A clip of the Darling children learning to fly and going off to Neverland from the 1924 silent adaptation of Peter Pan with Betty Bronson as Peter and Mary Brian as Wendy. It continued the pantomime tradition of Peter being played by a woman. For it's age, it plays the source material rather straight and uses a great deal of the original play script here and in effect resembles a stage production itself, so unlike many silents of the era this is still quite "modern" in its delivery. At least this scene. Being made in 1924, only 20 years after first performance of Peter, the synergy of stage and the new(ish) rising potential of film and film effects just oozes from this clip through the use of the special effects. Yes, now crude by our standards, but check out that Tinkerbell at 4:08! That's pretty darn cool. Legend of Zelda anyone?
Peter Pan as a production has, since it's start, taken full advantage of and in fact cannot have existed without the innovations of electricity and the progress of technology around the turn of the 19th century and the dawn of the 20th. Jen has an excellent book, Peter Pan in the Popular Imagination that has an article all about Tinkerbell and that relationship between Peter Pan and technology as a production. She'll probably discuss that at another time.
Which I find curious is that while Peter Pan, set in the designated genre of fantasy is so inexplicably related to technology and progress (the assumed realm of sci-fi) we now have in contrast Steven Moffat almost doing the opposite, almost inverting that, with Eleven he has been taking a purely sci-fi show, born exclusively out of science (and to educate children) and is bending it into the realm of fairy tales and mythological, pagan-like motifs, essentially giving sci-fi a fantasy skin. For instance in the new Christmas special, the Tardis now apparently sits on a cloud, accessible by a ladder as told by the governess Clara (the new companion) to her children in their nursery. This is the simple stuff of fairytale of old; hatches to underground palaces found by pulling a parsnip or cabbage and the like from the field. It also echoes the stories of Peter as an urban legend in the neighborhood, of which Mrs. Darling is familiar: the boy frequenting Kensington Gardens.
It is curious to see that the upcoming Christmas Special, now that we mention it, is being set in late Victorian London: the same era of Barrie and Peter's rise into the public consciousness. Clara, a dreamy governess, young children, a nursery. Peter Pan is a common Christmastime pantomime in Britain hence somewhat associative to the holiday. It all seems rather intentional. Why is The Doctor hiding there? Yes Moffat has been echoing past literature greats the last two Christmas specials, with last year's an explicit nod to The Lion the Witch And The Wardrobe, but to my knowledge there are no specific literary allusions this year...or is there?
The focus on children and innocence, ruminations of youth and of growing up, children's literature and the like was never stronger than in that period of time. and one could say setting the holiday special during the Victorian Era England is usually a no brainer. They just go together. Why? Well probably the institution that is A Christmas Carol, and due to Christmas itself was a holiday turned fashionable and transformed into the juggernaut of a holiday (as we know it today) in part thanks to Victorian society re-adopting, appropriating and popularizing certain traditions full force. Christmas has always had that Victorian touch to it ever since. Is placing the lonely Doctor, in mourning for the Ponds, in this era of pure fairy tale and pagan-rooted indulgence particularly symbolic that way?
Stuff for Monday ruminations!
Talk again real soon,
Max
