Alright, I’ve procrastinated this long enough. 
Who’s up for analyzing this film?
I have it recorded on my DVR for this very occasion! Would be up for an analysis!
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Love the Tom. Love the Emma. Love the Practically Perfect Nanny.
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Great! So to start the analysis, what are the four throughlines about, in a general sense?
There’s no doubt in my mind that Pamela Travers is the MC, since we see her plight up close and personal, including the flashbacks of her alcoholic father. But how about the other throughlines? Who holds the IC perspective? (I’m guessing Walt Disney on that one, but I’m open to hearing otherwise.) What are the OS and RS throughlines about?
I’ll be rewatching this weekend so will join in as soon as I can!
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Part of me thinks there may be two storyforms – one for the ‘Adapting Mary Poppins’ thing and one for the childhood stuff. I’d have to think a bit more about that before committing, but my current thoughts:
OS: Adapting Mary Poppins – the efforts to adapt Travers’ books into a film format.
MC: ‘Mrs’ P. L. Travers
IC: Walt Disney (I noticed a rather subtle ‘You and Me’ moment just before their first meeting where they each insist on their names in a certain way: P.L. insists on being ‘Mrs. Travers’ and Disney on simply being ‘Walt’). Could also be a bit of Ralph thrown in there, given the whole thing about his daughter.
RS: Adversarial Co-workers – the back-and-forth pull of two people used to having their way, forced to compromise. If Ralph is a hand-off IC, you also have a Budding Friendship between the two of them.
I forgot how wonderful this movie was. I utterly adore Emma Thompson.
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There’s a moment between Travers and Ralph. Ralph is happy about the Sun being out, but Travers would prefer to be responsible for the rain. The rain, she says, brings life. Then Ralph turns with a smile and says ‘so does the sun’.
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So what’s going on here? What conflict arises through efforts to adapt the book to film? And what process is the source of that?
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It could be more about getting the screen rights than adapting the books – that may be a prerequisite.
Anyway, most of the conflict in the ‘adaptation’ story that I saw stems from Travers’ inclusion into the process. She insists on script approval, bringing a tape recorder and basically objecting to everything they suggest from casting to music; she pushes the Shermans to absolute breaking point, until they eventually channel their frustration into their songs; etc. It’s basically an endless stream of dysfunction, with both sides fighting for their ideas to be heard.
That conflict feels more Psychological in nature to me. And I could see the relationship story being more in Physics, particularly since Ralph takes up more of that weight than Walt – driving her around; joining her on the grass, etc. Although Walt has a moment or two for sure (the merry-go-round).
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Huh, I hadn’t thought of Ralph as a handoff IC, but it makes total sense. I’m also definitely on board for an OS in Psychology in the “Adapting Mary Poppins” story, along with the RS in Physics. In the process of defining the other two throughlines, what do you think Traver’s Approach is?
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Might help to start with pinning down what her problem is. What causes her alone conflict?
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Sorry for my late response!
I kind of struggled with this one because (tying this in with Greg’s question) I found it rather hard to find moments of conflict that didn’t lead back to Poppins – and I’m still uncertain of whether or not the flashbacks are part of this storyform or a second one.
However, I can think of a few instances of a Do-er approach to things: on the initial drive into Los Angeles, she gets so annoyed with ralph that she closes the glass division; she shoves all of the Disney toys into the closet; she throws the pears into the swimming pool, etc.
It’s odd, because she feels very firmly like a Mind character (all of her demands, her controversial outbursts, her stubbornness, etc.) but I can’t really think of any specific instance of a Be-er approach. You could maybe say her visiting the hotel bar could be her trying to ‘be’ like the other people, but that feels quite tenuous.
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Remember you’ve said that the OS deals with problematic ways of thinking, particularly those of Ms Travers. Do her demands and stubbornness point to a problematic Mindset that troubles her alone, or are these parts of the OS conflict?
Also, are her demands and stubbornness examples of her changing herself to suit the external or of her changing the external to suit herself?
Would her call to her lawyer to tell him she’s at war with herself be an example of doing or being? Or would it not?
