Why Saving Mr. Banks Might Actually Be Saving Mr. Disney

He's won more Oscars than any other human, but in spite of being the most formidable figure in the history of Hollywood, Walt Disney has never been in a movie. 

The reason for that is pretty simple. From the moment that Walt died in 1966, the company he founded started manipulating his image into one of a benevolent, unimpeachable deity. In the fifty years since then, they've guarded it closely. Perhaps too closely. And Disney the Man has kind of disappeared behind Disney the Brand. Which is a real shame, because Disney the Man is one of the most fascinating and brilliant humans of the 20th century. 

So when the Disney company announced that they were making Saving Mr. Banks and that Tom Hanks would be portraying Walt, I was excited but also extremely apprehensive. With the Disney name attached to it, would the film be just another entry into the company-approved mythology of Walt?

P.L. Travers is not very optimistic.

Imagine my surprise when the first thing you see or hear of Walt Disney in Saving Mr. Banks is a loud and horrible smoker's cough. It's the kind of thing that never would have been approved by the Disney company that I grew up with. 

Then again, neither would most of Saving Mr. Banks. 

What appears to be a family-friendly comedy about the making of the Mary Poppins film is actually a deeper and darker examination of childhood traumas and how they can inform the rest of a person's life. And, eventually, how those traumas can be transformed into the highest caliber of art: the honest kind. From the get-go (and from that smoker's cough) this is a film that defied almost every expectation that I had for it and made me love it even more.

Jason Schwartzman and Ryan the Temp compose a musical interlude to British frumpiness. 

Saving Mr. Banks is split between two places and time periods. The first is Los Angeles in 1961, when author P.L. Travers (the sublime Emma Thompson) visits the Disney studios to collaborate on a script to a Mary Poppins movie that she hadn't yet relinquished the rights to make. The second is turn of the century Australia, where young Helen Goff grows up adoring her alcoholic father (played with such a delicate, endearing sadness by the always underrated Colin Farrell) and distanced from her suicidal mother. The scenes in California are mostly humorous, with the obstinate and opinionated Travers wreaking havoc on Disney's creative team. She insists that the color red be left out of the film, that Mr. Banks shave his mustache, that Dick Van Dyke has to go, and that, under no circumstances, should there be any of Walt Disney's "silly cartoons" in the picture.

Colin Farrell's sad, puppy-dog eyes are the break out stars of this movie. 

As the film goes on and spends more time on Travers' unhappy childhood, it becomes painfully clear that she has her reasons for clinging so desperately to the characters that she created. Emma Thompson has never been better than she is in this film (admittedly, she is almost always good). In the hands of a less capable actress, the adult Travers would have come across as a cold, unfeeling British caricature. Thompson plays her as a woman with a tempest of emotions raging underneath her exterior, beaten down by the necessity of neglect. If anyone at the movies this year is begging for catharsis, it's this P.L. Travers person. 

Of course, that doesn't happen without the perquisite spoonful of sugar. In this case, that is a trip to Disneyland (filmed at the actual Disneyland! Dressed up in 60's accoutrements!) with its very namesake.

The carousel horse that Emma Thompson is sitting on in this scene really is named "Jingles". She was rededicated in 2008 to honor Julie Andrews. Though not visible in this picture, her saddle is adorned with the letters "JA" and a picture of Mary Poppins with her famous umbrella. 

Walt himself is only a secondary player in this film, but what little we see of him both surprised and impressed me. This is the first glimpse we've been allowed of Walt the Man. He tosses back Scotch! Gets angry! Curses! Smokes a cigarette! Tom Hanks embodies him with the same tinkle-eyed and playful spirit that we've come to expect from Walt Disney, but there's something else here, too. There's the unmistakable scent of desperation. In real life, this man was used to getting what he wanted and there was nothing he wanted more than Mary Poppins, especially after being told no for twenty years. He cajoled and manipulated his way into getting this movie made, and it goes without saying that it was the greatest film he ever did. Ultimately, Walt was so passionate about it (they even played "Feed the Birds" at his funeral), that it's not hard to believe, as the film supposes, it must have  been somehow connected to his strained relationship with his own father.

