Seemingly no connection on the surface, but, well, we’ll see about that. Since getting married, or, rather, slightly before, I’ve been on something of a nostalgia kick, perhaps exacerbated by the recent Transformers release and my subsequent discussions with my brothers about pop culture from our youth. Disney’s Treasure Island. This movie must have come out in 1950 or so, starring Bobby Driscoll as the young Jim Hawkins. This is the first movie I remember seeing, and it was captivating as a child, however campy it comes across now. There is still a genuine sense of danger as Hawkins is being chased around the soundstages and yells “one more step, Mr. Hands, and I’ll blow your brains out.” Beautiful stuff! The elements of good adventure stories are all there. The movie seems a little cliché now, the fight scenes don’t exactly stand the test of time, but I remember seeing the movie and reading the frayed leaflet book as a 12 year old. I wonder if the rum and the violence might be seen as a little too much for the Barney crowd these days. Don’t have a kid, so I don’t know. The unforgettable character from this version is, of course, Long John Silver, played by Robert Newton, who strikes the right balance between comforting and menacing. And he has huge eyes. “Them that dies’ll be the lucky ones” on close up. Classic. Not to get too heady, but there is also the substitute father figure thing going on in this movie, doctor on the one hand, Long John on the other, vying for the boy’s attention in some way? Vice and virtue? I don’t want to push this too far, but the father figure element is certainly there. (Is it just me or is the surrogate father/son thing all over these days? See any of the last few Scorsese movies? Maybe this is a recurring trope in all of Scorsese. What it is with artists and father issues?) Instrumental, of course, to the story, and to any children’s story is that the story turns on a crucial choice made by the child. The message has to be, for children to stay interested, that their choices matter, that choice is important, and that they can play a crucial role. This also lies at the heart of every Harry Potter movie: choice. I haven’t read the books, so I can’t speak there. In Treasure Island, Hawkins chooses to return to the ship and take it back from the pirates. He enters a dangerous situation for the greater good. Heroes are marked by courage, so when he does this, he gains the audience’s respect and sympathy. Potter is downright biblical in its repeated insistence on the responsibility of the individual to make moral choices through acts of self-sacrifice. I also noticed several rip-offs from this movie that would later find their way into Peter Pan, the map, the description of the map, some of the terminology, etc. What is perhaps less known is that Peter Pan was fully filmed with none other than Bobby Driscoll as Peter and then animators rotoscoped over the actors a la Ralph Bakshi. Here’s where is gets interesting, and begins to sound a little too Britney/Lohan. Already having an Academy Award fro Window before Treasure Island and Peter Pan, Driscoll made a few other films with Disney, hit puberty and then stopped getting roles. He got into speed and heroin, got married, had three kids, got divorced, ended up in New York in the mid 60’s, made one more movie in the factory or somewhere similar, and was finally found dead by two young girls alone in an abandoned tenement in Greenwich. Of Hollywood, he said, “they brought me in on a satin pillow and threw me out with the trash.” Or thereabouts. So what happened? Where was choice? Would things be different if only Bobby could go to Promises in Malibu? Did he, too, have father issues?
Edie Sedgwick most certainly did. At least that’s the argument the film advances the most. Perhaps molested by her father, taken advantage of by her substitute father/brother Andy Warhol, Sedgwick becomes a Holly Golightly-ish It girl in New York in the mid-60’s. The film is a little shallow in its portrayals, but serves as a starting point for people interested in the whole Factory/Chelsea Hotel scene of the 60’s.
I heard a lot growing up that “that’s what drugs do to you,” but of course the drugs are there for something else, to kill the pain, or postpone confronting the pain or internal spiritual lack. There’s always something else going on. At some point, you hope, an individual makes a choice, or recognizes that they live in community. While some truth needs to be confronted or acknowledged, it also needs to be moved past. What is the element that makes some people wiser and humbler through suffering, able to show compassion with others, while some are simply obliterated by it? If not Lindsay and Britney, then Judy Garland and Bobby Driscoll. What is that element that allows people to handle suffering in a mature way? Is it worse for child celebrities, cloaked as they are in a shallow, meaningless world, where everyone caters to them, but saps them as well? Are they unable to stay grounded? Sedgwick’s story is certainly tragic, and her father seemingly deserves much of the blame, but at what point do you make a choice? Interesting that both Driscoll from Treasure Island and Sedgwick didn’t survive the tumultuous 60’s. Both went to New York looking for a fresh start, both made their way through the eccentric circles of The Factory and experimental filmmaking. Both succumbed to their drug habits. Maybe the heroism lies in confrontation. Neither wanted to confront whatever it was that made them turn to drugs in the first place. Both wanted to forget, instead of confronting and somehow redeeming the suffering. Oh well, this is getting rambling and didactic. Two more movies left.
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