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Oh, of course. Duh! Yeah, the whole OS is about how she’s difficult and trying to manipulate things into her favour.
I was thinking more about those instances like when she visits LA for the first time (like on the plane with the child – ‘will it be doing that the whole time?’), but that could just be elements of her OS character, rather than a specific personal issue.
At the moment, I still can only see a Do-er approach but I might re-watch to try and figure out those personal moments. (And see if the flashbacks are her specific MC issue or part of a second storyform)
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So what would be the problem she is Do-ing things about? If the OS is Psychology, what problematic Situation/Universe does she find herself in?
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Well, she’s struggling financially – her royalties are all but gone, she hasn’t written anything for a while. However, that’s pretty much ignored after the first act so I’m not totally confident in that.
I think more likely it will be her fish-out-of-water status: she’s a very practical Englishwoman in the very aesthetic-focused entertainment capital of Los Angeles.
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This is an interesting take, but isn’t she free to leave anytime she wants? Also, practical seems more like an internal trait than an external one, and don’t the other character bear most of the conflict that comes from her practicality?
I don’t think it is ignored. It’s not specifically brought up in each act that she needs money, but each act does show us the conflict that comes about because of that. If I were to describe her throughline in one sentence, it would be something like “When Travers runs out of money, she must consider selling the movie rights to Mary Poppins.” And isn’t pretty much everything after that opening scene in relation to her considering whether to sale the rights? Then at the end, we see that she has the money to rehire her housekeeper and is writing again.
Not sure if you’ve seen it, but compare that to something like Frank Hamer in NETFLIX’s The Highwaymen. One of the first things we see Frank do in that movie is try unsuccessfully to shoot the way he used to because he’s rusty and old, which seemed to be setting up a nice MC throughline about dealing with a frail and aging body. After that, we see him run out of breath once and talk about the number of bullets he has in him, and that’s about it. Little to no conflict that can be traced back to that set up, and no payoff at the end where he figures out how to deal with being old and rusty. That’s a problem that got ignored.
What do you think @RailwayAdventurer?
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Excellent points, once again.
I was concerned that all of that rights stuff overlapped with the OS, but you may be right. I hadn’t even stopped to think of the ending with her maid and all of that. Her money issues are definitely the most ‘universe’ thing about her that I can recall.
I haven’t seen The Highwaymen, but I can see the difference in your examples for sure.
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The stuff with the rights does seem to kind of wrap around both the MC and the OS stories. I think part of that is because conflict for both storylines has to do with the rights. Travers conflict largely deals with considering whether to sale the rights while the OS conflict largely deals with not being able to secure the rights. That makes both look like parts of the same storyline even though they are actually separate stories with separate sources of conflict. I could be way off, but that’s how i’m seeing it.
And then I was going to leave this until later, but the convo is going a little slow, so i’ll go ahead and throw this out. I wasn’t looking at Ralph as a handoff IC (though he may be) so much as one of the RS players. You can see their relationship growing closer over the course of the movie and hear relationship discussions (“you’re one of my favorite Americans” - or something like that) while her relationship with Disney doesn’t seem to change much, if at all, over the course of the film.
At first, I tried to use something like “driving Travers around” as the Physics of the relationship. But I don’t think they grow together as friends just because he’s driving her around. I think one of you already mentioned it, but when Ralph talks to her while driving, Travers closes the window on him and I think that’s probably a hint toward what the relationship is about. It’s seems like it’s more about the talking than anything. Like at one point, he brings her tea and talks while he helps her play in the grass and he asks her to sign his book for his daughter. I know they’re doing various things while they talk, but it just seems like the act of discussion that helps them grow.
What do you guys think. Do you have other thoughts about the RS?
And what do you think’s going on with the IC?
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Absolutely agreed. The heart of the story definitely seems to lie in that relationship, rather than Travers and Disney’s.
True, it does appear to encapsulate the source of conflict that everyone is dealing with.
I think in order to better define the IC throughline, we may want to pin down the MC throughline. I’m wondering where in the film Travers’s throughline in this story ends and the childhood substory begins.
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