Putting The Sound of Music on the top of my BP ranking list led me to ponder what exactly makes this movie so one-of-a-kind phenomenal—even when it was made during the “golden era” of movie musicals. Sure, the music is lovely and catchy, true to form for a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Yes, the acting is solid—the film is perfectly cast, and Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer will forever be Captain and Maria von Trapp, regardless of anything else they have done/will do in their careers or lives. Certainly, the film brilliantly moves between vistas showcasing the majesty of the Austrian Alps and the closeness of such settings as a backyard gazebo. And really, this last factor, I think, demonstrates just what exactly it is that makes The Sound of Music so wonderful and relatable: the greatness and the smallness of the story—in other words, the way the story and its conflicts involve the vastness of the natural world and humanity’s relationship to it and to its Creator, combined with the intimacy and complexity of human relationships in both the best and worst times. The Sound of Music includes all of these three main types of conflicts: Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Man, and Man vs. God. How the film portrays and then resolves each conflict lends to its superiority within the realm of motion pictures.

Man vs. Nature

The Sound of Music famously opens with a shot of the lovely Alps upon which Maria marches and frolics while singing the film’s title song. Nature in The Sound of Music is not a threat, but a place full of wonder and beauty in which God reveals Himself to humanity. “The hills are alive with the sound of music,” and many—Maria included—“go there when [their] heart[s] are lonely.” So the conflict between people and nature in this film has to do more with boundaries and challenges each person faces in his or her life. In the inspiring “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” which the Reverend Mother sings to Maria to encourage her to return to the von Trapps, elements of Nature represent difficulties Maria needs to face in order to discover and fulfill the true purpose God has for her life. (Spoiler alert!) The von Trapp family’s greatest trial, escaping from the Nazis, culminates in their journey over the Alps into Switzerland—again, the mountains standing in as the family’s final challenge (seen in the film, at least) before fulfilling their goal of upholding their integrity and rejecting the Nazi regime.

Maria and the von Trapp children in the Alps, drinking imaginary “ti, a drink with jam and bread.”

Man vs. Man

On the surface, at least, The Sound of Music seems to mostly focus on conflicts between people. We see Maria vs. the nuns, Maria vs. Captain von Trapp, Maria vs. the von Trapp children, Maria vs. the Baroness, Liesl vs. Rolfe, the Baroness vs. the Captain, Max vs. the Captain, and the Captain vs. the Nazis (briefly Rolfe in particular). (Spoiler alert!) While almost all of these conflicts are resolved in the final sequence of the singing competition and the von Trapps taking refuge in the abbey, perhaps the greatest man vs. man conflict is Maria vs. herself. There are hints throughout the film that Maria’s past has been rocky and painful. She tells the Reverend Mother that she knows the mountains so well because she grew up on them and used to look over into the abbey’s garden, hear the sisters singing, and think that the abbey must be the most wonderful place in the world. To me, this seems like Maria was looking to find a safe place—the walled abbey full of women and music appeals to her because outside those walls there was some kind of danger. Furthermore, in the song “Something Good,” she presents the Captain with a couple of thought-provoking hypotheticals: “Perhaps I had a wicked childhood, / Perhaps I had a miserable youth.” Personally, I would like more details about Maria’s past because I think that would make her character even richer; however, since the film is vague on this point, we can only guess that Maria—utterly alone in the world—originally comes to the abbey to find a new family of sorts, women who love her but don’t understand her free-spiritedness and lack of discipline. The Reverend Mother enables Maria to avoid compromising her passions when she arranges for her to become the von Trapps’ governess, and we see Maria continue to seek to know herself and find her God-given purpose while in the von Trapps’ home.

Pretty sure Friedrich just put a frog in Maria’s pocket…

Man vs. God

“When God closes a door, somewhere He opens a window,” declares Maria more than once in the film. The main conflict between God and humanity in The Sound of Music is seen in Maria’s struggle to understand and follow God’s will for her life. For much of the film, Maria misunderstands that God can be served through an ordinary life involving marriage and children. She believes her role as governess to the von Trapp children to have come from God because the Reverend Mother assigned it to her; but she doubts that loving Captain von Trapp could have come from God because such a romantic love is something that stems from her own feelings and desires, which she doesn’t think can be involved in an “errand” for God. The Reverend Mother corrects Maria’s thinking, emphasizing that God uses human dreams and passions to help guide people to where He wants them to be and what He wants them to do. To truly follow God is to trust that He is able to use unconventional means in order to bring a person into the ministry which is intended for him or her, says this film.

For Me Then…

The Sound of Music is about a person’s journey to discover God’s plan for her life—the greatest conflict in the film. Sure, the music is lighthearted, and there are some awfully funny moments, but the depth of the film comes from Maria’s seeking to know God and obey Him, regardless of what her own self desires or what people think of the choices she makes. The fact that this conflict (and the others) plays out during World War II, probably the greatest crisis of modern times, only magnifies the personal dilemma Maria faces. Should she trust that God can care for her after her murky past and her current predicament of not really belonging with the family of nuns she chooses? Would God ask her to leave her comfort zone and embark on a life she knows nothing about—only to embrace that life and then have to flee from her beloved new home?

I think that, minus the specificity of some of these questions, Maria’s situation is mirrored in all our lives. It can be so difficult to determine what it is that God would have each of us do—I am especially feeling this right now as the end of grad school is fast approaching! Sometimes all we can do is believe, like Maria, that when one pathway is closed, another will be opened up for us. This is just one way that God reveals His plan to us. In truth, I could hum “Do-Re-Mi” and “So Long, Farewell” all day, but I should listen more deeply to the film’s message of God’s enduring faithfulness to His children and His delight in bringing them each into the life He has purposed for them.