When is the flashback more than just a flashback? When it’s the B-story! The use of structural flashback in Saving Mr. Banks highlights how effective this technique can be when it’s used in the right way…
Writers: Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith
Script source: Script Slug
Saving Mr. Banks tells of British author P.L. (Pamela) Travers’ experiences in Hollywood as she negotiates with Walt Disney over the rights to adapt her novel, Mary Poppins, for the big screen. As we see Pamela reluctantly navigate the movie world (aghast at the very idea that the filmmakers plan to add sugary musical numbers!), we also get extensive flashbacks to her childhood in Australia with her loving but troubled father, who became the model for the character of George Banks in Mary Poppins. In this article, we take a look at flashback and at how it is used effectively in Saving Mr. Banks to add an extra dimension to the story.
Why is flashback seen as problematic?
Flashback is often lumped in with voice-over in discussions of ‘lazy’ or ‘amateur’ writing. The main criticism of these tools is that they can replace creativity. Instead of finding a dramatically interesting way of showing us something, it’s easier for the writer to simply have the character tell us in voice-over or to have a scene set in the past. However, as with voice-over, there are many examples of effective use of flashback scenes.
Occasional vs structural flashback
When it comes to flashback, there are two main kinds: the occasional flashback and the structural flashback.
The occasional flashback: This type of flashback is isolated in nature but can serve to drop important information, backstory or context into a story. An example would be Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), where we briefly see the ‘good times’ in the affair between the protagonist and his lover, who (spoilers) he later has killed.
This technique is often criticised for slowing down the main story, dragging it backwards when a script is supposed to be dynamic, gathering pace with each scene, building momentum towards the climax. Pulling the audience away from an exciting or emotionally compelling main plot thread to spend five minutes returning to the protagonist’s childhood can interrupt this momentum and cause the viewer to shrug and say, ‘so what? I want to get back to the real movie.’.
The structural flashback: As the name suggests, this type does more than drop in information or context, it provides a structure for the film. This can be a simple framing or ‘bookend’ device, where we start in one place, flash back to see the story develop and return to where we started towards the end of the story. Examples would be Titanic (1997) and Sunset Boulevard (1950).
However, the structural flashback can provide an even more integral element to the plot. This would be the flashback B-story, which feeds into the main story, moving it forward and giving the audience important information throughout the main narrative. These flashbacks have (or should have) their own structure, as we can see in Saving Mr. Banks.
How does Saving Mr. Banks use flashback?
In Saving Mr. Banks, the screenwriters continually return to Pamela’s formative years in Australia (starting in 1906), contrasting these scenes with those of her in London and Los Angeles in 1961. But rather than taking us out of the narrative and creating an awkward, fragmented structure, the flashbacks do the opposite; they turn the story into a ‘whole’.
Throughout, the flashbacks are manifestations of Pamela’s memories, triggered as she ‘endures’ the process of seeing what Hollywood has in store for her beloved novel. While known as a beloved children’s book about a magical nanny who literally flies in to ‘save’ a troubled family, the book was based on Pamela’s own childhood experiences, particularly her errant, alcoholic father with whom she was very close.
The flashbacks also reveal important character detail. Without them, we’d have a straightforward ‘uptight English author clashes with laid-back Hollywood folk’ narrative that, while funny and entertaining, would probably lack emotional depth. The flashback sequences let us understand Pamela on a deeper level, allowing us to see the genesis of her book and explaining her resistance to the movie-makers’ changes.
Further, the flashback sequences indirectly impact the secondary characters, notably Walt Disney, and the main plot development. Pamela starts off being just a pain in the neck to Walt, who’s determined to put Mary Poppins on the big screen. However, his gradual understanding of her background allows him to see her in a new light. His ability to relate his own story to hers then allows him to convince her that her novel is in good hands. This drives us to the climax and resolution, in which the Mary Poppins film premieres to great acclaim and Pamela has a new lease on life.
