Admittedly this entry loses much of its shock factor upon repeat viewings, given the true nature of Harold's suicide attempt during the opening moments of this 1970s outsider comedy gem. But it's hard to deny that, the first time round at least, this is a shocking, graphic and gruesome visualisation of suicide by hanging. With the incongruously jolly sound of Cat Stevens playing over the ambiguous opening scene, Bud Cort's Harold quietly potters about his living room and then ties a noose around his neck and hangs himself from the ceiling. His body goes limp and the song stops, with the cutting silence highlighting the shocking nature of it all in one of the most effective jump moments outside of the horror genre. Of course, it turns out that Harold is fine and is just feeding his obsession with death by faking the suicide - something he does often to try and frighten his jaded mother. Further fake suicides are committed throughout the film, and all of them convincingly gruesome, but the hanging from the opening moments remains the most harrowing (for a moment at least) because it occurs before we as an audience are up to speed with Harold's morbid hobby. In a sadly ironic turn of events, Harold's new-found love interest Maude ends up taking her own life on her 80th birthday, believing she has lived long enough. While his relationship with the free spirited and optimistic Maude gives Harold a refreshed fondness for life, her suicide makes his earlier, jovial false-alarms all the more retroactively poignant.
26 year old novelist and film nerd from London. Currently working on his third novel and dreaming up more list-based film articles to flood WhatCulture with.
