Todd Haynes names the Disney movie that “became his whole personality”
Now a landmark ten movies into his directorial career following the recent release of May December, Todd Haynes finds himself on familiar ground by winning rave reviews for a hard-hitting and powerfully acted drama that doesn’t skirt around some uncomfortable character-driven moments.
This has been Haynes’ stock-in-trade for over 30 years – his sci-fi horror debut Poison notwithstanding. The director has covered the non-linear musical drama Velvet Goldmine, his ode to the glory days of Hollywood melodrama in Far From Heaven, the multi-faceted exploration of Bob Dylan through I’m Not There, the forbidden love story of Carol, and the timely true-life legal thriller Dark Waters.
However, despite most of his filmography focusing on blending engaging narratives with emotional undercurrents and exploring underlying and overarching themes that speak to modern society, his inspiration comes from a different place. The movie that first inspired a young Haynes to follow his passions of writing and directing his own features is an all-singing, all-dancing Disney classic.
In a New Yorker profile, Haynes admitted that his first time experiencing Mary Poppins at the age of just three years old sent him into a “total imaginative rapture”, leaving him convinced that he needed to construct a “fanatical, creative, obsessive response where I had to replicate the experience”. It’s noted that while Julie Andrews’ iconic adventure “became his whole personality”, even the young Haynes was aware of how it was interpreted by his mother and father: “I could feel my parents behind me, worrying about what this might mean, or worrying whether they should be worried, and I always felt defiant of their concerns,” he said.
The Wonderstruck director expanded on his undying love for Mary Poppins during an interview with Roger Ebert‘s website, where he referred to it as “my very first movie”. Echoing his previous sentiments, he explained that “it just turned me into an obsessive, creative creature who had to sort of reply to the experience by drawing things, making things”.
Describing himself as having been transformed into an “obsessive, creative creature” as a result, he would then muse on whether or not there was an even deeper meaning behind his fixation on the titular nanny with magical powers: “And in some deeply primal way,” he said. “I’m sure there’s something about that maternal figure and maybe there’s all these kinds of Freudian roots to that, that I’ll lead to somebody else to extrapolate like you – but I think it was the power of the experience of watching a movie that just riveted me.”
Even though Haynes hasn’t made anything that can be described as being even remotely close to Mary Poppins in terms of style, tone, and execution, his lifelong adoration of the Disney-backed favourite has nonetheless seeped into his entire life and career.
