New Tom Hanks movie 'Saving Mr. Banks' looks fun, but some reviewers...

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Dan C, Dec 14, 2013.

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  1. Dan C

    Dan C Forum Fotographer Thread Starter

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    ...are none too happy with usual Disney whitewash.

    This is one negative take on it, but I read another one with similar points last night. Still looks like an entertaining flick, but those tired of the 'Uncle Walt' myth will probably keep clear.

    dan c

    http://www.filmthreat.com/reviews/72781/


    SAVING MR. BANKS
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG] [​IMG]
    Year Released: 2013
    MPAA Rating: Unrated
    Running Time: 125 minutes
    Click to Expand Credits:
    If Academy Awards were presented for hubris, the folks at Disney would sweep up the statuettes for “Saving Mr. Banks.” This over-extended self-congratulatory accolade offers a factually skewered version of the battle of wills that took place when Walt Disney sought to bring Australian-born British writer P.L. Travers’ book “Mary Poppins” to the screen.

    The film takes place during a 1961 business visit by Travers to the Disney studio. The author would only allow Disney to create the film version if she had script approval. As presented in this film, Travers is a shrill virago who is thoroughly aghast at the Hollywood scene. She reacts to real and perceived slights with vituperative put-downs and reckless behavior – if she finds objects that irritate her (a bowl of pears in her hotel suite, the original Disney script of “Mary Poppins”), she throws them out of windows, with little regard to the people on the street below.

    Intercut with Travers’ tantrums with the Disney razzmatazz team are flashbacks to the author’s childhood in early 20th century Australia. Travers (born Helen Goff) is shown as an unusually mature child that watches in concern as her immature, alcoholic father self-destructs before her eyes and her carpetbag-toting aunt arrives to save the day for the Goff family. But since the drunken Goff is played by eye candy Colin Farrell, we know he can’t be all that bad.

    The film drives home the point that Travers’ excessive protection of the source material of “Mary Poppins” is based on the painful autobiographical elements that she laced into her story – and that Travers’ waspish rebukes of efforts to change the story for the film version are little more than psychological defense mechanisms to preserve what she cherished and lost as a child. Once wise old Walt Disney figures this out, he is able to come to some degree of understanding with Travers, allowing his version of “Mary Poppins” to proceed. Thus, the message of “Saving Mr. Banks” is too clear: good ol’ Uncle Walt put the British bitch in her place and went on to make a musical classic.

    That’s all very nice, but “Saving Mr. Banks” overlooks some easily verifiable facts. For starters, Disney was not the only film producer seeing the rights to “Mary Poppins.” Travers had doubts that her book could be made into a film – and she was not a big fan of the Disney canon – but she allowed for “Mary Poppins” to be made into a one-shot live U.S. television production in 1949 for the “Studio One” anthology series, with Mary Wickes playing the title role in a non-musical version of the story. (Sadly, copies of that broadcast are not available for review at this time.)

    “Saving Mr. Banks” is peppered with more mistakes. The film also insists that Disney and Travers never met prior to her visit to Hollywood – but according to Disney biographer Bob Thomas, Disney called on her at her London home years earlier as part of his two-decade-long campaign to secure the film rights. The film also gives the impression that Dick Van Dyke was cast in “Mary Poppins” early in the pre-production – Thomas, in his book, notes that Van Dyke was cast later in the process, after Julie Andrews was signed, and that only happened when Disney opted to make Travers’ middle-aged creation into a younger woman. (Mary Martin was actually the original choice for the film’s title role, but she turned it down.)

    There is also a wild anachronism with the presence of a stuffed doll of Disney’s Winnie the Pooh in Travers’ hotel suite – several years before Disney put the A.A. Milne creation on the screen.

    But the real problem here is creating one-dimensional versions of Travers and Disney that fail to consider the complexity of both individuals.

    Emma Thompson plays Travers in a one-note stridency – her imperious attitude to everyone around her makes the character obnoxious and stupid. In reality, Travers was a complex and highly intelligent woman – the film makes no mention of her bisexuality and only the faintest of references to her deep interest in Zen Buddhism and her disastrous adoption of an Irish orphan. The film gives the impression that she relinquished the film rights to “Mary Poppins” only because she was facing poverty due to an evaporation of book royalties (the costs related to her adopted son’s legal problems following a drunk driving arrest are not mentioned in the film), and that she was a foolish shrew for attempting to control the focus of her world – the latter is an odd consideration, especially when male artists that attempt to do the same thing are almost always lauded for their integrity.

