I am a big Tom Hanks fan. I like most of his movies, and there are several of them that are my all time favorites.
Last night I saw “Saving Mr. Banks.” And I loved it. I’m not sure how much of the film was realistic in terms of P.L. Travers’ internal struggle with her past and Walt Disney’s ways and words of convincing her, but there was a key scene in the film that I found applicable to this blog. Towards the end of the film when all seems lost, when Mrs. Travers has refused to give the rights to the film and has returned to England, Walt Disney shows up at her door, tells her a story about his past, and manages to win her to his side. She gives him the rights to make his film. Something Tom Hanks’ character says in this scene I believe is very true. It goes something like this: “Give me this story, let me save Mr Banks. That’s why we can make movies – to set right what in reality didn’t go right. And I will make people all over the world love Mr Banks.” I’m not sure how well I’m quoting the script; I will watch the movie again when it comes out on blu-ray, but this is what resonated with me – I enjoy a work of art when I can recognize myself in it, yet it is not enough to recognize my reality if that reality is grim and tragic and hopeless as a situation in real life might be. This only leaves me sad and more lonely. What I need is hope – a real situation that turns out well, that turns out the way I’d like it to be. It’s “the good guys win” attitude, the “happily ever after”, the “this is how they live to this day and wait for us to go visit them” ending of the Russian folk tales I grew up with.
Is this only a European art characteristic, even European of the last 1000 years, and its subsequent derivative cultures – the Americas, Australia, etc? It is the art I know most. I’m not sure that even the ancient Greeks thought this way. Tragedy to them was the highest art form. Yet even in a Greek tragedy a mimesis – an imitated action – was supposed to bring catharsis – an emotional cleansing. As vague as “catharsis” is, it does appear to involve satisfaction on the part of the viewer. The satisfaction I call hope. Things are made right. That’s why we make and view art.
Why do things need to be made right?
If anyone knows about other cultural art and how it treats this topic, please let me know.
Happy New Year!
Art and the Invisible 