Went to see the film "Saving Mr. Banks" with part of the family Christmas Eve day. Tom Hanks stars as Walt Disney of the early 1960s--the one I remember from Sunday's "The Wonderful World of Disney" shows on TV--who relentlessly but sincerely pursues P.L. Travers (the "P" stands for Pamela) for the rights to turn her Mary Poppins stories into what became one of the greatest Disney box office hits. By the end of the film we discover that "Travers" is not Pamela's family name but the first name of her alcoholic and consumptive--but nonetheless adored--father who died when she was a young girl.
Disney is able to win the rights to Mary Poppins only after he shares the story of his challenging childhood with Pamela and film ends with a heart-tugging scene as she is finally reconciled with her father, whose death broke his promise to be with her always, her Aunt Ellie (the inspiration for Marry Poppins), who had promised to save Pamela's father on her arrival to attend him on his sickbed, and to herself for somehow failing her father in his death.
Only after Pamela's oblique disclosures and Disney's wise insights is "Mary Poppins" the film reset as the story of saving Mr. Banks, the father of the children for whom Mary Poppins was nanny. With the reorientation from the Banks children to their father, Pamela is reconciled to the film and at last cooperates with writing its screenplay.
Various sources have pointed out the discrepancies between "Saving Mr. Banks" and the history of the production of "Mary Poppins." While interesting, criticisms of the film's lack of historical accuracy miss the point. "Saving Mr. Banks" is not a documentary, it's a film about memory, redemption, and reconciliation. All of us have unresolved, painful memories from childhood and long after, even if they're not hard as the death of a beloved parent.
As David Bentley Hart has recently put it,
Of course, "Saving Mr. Banks" cannot create the redemption or achieve the reconciliation it portrays but it can evoke our hope for such a redemption and reconciliation in which all wrongs are righted in a pouring out of forgiveness. Perhaps the timing of the release of "Saving Mr. Banks" was appropriate from both a secular, bottom-line perspective as well as from the perspective of the ecclesiastical calendar.
Disney is able to win the rights to Mary Poppins only after he shares the story of his challenging childhood with Pamela and film ends with a heart-tugging scene as she is finally reconciled with her father, whose death broke his promise to be with her always, her Aunt Ellie (the inspiration for Marry Poppins), who had promised to save Pamela's father on her arrival to attend him on his sickbed, and to herself for somehow failing her father in his death.
Only after Pamela's oblique disclosures and Disney's wise insights is "Mary Poppins" the film reset as the story of saving Mr. Banks, the father of the children for whom Mary Poppins was nanny. With the reorientation from the Banks children to their father, Pamela is reconciled to the film and at last cooperates with writing its screenplay.
Various sources have pointed out the discrepancies between "Saving Mr. Banks" and the history of the production of "Mary Poppins." While interesting, criticisms of the film's lack of historical accuracy miss the point. "Saving Mr. Banks" is not a documentary, it's a film about memory, redemption, and reconciliation. All of us have unresolved, painful memories from childhood and long after, even if they're not hard as the death of a beloved parent.
As David Bentley Hart has recently put it,
All memory is tragic in the end: The failures, humiliations, betrayals, sufferings, or calamities that we recall for the most part cannot now be undone; the joys, triumphs, discoveries, and raptures that we recall are for the most part long gone. All memory is haunted by the traces of a fall from grace or of an Eden to which we cannot return."Saving Mr. Banks" provides a catharsis, even if only for a couple of hours, in which a sense of healing can be experienced.
Of course, "Saving Mr. Banks" cannot create the redemption or achieve the reconciliation it portrays but it can evoke our hope for such a redemption and reconciliation in which all wrongs are righted in a pouring out of forgiveness. Perhaps the timing of the release of "Saving Mr. Banks" was appropriate from both a secular, bottom-line perspective as well as from the perspective of the ecclesiastical calendar.
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