‘Where the sky begins’: Queensland landscapes and place-memory on screen in Saving Mr. Banks (2013)

This paper examines rural Queensland landscapes represented in the film Saving Mr. Banks (2013), and how these landscapes are depicted as forming an integral part of the writer P. L. Travers’ childhood and upbringing. It argues that childhood experiences lived in these landscapes are transformed by Pamela Travers into central aspects of her Mary Poppins’ novels. In turn, her children’s books are adapted for screen by a creative team that blends Australian and North American sensibilities. Travers’ fictionalised two-week visit to Los Angeles in 1961 and her collaborative work with the team at Disney are represented as re-awakening many embodied memories rooted in her Queensland childhood. These memories are represented as needing to be processed before she can navigate a revised understanding of her family of origin, her father, in particular. By the close of the film, she has arrived at an acceptance of her experiences of childhood adversity and loss.