I've read quite a few criticisms of this film for its historical inaccuracies. And for its portrayal of Travers and the many aspects of her life that went without mention (her estranged adopted son, her fascination with mysticism, her unconventional romantic relationships with both men and women) and it all seems so unnecessary to me. Saving Mr. Banks simply wasn't meant to be about any of that. It is a sweet and emotionally resonant film about the powerful nature of storytelling and the ways that the stories we tell can change the world- for other people and, most importantly, for ourselves.

Wait! I forgot to tell you how adorable Paul Giamatti is in this movie! 

Why Nebraska is Not as Depressing as it Looks

I've never thought of Nebraska as a particularly magical place. For one, it's the ninth least populated state in the US. I think they grow a lot of corn there? I'm not entirely sure.  Like most of the middle parts of the country,  Nebraska is merely a pit stop on the way to some infinitely more interesting place.

But it's also the setting for Alexander Payne's latest Oz meets Cervantes addition to his brilliant body of work.

Three minutes, Macgruber!

The premise for Nebraska is deceptively simple. Prickly old alcoholic Woody Grant (Bruce Dern, in an Oscar-worthy performance) thinks he's won a million dollars in a sweepstakes and wants to go to Lincoln, Nebraska to collect his winnings. After some convincing, his sort-of-a-loser son David (Will Forte, the guy who played MacGruber),  agrees to drive him. Everyone knows that it's a scam, except for Woody himself, who believes with an almost religious fervor that the money is his to collect. "Why would they say that if it wasn't true?" he asks so earnestly that your heart actually aches for him.

The two men wind up in Hawthorne for the better part of the film, the small Nebraska town where Woody grew up. And, of course, their journey is ultimately more about their own relationship than it is about the prize at the end.

Forget Gosling, Bruce Dern is a real lady killer in this one.

There are many times when the film ventures into predictable territory, but Dern plays Woody with a tremendous sensibility that never fails to be compelling. It's not only his rambling gait and his hunched over posture, but his eyes, which perfectly capture that wide-open, almost child-like naivety that often returns to humans in the twilight of their life. Like Don Quixote, he believes his own delusions so whole-heartedly that, much like the town of Hawthorne, it's easy to get swept up in them. And it's damn near impossible not to root for him, even with all of his obvious flaws. 

Shooting the movie in black and white was, I imagine, a huge risk. But it's a risk that ultimately pays off. It lends the grim, Midwestern atmosphere a haunted, apocalyptic vibe. Particularly in Hawthorne, you feel like you are staring into the ruins of some long forgotten civilization. This isn't a thriving culture, but a way of life that is dying out forever. As Woody tours the house where he grew up, with his two sons and his smack-talking wife, he might as well be leading a tour through a particularly decrepit museum. 

This is exactly what my house looks like on most holidays, plaid and all.

It would get unbearable after a while, if it didn't lead into one of the greatest pay-offs of any movie that I've seen this year. 

Alexander Payne's last film, The Descendants, was full of vibrant colors, beautiful Hawaiian beachscapes, and charming ukulele music (as well as a thoroughly depressing story about a man taking his wife off of life support- but you know). I can't imagine a less likely follow-up than the bleak visuals of Nebraska. But Payne is one of this generations most effortless directors, oscillating back and forth from uproarious humor to quiet devastation. Nebraska has plenty of both. And, at any rate, the film itself is never as bleak as it's stark black and white visuals would suggest. This is ultimately a story about redemption and it's a good one which culminates in the most thrilling, slow-moving truck ride through a Midwestern town that I have ever seen. 

Why You Should Feel all the Feelings with 12 Years A Slave

I wasn't sure that I wanted to see 12 Years a Slave. I knew that it was probably an excellent film and that it was going to be nominated for all of the awards this year, but I just wasn't sure that I could stomach it. I also wasn't sure that I wanted to subject myself to two hours of movie that would ultimately make me feel horrible about a past that I can never truly understand. 

