Happy New Year everyone. Here we are at the outset of 2019 with lots of things coming in the year ahead, both in the theaters and in the world in general. As we head back to work, school, and regular life after a holiday break, I want to suggest a film to consider as a possible theme for the coming year.
Morgan Neville’s 2018 documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor focuses, of course, on Fred Rogers, the
Presbyterian minister-turned children’s performer-turned cultural giant, the
creator and driving force behind Mr.
Rogers’ Neighborhood. Using archival footage, talking head interviews with
family members, friends, and co-workers, and animation featuring a young Daniel
Tiger meant to represent the man himself, the film tracks Rogers from the
moment he saw television for the first time and thought to himself, “This would
be a great tool for preaching.”
We meet Rogers’ widow as well as his two adult sons along
with the actors who played Mr. and Mrs. McFeely, Handyman Negri, and Officer
Clemons. Each one of them describe Fred Rogers as the real deal, someone who
was exactly who he was both on screen and off. They detail Rogers progression
from a Pittsburg minister doing puppets on a local show called the Children’s
Corner to a man beloved by millions, testifying before congress, and consulted
by world news organizations.
While not exactly a hard-hitting Frontline expose, it is
also not just a cloying hagiography. It’s a fascinating document of an
important figure and program in American cultural history. It’s disarming but
wonderful to see behind the scenes footage of the Land of Make Believe, to see
burly Pittsburg teamsters moving X the Owl’s tree into place while Mr. Rogers
mugs for the camera. For anyone who grew up watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,
the familiarity and the newness of what you see is striking.
While at times, it seems like he was close to being a saint,
the film also shows that Rogers wasn’t perfect. We find out, among other
things, that at the family dinner table, when Rogers wanted to say something
less kind, he would use the voice of Lady Elaine Fairchild, the selfish,
impulsive ID of the Land of Make Believe. We also learn Rogers told François
Clemmons that if he came out as openly gay, he would be off the show because it
would lose important sponsors.
Rogers’ imperfection is an important component of the film
and part of why I like Won’t You Be My
Neighbor as a film for the new year. Here was an imperfect guy using his
skills and insight to reach out to the weakest and most vulnerable among us, a
man of a very specific religious faith who, nevertheless, did his best to
accept and be kind to literally everyone he met, regardless of how they
differed from him. He wanted each person to understand their own individual
value, to feel heard and understood.
The film discusses Rogers’ use of silence and slowness, how
they allow viewers to let an idea really sink in. The documentary illustrates
this in its last moments as it plays one of Fred Rogers’ final commencement
addresses in which he encouraged his audience to pause and think about everyone
who had enabled them to get to the point in life where they were. The various
participants in the documentary are encouraged to do the same and the final
minute or so of the film is them quietly thinking of those important people as
Rogers words are heard. It is a remarkable and unabashedly moving moment that
is fueled by Rogers’ insight. There are people who love you completely.
See Won’t You Be My
Neighbor and as you go to work or school or home or wherever, think about
each person’s inherent value and how Mr. Rogers taught us that we can be
different but still love one another. Here’s to a happy, peaceful year in our
neighborhood.