Here’s a look at how the flashback B-story structure is used in Saving Mr. Banks:
| Modern day (starting 1961) | Childhood flashbacks (starting 1906) |
| Opens with Pamela in Australia (aged 10, known as Ginty), sitting in the park, exercising her imagination, prefacing the creation of Mary Poppins, with her father’s voiceover… ‘Winds in the east, mist coming in. Like somethin’ is brewin’ and bout to begin…’ | |
| Pamela in London (in her mid-60s) mirroring the pose struck by her 10-year-old self. Her agent Diarmuid arrives. They quarrel over Pamela’s reluctance to travel to LA to discuss signing over the rights for a film version of Mary Poppins. Pamela needs the money but she doesn’t want to relinquish control of her work. She finally agrees to go, reveals she doesn’t want to lose her home, with its view of her beloved cherry blossoms. Triggers memory of… | |
| Ginty playfully interacting with her father Travers Goff. We see where she gets her imagination from. He promises he’ll never lose her. | |
| Pamela on the plane grappling with her carpet bag and getting frustrated with the flight attendants and passengers. Really doesn’t want to be here. Triggers memory of… | |
| Ginty, her two younger sisters and mother Margaret are packed up to leave their nice home and thriving town. Travers arrives without the carriage he promised, so they must walk to the train station with all their belongings. Ginty is sad to leave. The train chugs off into the countryside. | |
| Pamela arrives in sunny LA. She meets her equally sunny limo driver Ralph. She’s not impressed with either. We get a good look at garish LA. Pamela hates the whole thing. | |
| Pamela arrives at the Beverly Hills Hotel and there’s more evidence of the culture clash. She is especially appalled at the array of Disney-themed gifts waiting for her in her suite. She opens her balcony doors on to the heat, dust and daylight of LA. Triggers memory of… | |
| The Goff family arriving at Allora, a hot, desolate, and dusty town in the countryside. Their ramshackle house is a real come down from their previous home. Travers’ enthusiasm is outwardly undampened but Margaret isn’t convinced. | |
| Pamela puts her Disney gifts out of sight and unpacks her seemingly bottomless Mary Poppins-esque carpetbag. She flips through the TV stations and comes across Walt Disney on The Wonderful World of Disney show. She’s intrigued but dubious. | |
| Ralph picks Pamela up from the hotel. His perennially cheerful nature irks her. | |
| Pamela arrives at Disney Studios. She meets the script writer and the music & lyric writers, Dick & Bob Sherman. She brushes them off, briskly asserts that Mary Poppins isn’t a musical, much to their dismay. | |
| Pamela meets Walt Disney, who greets her enthusiastically with a hug. She’s perturbed by the informality. Disney instructs her to call him ‘Walt’, foreshadowing his own father issues (a contrast to Pamela who insists on being called Mrs Travers). Walt is insistent on bringing Mary Poppins to the screen and has been for the past 20 years. They wrangle over the issue. Pamela remains firm that it won’t be a musical. She is conflicted over her feelings towards Walt, who’s gracious and charming. She tells Walt that Mary Poppins and the (fictional) Banks’s are her own family. Pamela agrees to work with the writers to see if they can come up with something of which she approves. | |
| Travers and Ginty are together on the veranda. Margaret sends Ginty to bed. She notices a half-empty liquor bottle. Ginty overhears Travers tell Margaret that he’ll make them a good life, make her proud again. | |
| The first script meeting. Pamela drives everyone crazy with her pedanticism, picking at each line of the draft script and disputing every creative choice. This won’t be easy for anyone concerned. | |
| In a reversal of the previous scene, Ginty and her father interact creatively. He quotes Yeats and they make up fantasy stories. Then Travers and Ginty pretend to fly (galloping off on Travers’ horse). | |
| More creative conflict as Pamela reviews the storyboards, objecting to the portrayal of the Banks’ house and the fictionalised family. Her personal connection to the story becomes clearer. | |
| At the hotel, Pamela sees a bar full of people enjoying themselves. She returns to her room, alone. | |
| Brief flashback to a tender moment between Ginty and Travers. | |
| Pamela recalls the moment with her father. | |