    As for Disney, few people beyond the Disney studio will believe that the producer was the patient, grandfatherly sage portrayed by Tom Hanks. Unlike the holistic Disney in “Saving Mr. Banks,” the real Disney was not shy about playing hardball with Travers – to the point that he intentionally refused to invite her to the “Mary Poppins” premiere. (At her own instigation, she managed to secure an invitation.) It also doesn’t help that Hanks’ vocal imitation of Disney includes an on-again/off-again twang that makes him sound like Lyndon B. Johnson rather than the famous producer.

    Travers feared that her literary legacy would be recklessly sentimentalized by Disney, and now it seems that her biography is also getting the Disneyfication treatment. Sadly, audiences have to swallow more than a spoonful of sugar to digest this blatantly phony movie.



    Read more: http://www.filmthreat.com/reviews/72781/#ixzz2nSUxhAk5
     
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  2. Chris C

    Chris C Music was my first love and it will be my last!

    Location:
    Ohio
    I have only wanted to go to the theater twice this year. The first time was to see "Enough Said" (A nice enough film, but was kind of slow to be honest) and next week to see "Saving Mr. Banks". Something about Tom Hanks always delivering a great performance, plus my interest in the side-story about The Sherman brothers, who wrote the "silly" songs for the film, I mean, just how does someone come up with "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"?

    I also wanted to see "Gravity" on the big screen, but while I really like George Clooney, I can't stand Sandra Bullock!
     
  3. adm62

    adm62 Senior Member

    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    This excellent BBC doc tells the real story :

     
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  4. forthlin

    forthlin Member Chris & Vickie Cyber Support Team

    I look forward to seeing it as a fan of Disney history and a big fan of Mary Poppins. The movie is not a documentary, it's simply a film based on a true story. Looks pretty entertaining to me.
     
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  5. ROLO46

    ROLO46 Forum Resident

    Even the BBC Doc doesnt tell all
    Its a puff for the film because the beeb has a part production credit for 'Saving Mr Banks'
    Its all commerce.
     
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  6. pdenny

    pdenny 22-Year SHTV Participation Trophy Recipient

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    I have never seen MARY POPPINS. No brag, just fact :agree:
     
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  7. Dan C

    Dan C Forum Fotographer Thread Starter

    Location:
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    I'm looking forward to it as well, even in spite of the negative reviews. It looks like real escapist fun.

    I do understand why many people would be put off by the unfair and one-dimensional portrayal of P.L. Travers, as well as the relentless myth of the wise and kindly 'Uncle Walt'. They were both real people with far more interesting stories than the Disney-ized versions. If anything this movie and the mild controversy makes me more interested in learning the truth about both of them.

    dan c
     
  8. Captain Groovy

    Captain Groovy Senior Member

    Location:
    Freedonia, USA
    This was not a review.

    This is just another person with a grudge against Disney. Nowhere does it mention the quality of the film, the entertainment value - nothing. It's not a film review. It's an obvious tear-down of Disney and "facts".

    Go to Rotten Tomatoes for reviews from film reviewers and if so inclined, remind this Film Threat "Reviewer" he did not watch a documentary - if he actually watched the film at all.

    EDIT: Currently 81% on Rotten Tomatoes. Perhaps the title of this thread should be amended so we can talk about the movie and not the reviewers?

    Jeff
     
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  9. Dan C

    Dan C Forum Fotographer Thread Starter

    Location:
    The West
    A review is an opinion, and this looks like a review to me. Yes this is far from a documentary, but it's also good to know the truth behind movie embellishments.

    I still want to see this movie, it looks like a lot of fun (as per my thread title). However, the controversy about myth vs. fact is also interesting.

    dan c
     
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  10. forthlin

    forthlin Member Chris & Vickie Cyber Support Team

    As a lifelong fan of Walt Disney, I can tell you it's pretty difficult to find information on the man that isn't sort of whitewashed. Of course he wasn't all Mickey Mouse and princesses, but so much of his work has stood the test of time. There's plenty of documentation from people associated with him who loved him and were truly in awe of him.

    I think the truth is that the real heroes of the story behind Mary Poppins are the Sherman brothers. Watching the bonus features on the new bluray release (some of which are carried over from the previous dvd) Richard Sherman states that Travers' book didn't really have a story line, it was more of a series of adventures. The Sherman Bros.(and Walt) picked out some highlights and wrote the music to create the movie as we know it.

    Lets' do talk about it more when we all see it. Didn't it open in select cities this weekend? Anybody see it yet?
     
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  11. pdenny

    pdenny 22-Year SHTV Participation Trophy Recipient

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  12. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    I thought the movie was (in Mary Poppins' lingo) "dreadful."

