would be unthinkable," and he decides to go into exile instead of betraying his country.  Clearly, he loves Austria.

During the party, while the children are watching the partygoers from outside, one of them asks Maria about the dance they're doing.  She replies, "It's the Ländler; it's an Austrian folk dance," and at Kurt's request, she starts dancing it with him.  Soon, the captain arrives and takes his place.  It seems that as the captain and Maria dance, their affection for each other grows, to the point that Maria becomes embarrassed and blushes.

Maria's knowledge of this folk dance demonstrates that she values Austrian culture, and at this moment, Austria and its national identity rank highly among the captain's concerns.  While there are other of Maria's qualities that the captain admires, this one holds special importance here.

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Here's a link to a post about The Sound of Music that I wrote about four years ago.

King Kong (2005)

Last week, I re-watched King Kong (the re-make from 2005) for the first time in many years.  Afterwards, it occurred to me that Bruce Baxter's name alliterates.  I suspect that this is a pseudonym he's adopted for his work as an actor, and although that's just my speculation, it does fit with his character ("character" in the sense of what kind of person he is, not in the sense of what rôle he plays).

Initially, Baxter's pseudonym has a rather innocuous purpose:  to present a more attractive image than the reality.  Baxter exchanges his real name (whether it's simply common or even unappealing) for an alliterative stage name in order to attract and hold an audience's attention.  This sort of vanity is illustrated in the scene where he discovers that someone (Jimmy, unbeknownst to Baxter) has scribbled over his face on the movie posters he's hung in his cabin.  At first, he's upset, but when he sees his face with a moustache drawn on it, he entertains the notion, pulling out his comb and placing the end under his nose to try it out.  Obviously, he's concerned with how he looks to others.

Later, Baxter himself points out this disparity between image and reality.  When he suggests calling off the rescue party for Ann Darrow (whom the islanders abducted and offered to Kong) and returning to the ship, the script writer Jack Driscoll tells him, "I always knew you were nothing like the tough guy you play on screen.  I just never figured you for a coward."  Baxter replies, "Hey, pal!  Hey, wake up.  Heroes don't look like me, not in the real world.  In the real world, they got bad teeth, a bald spot, and a beer gut.  I'm just an actor with a gun who's lost his motivation.  Be seein' ya."

Near the end of the movie, the scope of Baxter's pretence expands beyond just his fake name.  After Kong has been captured and taken to New York, director Carl Denham presents him in a show in which he introduces Baxter as "the real-life hero of this story, the man who hunted down the mighty Kong, the man who risked all to win the freedom of a helpless female."  This description actually applies more to Driscoll than to Baxter, who was the first to abandon the search for Darrow.  Baxter's alliterative stage name continues to present a pleasant image (as does the spotless white safari uniform he wears), but in adopting this hero title, he goes even further in deceiving the audience and actively conceals the truth.

Star Wars: Rebels - S2E17 - "The Honorable Ones"

This post contains spoilers for later episodes of Rebels.

In re-watching Star Wars: Rebels again, I recently finished season three.  Agent Kallus's character arc in the last few episodes seems to confirm a suspicion I had about "The Honorable Ones" (S2E17).

At the beginning of the episode, the Rebels fall into a trap that Kallus has set for them on a construction module above Geonosis.  During the subsequent fighting, Zeb gets separated from the rest, and when he boards an escape pod to leave, Kallus follows him.  The pod crashes on a moon, and while waiting to be rescued, Zeb and Kallus have to work together to fend off bonzami and get out of a cave.  During this time, Zeb encourages Kallus to start questioning the Empire's motives.  Obviously, Kallus takes this advice, although not immediately; in season three, he begins acting as something of a double agent (taking over the Fulcrum moniker to feed the Rebels information), and in the season finale, he ultimately defects to their cause.

At the end of "The Honorable Ones," there's a brief moment that seems to foreshadow this change in Kallus.  Before Zeb returns to The Ghost, he turns and bows to Kallus.  Kallus had been sheltered behind a rock, but he steps out into the sunlight in order to return Zeb's bow.

His coming into the light prefigures the events of season three, as Kallus slowly moves from the darkness of the Empire to the light side embodied by the Rebellion.

Taken an-other way, the sunrise illuminating Kallus's face represents the beginning of his enlightenment.  He eventually starts to understand what the Empire truly stands for.

Wall•E

Months ago, I was thinking about Eve's name in Wall•E.  Previously, perhaps even from the first time I saw the movie, I'd realized that although the acronym EVE stands for "Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator," there's also a connection to Eve in the Bible.  I had a limited understanding of this, however, just that in the same way that Eve in the Bible is present soon after Creation, Eve in Wall•E appears after the Earth's environment is once again able to sustain life.  Although it's still merely an association, there's a bit more to it than that since in Hebrew, the name Eve (חַוָּה) is related to חַי, a word meaning alive or living.

Probably just coincidentally, there's a further similarity between the Biblical Eve and the robot Eve in that each fulfills a specific lack of her mate.  Genesis 2 details Eve's creation:

The LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him."  Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.  And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.  The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field.  But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.  So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.  And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.  Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."

This same sort of situation is also in Wall•E.  Because all of his fellow robots have fallen into disrepair, Wall•E is basically alone.  Like Adam with the beasts of the fields and birds of the heavens, he has some degree of companionship with his pet cockroach, but his continual viewing of the hand-holding scene from Hello, Dolly! illustrates that he's yearning for something more personal.  Eve provides him with this more intimate relationship, and their holding hands evinces a parity that's similar to Eve's being "bone of [Adam's] bones and flesh of [Adam's] flesh."

The Terminal

I re-watched The Terminal again last week (it's become something of a tradition for me to watch it in mid-January), and I realized that the title has a sort of dual application.  Since the movie takes place almost entirely in an airport, the word terminal is intended primarily as the noun, but to some degree, the adjective terminal (in the sense "relating to the end") also applies since the end of the war in Krakozhia is what Viktor Navorski must wait for before he can enter the United States.

Years ago, I realized that the movie's tagline ("Life is waiting") also contains an ambiguity.  The phrase "is waiting" could be either a copulative verb and a gerund functioning as a predicate nominative (so that the whole clause could be rendered as "life = waiting") or a present progressive verb (emphasizing the durative nature more than the simple form "waits" does).

Star Wars: Rebels - S3E16 - "Legacy of Mandalore"

A couple weeks ago, I re-watched the Star Wars: Rebels episode "Legacy of Mandalore" (S3E16) and noticed some significance in a few design elements.  The episode starts with Sabine returning to her family home on Krownest where she doesn't receive a warm welcome.  Her ship is shot down, and her mother's first words upon seeing her are, "So, it's true, then.  Put her in a cell; she'll be held for trial."

The environment of Krownest is predominately black and white:

Consequently, Sabine's brightly colored hair and armor really stand out:

This contrast mirrors the characters' relationship.  Sabine doesn't fit in with the palette of Krownest in the same way that she's not fully accepted by her family.