| More of Pamela frustrating the writers. | |
| Assistant Dolly relays Pamela’s demands to Walt. | |
| Walt, Pamela and the writers meet. Pamela threatens to pull out of the film. Walt gives in to her demands. Walt leaves. The Shermans perform one of their songs written for the film. Pamela hates it. | |
| Intrigued, Walt watches Pamela from the window of his office. He just can’t figure her out. | |
| Pamela sits in the bar at the hotel and has a pot of tea. She looks out of place in this setting. | |
| Ginty goes to the bank where her father works as the manager. Travers, possibly drunk, is having a meltdown in his office. He stops when he sees his boss and Ginty looking on. Travers is fired but then his boss relents and tells Travers to get his act together. | |
| Travers and Ginty by the river. Travers drinks from a hip flask. He talks of his dislike for money and of being out of step with the world. He expresses a deep sadness that Ginty cannot understand. | |
| Pamela speaks on the phone with Diarmuid. She expresses her dislike of LA and the script. Echoes her father’s words about money. | |
| The Shermans create the ‘Spoonful of Sugar’ song. Walt and Pamela arrive. They play the song. Walt loves it. Pamela doesn’t. She rails that the script is filled with whimsy when it should have gravitas. Throws the script out the window (mid-point). | |
| Margaret struggles with domestic life in Allora. Travers arrives unexpectedly when he should be at work. He plays with the kids. Margaret finds a bottle of alcohol in his pocket. Later, she expresses concern about his job. He gets upset. This upsets Ginty. | |
| Walt overhears Dick Sherman composing the ‘Tuppence a Bag’ song. Walt is touched by the song. He reveals that a powerful producer wanted to buy Mickey Mouse from him when he was just starting out. Walt wouldn’t give him up – he can understand Pamela’s attachment to Mary Poppins. | |
| Pamela sits by the pool at the hotel, recalls her father telling her that the world is an illusion. | |
| Travers returns home drunk and in despair. He brightens when he sees Ginty. Margaret sees her husband, gets upset. Travers goes in the house. Ginty watches him break down crying. | |
| Ginty is at school, daydreaming while she’s supposed to be painting a banner for the Allora Fair. | |
| The fair is in full swing. Travers is due to make a presentation on behalf of the bank. | |
| The Shermans present the ‘bank’ song. This is interspersed with… | |
| The Goff family at the Allora fair. Travers has been drinking. He’s sharp with Margaret, trying to hide it from the kids. He goes to the refreshment tent. Ginty’s sister is due to dance on stage. Travers is still in the tent, drinking. Ginty goes to get him, but he shoos her away, upsetting her. Margaret arrives and sees the state Travers is in. | |
| Travers gets up on the stage to make his presentation, with his family watching. He’s drunk and rambling. He falls off the stage. | |
| Pamela becomes very upset at the writers’ depiction of Mr. Banks. She asks why they made him so cruel and ‘unspeakably awful’. | |
| A doctor tends to Travers at home. The doctor refuses to supply him with more pain medication. Travers asks Ginty for the bottle of ‘medicine’ in the bathroom. He gets angry when she tells him Margaret threw it away. Ginty gives Travers a poem she wrote for him. He dismisses it and something in her hardens. | |
| Pamela rushes from the rehearsal room. | |
| Ginty digs the alcohol bottle out the rubbish bin and gives it to Travers. | |
| Pamela and Ralph interact. He tells her about his disabled daughter. Pamela retreats into her imaginary world, like when she was a kid. | |
| Margaret attempts to kill herself by drowning. Ginty saves her. | |
| Walt calls Pamela to smooth things over. It doesn’t go well and he hangs up on her. | |
| Walt tells the writers they need to fix things. They remain determined to put Mary Poppins on the big screen. | |
| Margaret’s matter-of-fact sister Ellie arrives to ‘fix’ things (a la Mary Poppins). Travers isn’t happy. Ellie unpacks her seemingly bottomless carpetbag. Ginty is in awe. It becomes clear Ellie is Mary Poppins in her mannerisms and language. | |
| Ralph drives Pamela to Disneyland, where Walt is waiting to give her a tour. Walt gets her to ride on the carousel. She softens (a little). | |
| Ellie takes care of the house. Travers is clearly unwell. He and Ginty share a moment of understanding. | |