    Way too much Australia flashbacks, way too much about Mrs. Travers' neuroses, and not enough about the geniuses who made the movie. It's also a long, long movie that drags in many spots. I think if they had cut half the flashbacks about the little neglected, abused girl who worshipped her alcoholic father and grew up to be P.L. Travers, it would've been a better film.

    Three huge things they left out of the movie:

    1) the most horrific trauma Pamela Travers suffered as a little girl was when her slightly-deranged mother decided to leave the family, making Pamela the head of the family at age 10, forcing her to take care of her younger sister and infant brother. A huge storm came up at the house -- this was in New South Wales -- and the poor kids were half-frightened out of their wits while lightning and thunder crashes all around them, violently shaking the house to the point that the kids thought it was the end of the world. The mother eventually came back, but Travers later said the incident shattered her emotionally. Only a tiny piece of this is shown in the film.

    2) Saving Mr. Banks ends with P.L. Travers in tears at the movie's end at the theater. Some Disney staffers thought she was crying because there was a 5-minute standing ovation from the audience. The new film gives the impression she cried because she was upset about the changes they'd made to her story. But what she later told people in real life was, she cried because she realized at that moment that from now on, the public would only think of the Disney version of the character, and that her books would always be secondary.

    3) after Mary Poppins premiered at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood, Travers turned to Disney and said, "well, that was a good first effort, but we have to eliminate some of the songs, I want to remove all the cartoons, and I want a few other things changed." And according to legend, Walt waved his hand up at her and said, "Pamela, that ship has sailed," and walked away. She was mortified, because somehow she believed the movie was still in a changeable state. This is what caused her to refuse to ever allow making any film sequels, even putting that condition into her will after her death.

    I think the problem with the second part is that the movie makes out Disney to be a much nicer and more understanding guy than he was. It would be harder to show that they just bludgeoned the author and wore her down over time to the point where she finally signed the contract, and then Walt immediately cut her out of the creative process as much as he could. And that's probably the only way the film could be made.

    I also think the scene where Walt goes to England and convinces Travers to sign over the rights -- through kindness and an understanding into her troubled psyche -- was totally made up. But I think they needed a hook for the ending in order to bring the events to a close.

    The real P.L. Travers was an incredibly difficult, complicated woman. She was into mysticism, strange religions, had several bisexual relationships, had an adopted child who wouldn't speak to her, and died alone at the age of 96. Not a fun person. But there was much more to her than the angry woman of the film.

    I personally think Mary Poppins is a brilliant film -- Disney himself thought it was the greatest film of his career -- but I see Travers' point that it only has a vague resemblance to the book. A real Poppins movie would be much more downbeat, strange, and melancholy, and not anywhere near the upbeat, fun experience the Disney version was. What I wish they had told Travers in 1962 was: "look... you're gonna make $5 million on this film and you'll never have to work another day in your life. The movie will sell ten times as many books as you could ever possibly sell on your own. And not one word of your books will be changed -- if anybody wants to read your version of Mary Poppins, the books will always exist until the end of time." I don't know how she would've reacted to that, but it's 100% true.

    It's very telling that J.K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, has said that immediately after writing the first book, she made sure that she had to approve every script, all the casting, and every major creative aspect of the films... and the reason she cited was, "I don't want to end up like P.L. Travers and have a movie out that bears no resemblance to my books." I have to admit, a happy-go-lucky, light-hearted, all-singing, all-dancing version of Harry Potter would not be the story she wanted to tell.
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2013
  13. pdenny

    pdenny 22-Year SHTV Participation Trophy Recipient

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    Now THERE'S a movie! :agree:
     
  14. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    Sadly, it's not. It feels like an indie film trying to be very serious and heavy with the tragic story about P.L. Travers' early life, so we can get some superficial reasons as to why this eccentric author is so mean and difficult. I also think the movie suffers from having a relatively low budget ($35M), and you can see they desperately tried to fix any historical problems of the scenes in 1905 Australia and in 1962 California. Unfortunately, you can only do so much on a budget this modest.

    I think this is a whitewashed version of Walt Disney to a point, but they were pretty clever about it, and Tom Hanks is still a helluva actor. I did laugh out loud at one point when he hides smoking a cigarette, because the modern-day studio had forbidden the filmmakers from showing Walt smoking a cigarette. (He was a chain-smoker in real life, which led to his death from lung cancer.)

    I think the movie tried to show an irresistible force (Disney) meeting an unmovable object (Travers), but the clash of personalities is mostly pretty one-sided. I get that it would be almost impossible to tell all the different sides of a story this complicated in 2 hours, but we only get a hint at the truth. I also understand the difference between a documentary and a dramatization of historical events, but I think their approach in Saving Mr. Banks was kind of oft-putting and unsatisfying, superficial in some ways, and giving us too much (in the Australian scenes) in others.

