This film's greatest Irony...
Austrians either don't know anything about this, or the few that do, hate it.
shareWhat do you base this on?
shareI read what actual Austrians online wrote about it. The problem is, the people who made this film knew nothing about how Austrians viewed Hitler, nor did they bother to tell anyone the real role Austria played in WWII. In fact, Austrian movie-goers (who were only 20 years removed from WWII at the time this movie was made) were angry and disgusted the one time this movie was shown in their theaters, because it portrayed them in a way contrary to real life.
You see, most of Austria bought into the Nazi propaganda machine and loved Hitler. They welcomed him with open arms! They happily allied with Germany during WWII. It made no sense for the Austrians to rebel against the Nazi regime like they did in the movie, even if it was just in song. To this day, Austrians have very close cultural and ethnic ties to Germany, and many have German cousins and relatives.
Captain Von Trapp would have been in a lot of trouble if he had openly torn up a Nazi flag in public like he did in the story. He also did not take his family to Switzerland like in the story. His family went to Italy, and quietly.
In the real-life story, he only moved his family to Italy because he didn't want them around if the fighting came into his own backyard. I'm not sure what his politics were, whether he supported the Nazis or not. I'd have to read up on it. It actually made no sense for his family to flee into the Alps near Salzburg, because the direction the movie family was going would have taken them right into Germany. It was only really done to provide a dramatic ending to the film. In real life, his family took a train to Italy and stayed there for the duration of the war.
Basically, Austria was so disgusted with the film that it was banned for decades, and only recently brought back after 2000. Few Austrians know about it, because it isn't widely broadcast, and the few times you can see it on their crappy tv programming, it's in German, and doesn't translate very well.
The current generation of Austrians [at least the few who have watched it] think it's nonsense and a dumb story. They do not see it as a fun, delightful, family-friendly musical, because honestly, it's made for Americans, not Austrians, and always has been.
Good write up, but just wanted to point out that the Captain didn't openly tear up a Nazi flag in public. The flag was placed over the front door of his villa by the brownshirts. He pulled it down and tore it up when he returned home from his honeymoon. It wasn't witnessed by anyone.
shareBut he did encourage the audience at the theater his family was singing at to sing their national anthem, which made the German officials angry.
shareBanned or just not shown? The real.Captain vonTrapp was, unlike most Austrians, strongly anti-Nazi. Most likely a Catholic monarchist.
You know, when I was in school some adult, probably a teacher, told us that Austrians were touchy if not outright angry about use of their national anthem in this film. Not until I was an adult did I learn this is not Austria's national anthem but written for the movie. Just an example of the kind of misinformation going around for years. I did hear the film was little known in Austria but didn't know it was hated. We had the record at home and it was also played for music appreciation in the third grade. The movie was an annual event and I was also in the stage play. Good memories.
shareI've always wondered if that's really true that Austrians hated the film as much as we've heard. I understand not liking it because its treacly and sacchirine and filled with historical inaccuracies but if anything it makes Austria look pretty good. It disproves the idea that all Austrians were firmly behind the Anschluß and sympathetic to Nazis. And it makes Salzburg so gorgeous you sometimes want to leap into the setting with the characters. (My mother has gone on one of those tours in which people are taken to all the exteriors seen in the movie). The idea of it being banned for decades, as some here have said, seems a bit extreme and frankly unbelievable for such a nonpolitical, innocuous family film that at one time was the top-grossing movie of all time (not adjusted for inflation).
shareReally? They didn't like Edelweiss? It's such a pretty song!
shareNot that they didn't like the song but that they didn't like their national anthem being used. Only it's not their national anthem or even a genuine Austrian song, and I don't know what is their national anthem or whether they would have been less or more offended had it been used in the stage musical and film of same.
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