Mary Poppins

[osprey_archer]

A busy weekend! I've had work & work & more work, but on Friday evening I went to the Artcraft to see Mary Poppins on the big screen - arriving just in the nick of time, still dressed in my Starbucks clothes (all in black), only for Julie to drag me backstage and pop a newsboy cap on my head and propel me on stage with a group of her cosplaying friends to play chimney sweeps.

So that was fun. I looked quite fetching in the newsboy cap if I do say so myself; I may need to buy one.

And Mary Poppins was delightful, of course! Naturally I've seen it before - my favorite bit as a child was the part where they jump into the chalk paintings - but it's been quite a long time so it was great to see it again. And on the big screen! Jumping into a chalk painting is even more delightful on the big screen!

I also enjoyed how willing the movie is to meander off on digressions: it stops dead for the penguin dance, or Mary Poppins riding her carousel horse in the ascot, or the laughing disease that makes people float. Well, I suppose that is plot relevant, but the length of the sequence is not strictly necessary - but it is fun, and the fact that the movie includes things just because they're fun gives the movie room to breathe. I feel that movies rarely allow themselves to digress the same way anymore - although Moana did have that coconut pirate sequence, which strictly speaking was totally superfluous except for being super nifty.

***

In preparation for Mary Poppins, we watched Saving Mr. Banks, which is about the making of Mary Poppins. It stars Emma Thompson as P. L. Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins books, who through financial necessity has at last been forced to accept Walt Disney's entreaties to make a movie based on her books. She insists on supervising the script writing and is breath-takingly, fascinatingly cranky.

(One of the songwriters limps, and eventually Travers demands, "What is wrong with his leg?"

"He got shot," says his fellow songwriter.

Travers, without missing a beat: "Hardly surprising.")

I enjoyed Saving Mr. Banks, but it made me really, really want to read a good nonfiction book about the making of Mary Poppins. I suspect that Saving Mr. Banks had to tone it down to make it believable, and I want all the bizarre and ridiculous deets.

Comments

[evelyn_b]

The laughing disease that makes people float (to their DEATHS) is one of my favorite things in the history of film, and has been since I first saw it at age 3 or however old I was. I'm glad you had a good time with your big-screen Mary Poppins!

[osprey_archer]

Do you think the laughing disease usually kills? Or was it just that the old banker dude hadn't laughed for SO LONG that his system couldn't handle it???

Moral of the story: laugh every day, kids! Someday it may save you from the laughing disease.

[evelyn_b]

I don't know! The tea-party guy was indoors, so there was a ceiling in the way - but maybe it's perfectly controllable if you know what you're about. Tea-party guy was clearly prepared. It seems to have taken the old banker by surprise. (I love when he's trying to work out the joke and then finally gets it! A wooden leg named Smith!)

[landofnowhere]

I seem to recall this New Yorker article about the making of Mary Poppins being good.

[osprey_archer]

Oh, OF COURSE the New Yorker has an article about the making of Mary Poppins. I'll have to check it out!

[osprey_archer]

I finally had time to read the article, and it was indeed fascinating. (Although it makes it clear tha Saving Mr. Banks was a tragically saccharine revision of history that P. L. Travers would doubtless have hated, alas.) Thank you for linking it!