    It is a beautiful looking film, thanks to expert DP John Schwartzman and colorist Stefan Sonnenfeld, both among the tops in the business.
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2013
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  15. progrocker71

    progrocker71 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    I've seen many great looking films produced on half or even 1/4 of this budget over the last several years. Most of the movies I watch are independent productions these days, the more indies I watch the less impressed I get with astronomical budget major studio fare.
     
  16. benjaminhuf

    benjaminhuf Forum Resident

    Vidiot: OT, but I hope you do a critique of the The Desolation of Smaug. Or, as I'm coming to think of it, the Desolation of Tolkien.
     
  17. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    Ah, ya see, I'm not a Tolkien purist. I think Jackson is such a genius, he can do what he wants. The Hobbit / Lord of the Rings movies entertain me on a certain level, and I think he preserves the spirit of what the stories were about. I'm only mad that he took a 300-page book and is making a 10-hour film about it, when it could've easily been done as two 2-hour films. The Hobbit films feel very padded to me... but I like Martin Freeman and Ian McKellen so much, they make those movies work for me.

    But I get that if I were the author, I'd have an issue with how the books were changed for the films. Still, I'd again say: shut up, you're making millions of dollars, and Tolkien has never sold more books than he has in the last 10 years... all because of the films. So in cases like this, call the movie "the cover version," even when it's not quite the real thing. It's not the end of the world.
     
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  18. benjaminhuf

    benjaminhuf Forum Resident

    I love Jackson's LOTR movies. Also really liked the first Hobbit movie.

    But have you seen this one? Different kettle of fish imho.
     
  19. AlecA

    AlecA Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire, USA
    Totally off topic, but I'm not a sandra Bullock fan and I thought she was wonderful in "Gravity."
     
  20. progrocker71

    progrocker71 Forum Resident

    Location:
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    I agree completely, Bullock carried the film and she was marvelous in it.
     
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  21. MekkaGodzilla

    MekkaGodzilla Forum Resident

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    It worries me that films like this are made and are taken by the general public as being accurate portrayals of true events. Like Vidiot mentioned above, there are MANY discrepancies in the real story about how Walt Disney acquired the rights to P.L. Travers' meisterwerk and many other outright lies and complete fabrications, all that make P.L. Travers look like a carrot up the posterior fussbudget that needs to just chill out and have fun! Uncle Walt, played by America's Dad, to the rescue! It reminds me of someone, many years from now, catching Inglourius Basterds on some cable channel and saying to themselves, "Huh, that was a pretty cool way to kill off Hitler and end World War II".

    It also pains me that Tom Hanks, Mister American History 101 himself, would be so closely associated with something so deceiving. I guess even for him a paycheck is a paycheck. (or an Oscar nom is an Oscar nom)
     
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  22. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    I think the real P.L. Travers was a much more awful human being who was screwed up even worse than they could show in the film. But they omit that Walt could also be very, very, difficult.

    Some of the basic facts are true: Walt did take P.L. Travers to Disneyland, and I bet she enjoyed some aspects of her wealth and fame after the movie came out. The biggest problem I have with the film is it's not entertaining enough. It has some good moments, and I agree with Forthlin above that the segments with the Sherman Brothers (and Bradley Whitford as the screenwriter) are the highlights of the film for me.

    BTW, to anybody who sees the film: stay for the credits, because you'll get to hear the actual voice of P.L. Travers in the story meetings arguing with the writers about Mary Poppins.
     
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  23. Driver 8

    Driver 8 Senior Member

    Who cares what other people believe about the story of how Mary Poppin got turned into a movie? Plenty of people in this thread seem to be able to see through the factual inaccuracies of this movie, and if there's someone out there in the viewing audience who can't, what harm is it to anyone?

    Hollywood movies are Hollywood movies, not documentaries on the History Channel.
     
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  24. Captain Groovy

    Captain Groovy Senior Member

    Location:
    Freedonia, USA
    It's amazing to me that some people call themselves film reviewers, but can't watch the film and take it in on its own merits.

    How a film deviates from the source material, be it a book, historical facts, or rumor may be interesting, but they claim to be film reviewers. So review the film itself.

    A/B comparisons to source material, grudges against the personalities the characters in the movie are influenced are fine talking points, but not reviews of the film.

    Jeff
     
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  25. swandown

    swandown Under Assistant West Coast Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    I think it's a bit creepy that the film seems to treat Travers with the same paternalistic attitude in death that Disney did to her when she was alive.
     
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