But curiosity (as well as an obsessive need to bite at every single bit of Oscar bait) won out and I wound up spending a Saturday night at the movies, in a theater full of people who were sobbing as loudly as I was. 

And I am very glad that I did because 12 Years a Slave is not only the best film I've ever seen about slavery. It's one of the best films I've ever seen about anything. 

It begins with the familiar text; “this film is based on a true story”. I’ve seen those words so many times that I normally wouldn’t think about them. But 12 Years A Slave isn’t just some approximation of America’s most terrifying institution. It’s the very real, very true story of a man named Solomon Northrop, who lived in Syracuse with his family and woke up one morning to discover that he’d been chained to the floor of a dungeon. It sounds more like a setup for a horror film than a thing that actually happened in the real world. Nevertheless, free men like Northrop were kidnapped from the North and sold into slavery.  Solomon Northrop was lucky enough to escape and wrote a book detailing his experiences, but how many more died quietly in captivity, taking their secrets with them to the grave?

Michael Fassbender is good at making friends.

It's one of the many things that 12 Years leaves you to ponder. 

There are many brutal scenes of people being whipped, raped, separated from their children, but it is the quiet moments in between those things that are even more impactful. Within the first five minutes, Solomon is beaten by a man with a board and it is awful, but not as awful as the moment afterwards, when he removes his shirt and you get just a glimpse of the ripped bloodstains on the back of it. Or the way he pleads with the man to let him keep his clothing because it was a gift from his wife and the man insists that it’s just “rags and tatters.” The violence in itself is devastating, but the existential reality is even more so. Solomon must silence his intellect if he wants to survive. He must hold back his talents. No one can even know that he can read or write.

I can't wait until the awards, when I can finally learn how to pronounce Chiwetel.

Music plays a key role in 12 Years a Slave, from Solomon's fiddle-playing to the aforementioned funeral scene to the cruel taunts of a particularly brutal overseer. So does the actual landscape of the deep South. There are so many extended shots that revel in the Louisiana wilderness where the movie was filmed. The plantations themselves are physically beautiful, which only elevates the more horrific scenes, including one where Solomon hangs from a noose for an entire day, while the surrounding people go on with their lives. 

So much of this is just an incredible accomplishment for Steve McQueen. He shows a remarkable amount of restraint as a director. This is not a film that attempts to lecture or shame anyone. And while there are certainly elements of 12 Years that are shocking, it never succumbs to sensationalism, which is an achievement on its own. It does not feel the need to preach to anyone, because there is no one underlying message here. Slavery is bad? Okay. We all knew that. 12 Years is the first film about slavery that is brave enough to say: “This is the way things were and that’s it.”

Okay, Miss Alfre. I see you. 

By the end, when a man shows up calling Solomon by his actual name, we- the viewers- and Solomon himself barely even register it. Everything but the plantation feels so long ago and so far away. I’m not ashamed to admit that I spend the last twenty minutes of the movie in tears and the very end caused me to sob. I wasn’t the only one. On the walk back to the car, in the freezing cold, my brother said to me, “Why were you crying? It had a happy ending.”

“But it didn’t!” I said and the tears started coming again. Because, yes, Solomon Northrop is a free man. He leaves the plantation, but he also leaves behind countless others who will never know a life outside of slavery. Patsy clings to him like a life raft, but he makes no promises to save her. This isn't Django and Solomon is not going to return and kill all of the white people and Sam Jackson and rescue Olivia Pope from Leo's evil clutches. This is the most painful part of the history of our nation. And like those twelve years that Solomon spent away from his family, we will never be able to take back those atrocities.

I expect that in the coming days and weeks, I’m going to continue to digest this film. I’m going to think of other things that I really liked about it and I’m going to maybe think of things that I didn’t like as much. But I will say this: If you are on the fence about going to see 12 Years A Slave, don’t be.