| The writers show Pamela the new ending they’ve devised in which Mr. Banks fixes the kids’ kite. They all perform the uplifting ‘Let’s Go Fly a Kite’ number. Pamela is won over. | |
| Ginty sits with Travers. His health is failing. He hasn’t got long left to live. | |
| The next conflict comes when Pamela realises Walt’s intention to add animated penguins to the film. She hands back the book rights papers unsigned and walks out, seemingly ending the project. | |
| Walt tries to stop her leaving but she tells him she may never be ready to let go of Mary Poppins. Walt persists but Ralph steps in and drives her away. | |
| At the airport, Pamela and Ralph say goodbye. Ralph reveals his daughter loves Mary Poppins and that she persuaded him to read it. Genuine affection has developed between them. | |
| Walt is told Pamela’s flight has taken off. He discovers that her real name is Helen Goff. Walt realises he’s been talking to the wrong person. | |
| Ginty learns that her father has died. | |
| Pamela arrives home. Later, she is awoken by the arrival of Walt. He tells her he knows that her book and her reaction to its adaptation is really all about her father, whose first name she took as her own last name as a tribute. Walt talks of his own father, a tough and violent businessman, who made his young sons deliver his newspapers in the snow. He tells Pamela that they both need to let go of the past. He says she needs to forgive herself for not being able to save Travers. Walt asks Pamela to entrust her story to him and he will make sure that audiences the world over will watch Mr. Banks being saved by the arrival of Mary Poppins. | |
| Three years later. The premiere of Mary Poppins. Walt assumes Pamela won’t come to LA and says they’ll have a second premiere in London. | |
| At home, Pamela is working away on a sequel to her Mary Poppins book. She has a new lease on life. | |
| Much to the surprise of Walt and everyone else, Pamela arrives in LA for the premiere. Ralph picks her up. | |
| Pamela watches the film, taking in the audience’s joyous reaction. She recalls snippets from her own childhood as the film plays. By the end, she’s crying. | |
| We leave Ginty where we met her, sitting in the park, with Travers’ same voice over… ‘Winds in the east, mist coming in. Like somethin’ is brewin’ and bout to begin…’ (a line spoken by Burt the chimneysweep in Mary Poppins). A shadow of an umbrella floats upwards. |
Final observations
As we noted (and as echoed by Robert McKee), effective use of flashback gives the audience important information at the right time in an actively dramatic way that moves the story forward. The flashbacks should also have their own structure, with a beginning, middle and turning point (McKee, Story, p341-2). Let’s apply these principles to Saving Mr. Banks:
1. Deliver important information at the right time: Yes – the flashbacks manifest Pamela’s memories to show why she’s bullheadedly resisting the changes to her novel.
2. Actively dramatic scenes that move the story forward: Yes – the main narrative doesn’t stop for the flashbacks; instead they work in unison. The 1960s scenes are given emotional context through the childhood scenes.
3. Separate structure: Yes – the Ginty scenes and sequences tell a clear story with a beginning, middle and end. They start with the family moving from Maryborough to Allora and continue through to Travers’ breakdown, the arrival of Ellie and Travers’ death. The lack of a resolution is important as Pamela has carried the guilt over his death into adulthood.
Because the flashbacks are Pamela’s memories, we see her adult reaction. The best example is the sequence involving the development of the ‘Mary Poppins bank scene’ and the flashback to the Allora Fair. The ‘cruel’ depiction of Mr. Banks and Pamela’s ugly memories of Travers’ breakdown combine to put the whole project in jeopardy.
Overall, the backstory in Saving Mr. Banks is so integral to the main narrative that the structural flashbacks become a necessary tool that turn an amusing ‘culture clash’ tale into something much more emotionally satisfying. In the context of the fact-based film, as most of us only know Mary Poppins as a lightweight Hollywood musical with catchy tunes (and the worst-ever Cockney accent, courtesy of Dick van Dyke!), it’s also interesting to see how the ‘story behind the story’ was dramatized.