The name is absent

Appendix 3.2: Sample films, synopses and character lists

MARY POPPINS US 65

Chiminee¹ occurs on the sound track as it does at various
moments it serves to recall Bert's opening song in which he
asserts the freedom 'I does what I likes and I likes what I
do' which George (and the audience) is being invited to claim.
The central character in the film, then, is being required to
rethink his view of the world. What are the values he must
discard, which must he adopt?

The film proposes, through George's experiences, an
interesting set of oppositions in which fluidity, spontaneity
and innocence are privileged at the expense of tradition,
convention and discipline. Order gives way to chaos, logic
gives way to magic, the material bows to the spiritual and the
old must give way to the new. This development is summarised
in the words of George's songs. His rather smug satisfaction
is expressed in his opening song:

I feel a surge of deep satisfaction
Much as a King astride his noble steed
When I return from daily strife
To hearth and wife

How pleasant is the life I lead,
etc.

But the audience is invited during the course of the narrative
to perceive the discrepancy between George's satisfaction and
the experience of those in his care. During the final section
his despair is articulated:

A man has dreams of walking with giants
To carve his niche in the edifice of time
Before the mortar of his zeal
has a chance to congeal

The cup is dashed from his lips,
the flame is snuffed and

He's brought to rack and ruin in his prime,
etc.

Here the preferred reading invites a critical evaluation of
the ambition and historical self importance referred to in the
words of the song while also, and rather subtly, accounting
for George's reprehensible attitude to his offspring. Finally
his acceptance of the film's preferred values is confirmed in
the last song:

With twopence for paper and string

You can have your own set of wings

With your feet on the ground you're a bird in flight

With your fist holding tight to the string of your kite
Oh let's go fly a kite
Up to the highest height
etc.

in which risk, the unknown and unconstrained are valorised.

267

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