|
|
Post by lemacd on Aug 1, 2017 2:40:06 GMT
 I'm skipping the actual mountain scenery although, discuss it if you wish. It certainly is amazing cinematography. Here we see Maria for the first time so I thought maybe we could talk about how we see this woman; how old is she in your mind, do you have a background story for her and why the mountains are so important to her? She appears happy but sings about her heart getting lonely... what is her loneliness about? Please feel free to answer any, all, and ask your own questions about Maria. |
|
|
|
Post by indigoblue on Aug 1, 2017 23:28:41 GMT
I have always assumed that she was brought up in an Alpine village, perhaps with cows, goats and other animals which needed grazing in the mountain meadows, which she would have had to climb up to either herd the animals up or down. I like the fact that she seems to have a dirty right hand, which would be in keeping with someone used to climbing up rocks, swinging round trees etc.
I've always found it odd that she so loves the mountains, but has installed herself in the one place where she is unlikely to see much of them, in a convent. Perhaps this has underlined for her her loneliness, in that she realises she needs the mountains and a mate to be happy...therein the story begins!
|
|
|
|
Post by gothicbutterfly95 on Aug 2, 2017 4:46:59 GMT
HEAVILY INSPIRED BY THE REALITY Maria Augusta Rainer. Age 22. D.O.B. 26th January 1916. I always imagined she grew up near Vienna when her parents were alive. Not quite inside enough to be 'Viennese', but that was the nearest major city. Her mother died when she was two and her father died when she was six. After that she was sent to Salzburg to live with her mother's brother, her uncle. Enter the farm that probably isn't too different from what indigoblue mentioned. She would try to not spend any more time there than she had to, because her uncle was always drunk and abusive. She went to the mountains because her father brought her up to the Untersberg not long before he died, so it became a special place. She also went into Salzburg, where she noticed the Abbey, because of the singing. It seemed like home in a way her uncle's had not. When she was seventeen, she ran away from home to go to teacher's college in Vienna, but eventually returned to Salzburg to join the Abbey officially. Seeing as singing wasn't allowed in the Abbey she would escape to her mountain to do so, and couldn't stop once she'd started. |
|
|
|
Post by lemacd on Aug 2, 2017 23:44:24 GMT
Like gothicbutterfly95 , a lot of true facts have shaped my backstory for Maria, though I guess I don't have a real backstory, it changes with fics if required. I like to think she's 22 as well, but that's mostly because an older Maria that acts that way is a bit... disturbing to me. I can find a 22 year old climbing trees charming. I would like to think a 28 or 29 year old Maria would have matured a bit for that. And a 28/29 year old postulant is somewhat unusual to me, too. I'm probably offending people who want her to be older and closer in age to Georg and so let me say it doesn't spoil anything for me if she is older, too. I feel like I've dug a hole there... oops. I always thought that Maria wasn't physically abused per se, but mostly neglected, maybe? Like, his indifference let her know she wasn't really accepted there. So I guess that is the kind of loneliness that she is singing about in the opening song, a lonely sense of drifting and trying to find her life. She was sure it was the Abbey... I think I pretty much see it like you both have stated as for her growing up in a mountain community. I totally agree with indigoblue about the contradiction of the Abbey walls and the wide open space of her mountain. Maybe she decided she had to leave the mountains to find her life, but knew they would always be there for her. And I hope that she knew the Sisters and the Church were always there for her when she left it to begin her life with the Captain and the children. |
|
|
|
Post by adelaide on Aug 3, 2017 11:43:00 GMT
Perhaps she saw the mountains as a way of escaping from it all orlonging to be free from the suffocating life of the abbey walls.
|
|
|
|
Post by clarinetjamie on Aug 5, 2017 6:21:58 GMT
I have always assumed she was in her early 20s. She loves life and she is kind of a free spirit and therefore had a hard time following the strict rules of the convent. I think she's longing for that feeling of belonging somewhere which is what drove her to the convent, but she has a hard time not going beyond those walls and perhaps might be searching for something that she still didn't quite know she's searching for.
|
|
|
|
Post by reverendcaptain on Apr 25, 2021 22:52:05 GMT
Does anyone know where she actually is on the mountain? Can you see it from the back of the house? Obviously from super far away, but I'm wondering if she could look out over the lake and see her home village in the distance?
|
|
|
|
Post by indigoblue on Apr 28, 2021 23:35:37 GMT
That mountain at the back of the house looks pretty steep to have a village on it!
|
|
laurynvi
Full Member
I ask you to stay.
Posts: 212
|
Post by laurynvi on Apr 29, 2021 18:51:00 GMT
I assume from the Abbey she would be taking the Salzburg cable car up the Untersberg... I often think of her taking the train like she does with the children but there's no cute mountain railway line that I'm aware of in the area (though there's a historic cog line at Schafberg about an hour away).
In reality, I think that opening scene was actually filmed in Germany!
|
|
|
|
Post by reverendcaptain on Apr 30, 2021 22:50:43 GMT
You are probably right. It does look too steep. I would love an arial shot of Salzburg with all of the filming locations labeled. It would help the stories that go on inside my head flow more smoothly if I knew where everything was.  |
|
|
|
Post by reverendcaptain on May 15, 2021 21:37:32 GMT
I read somewhere that the wind force from the helicopter that they used (to get the shot where they zoom in on the mountain and Maria is standing there) kept knocking her over before they could finish the shot. If it was that forceful, wouldn't her hair and dress be blowing like crazy right before they cut to her singing? Maybe they figured it out so that they didn't have to get so close to her?
|
|
|
|
Post by missisa on Sept 20, 2021 20:24:24 GMT
Leaving aside the (fantastic) cinematography, the music and all that, I sincerely believe that this scene is like a big push, it introduces you fully into the environment and the point of view (and feelings) of Maria.
It may have been parodied a thousand times but it still thrills me because I can almost breathe the air of the mountains.
On some other thread, you guys talk about the significance of the doors in this film. I think mountains have it too: life is a mountain to be climbed, only if you fight (with all the love you can give) to get to the top (whatever it is) will you be able to enjoy the views.
Of course, in Maria's case, the mountain was Georg ... let's say the Himalayan of gorgeous men LOL
|
|
|
|
Post by indigoblue on Sept 20, 2021 23:11:38 GMT
I believe in the play, Georg says a few lines to Elsa about how he loves the mountains, which links up with Maria in her chat with the RM before she leaves the abbey. Makes a lot of sense when they finally get together and travel across the mountains with their family.
|
|
