Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins (1964)
As a child, I didn't much care for Mary Poppins as portrayed by Julie Andrews in the 1964 Disney film. In fact, it was a movie I scrupulously avoided watching whenever it came on TV, as I did that other Dick Van Dyke vehicle - no pun intended - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and the Disney follow-up to Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971).
And I'm not alone in disliking this portrayal; indeed, even the Australian-born author of the books upon which the film was based, P. L. Travers, hated the Disney adaptation of her work, finding it sentimental and silly (particularly the use of animation). She also claimed the movie-makers entirely misunderstood the character of Poppins.
And, according to Guardian features-writer Emma Brockes, Travers had legitimate grounds for complaint, as the original character, "like the woman who created her, was difficult to the point of obnoxious". A woman who never wastes time being nice and has little sympathy or affection for children, birds or beggars; sharp-tongued, short-tempered, humourless, and bullying - that's Mary Poppins!
"The biggest difference between the book and film versions of Poppins, however, was one of class. In the guise of Julie Andrews, you would call Poppins posh; all those crystal-cut vowels and crisp consonants. The original Poppins was nothing of the sort. Travers, an Australian immigrant to London, placed her heroine further down the social scale, as she herself, in that era, would have been judged to be. This is unequivocal. The original Poppins, in the accent that so magnificently eluded Dick Van Dyke, refers to the birds as 'sparrers'."
And, according to Guardian features-writer Emma Brockes, Travers had legitimate grounds for complaint, as the original character, "like the woman who created her, was difficult to the point of obnoxious". A woman who never wastes time being nice and has little sympathy or affection for children, birds or beggars; sharp-tongued, short-tempered, humourless, and bullying - that's Mary Poppins!
"The biggest difference between the book and film versions of Poppins, however, was one of class. In the guise of Julie Andrews, you would call Poppins posh; all those crystal-cut vowels and crisp consonants. The original Poppins was nothing of the sort. Travers, an Australian immigrant to London, placed her heroine further down the social scale, as she herself, in that era, would have been judged to be. This is unequivocal. The original Poppins, in the accent that so magnificently eluded Dick Van Dyke, refers to the birds as 'sparrers'."
Perhaps this is key to my dislike of the film; the prim and proper poshness (or posh prim and properness) of Poppins as portrayed by Andrews would have jarred with me as a child, whereas now, of course, I appreciate its pervy appeal.
Then there's the smugness and much-noted narcissism; the fact she prides herself on being practically perfect in every way and wants to sugar-coat reality by pretending that chores can be pleasurable. Poppins appears to bring magical, anarchic fun, but, really, just reaffirms traditional values and reinforces the social niceties over afternoon tea as order is restored at 17, Cherry Tree Lane.
Then there's the smugness and much-noted narcissism; the fact she prides herself on being practically perfect in every way and wants to sugar-coat reality by pretending that chores can be pleasurable. Poppins appears to bring magical, anarchic fun, but, really, just reaffirms traditional values and reinforces the social niceties over afternoon tea as order is restored at 17, Cherry Tree Lane.
As for the other characters, I hate them even more: the children, Jane and Michael; the parents, Mr and Mrs Banks; and - most of all - Bert the cockney jack-of-all-trades, with his irritating Chim Chim Cher-ee line of bullshit.
In spite of all this, I'm happy to concede there's an important story waiting to be told about Mary Poppins; one that occupies the darker moral universe that Travers describes in the books; one that emphasises the inhuman coldness and witchiness of the character and gets her out of the nursery and the company of irksome cor blimey cockneys; a Poppins whom even I might learn to love ...
In spite of all this, I'm happy to concede there's an important story waiting to be told about Mary Poppins; one that occupies the darker moral universe that Travers describes in the books; one that emphasises the inhuman coldness and witchiness of the character and gets her out of the nursery and the company of irksome cor blimey cockneys; a Poppins whom even I might learn to love ...
See: Emma Brockes, 'Mary Poppins: not sugary, but sharp and subversive - on the page and the screen', The Guardian (15 Sept 2015): click here to read online.
See also Larry Fahey's article 'Something Steely, Unsympathetic, and Cold: A Reconsideration of Mary Poppins', The Rumpus, (June 22, 2010): click here.
Note: I am grateful to Simon Solomon for inspiring this post and providing fascinating insights into the character of Mary Poppins, though it should be noted that the views expressed here are the author's own and are not necessarily shared or endorsed by Dr Solomon.
Note: I am grateful to Simon Solomon for inspiring this post and providing fascinating insights into the character of Mary Poppins, though it should be noted that the views expressed here are the author's own and are not necessarily shared or endorsed by Dr Solomon.
It's sad for the author that she felt so 'betrayed' by the film she cried all the way through the premiere (though her $100,000 payment + life-securing royalties may have been the spoonful of sugar that sweetened the pill). Of course, the original books were books; the movie was something else. No one owns art, obviously. As Mary P. herself puts it - albeit in a line a tad more George Michael than Robert Frost - 'open different doors - you may find a you there that you never knew was yours'.
ReplyDeleteIt's also absurd to judge Mary moralistically on the basis of supposed character flaws, since she is evidently a supernatural being, arriving from the sky under an umbrella. Entering a world of dour sub-Christian duty and misery, she personifies a psychic force of alien narcissism (the knowing 'practically perfect' being shot through with just enough irony to keep us wondering), an antinomial inversion of professional values (telling Banks that she'll give them a week as she'll know by then) and an ontological subversion of the Real ('Never judge things by their appearance ... even carpetbags. I'm sure I never do'). As Jane reminds us, she only promises to stay 'until the wind changes'. Her relationship to work, matter and mundane time is contingent at best, though strangely cleansing as a tornado. Like a true genius/narcissist, she ‘never explains anything’.
One struggles to grasp the accusation of sentimentality, since Mary is so impressively shorn of it ('Practically perfect people never permit sentiment to muddle their thinking'). In a kind of anti-ET valediction a million miles from the childcentric Spielberg, she poignantly enquires: 'And what would happen to me, may I ask, if I loved all the children I said goodbye to?' Her lack of love - and, thinking of her unconsummated flirtation with Bert, lack of need to be loved - confirms her superhuman coldness.
The movie also features moments of terrific cinematic poetry, pathos and gloriously silly gags. George Banks singing 'A man has dreams of walking with giants/To carve his niche in the edifice of time/Before the mortar of his seal has a chance to congeal.../The cup is dashed from his lips!' verges on the Shakespearean, while the dialogue between Bert and Uncle Albert is tragicomic treasure:
Bert: Uncle Albert, I got a jolly joke I saved for just such an occasion. Would you like to hear it?
Uncle Albert: [sobbing] I'd be so grateful.
Bert: Well it's about me granddad, see, and one night he has a nightmare. He was so scared, he chewed his pillow to bits. Bits. In the morning, I says, "How you feel, Granddad?" He says, "Oh, not bad. A little down in the mouth."
[Bert laughs, Uncle Albert sobs harder]
Though it addresses parenting, patriarchy and the tragic confinement of nuclear families; money, misery and the sadness of childhood; psychokinesis, witchcraft and magical thinking, the film is unmistakeably about the pleasures and dangers of 'getting high' - as Tabitha Giacomo has pointed out, calling it 'a wacked-out acid trip'. (Indeed, Uncle Albert is so compulsively consumed by mirth he levitates to the ceiling, to be later joined by Bert. Well, this was 1964!) Its elemental domain, captured by Bert's lyrical depiction of a vision of the sky 'where the smoke is all billowed and curled / 'Tween pavement and stars is the chimney sweep world / When there's hardly no day, nor hardly no night / There's things half in shadow and halfway in light' is Yeats for kids, and you'd have to sacrificed your heart for a stone to sneer at it.
PS Dick van Dyke may not be able to talk Cockney for toffee, but, when the 91 year old actor was recently asked why they don't make films like that anymore, he said:
ReplyDelete'We lost Walt Disney, for one thing. Walt was a child at heart. He had such creativity and imagination. We said we were both children looking for our inner adults. Now it goes into blood and violence. Even kids sense that there's something gone wrong.'
I must confess that I'm glad the film exists, without it we might never have had the song "Chim Chim Cheroo". Also I have great memories of my #1 son dancing around the front room, trying to be like Bert and the other sweeps in "Step In Time".
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