on june 10th, google celebrated maurice sendak's birthday with this doodle:
adorable right? when i clicked on the doodle, it brought up a bunch of sendak info and i realized i never watched the documentary lance bangs and spike jonze made about him. so of course i requested it from the library.
i didn't see "tell them" when it first came out because i didn't have hbo but i regret waiting this long to watch it. it was a beautiful yet sad documentary and my heart is now filled with even more love for maurice sendak.
as a kid i was always drawn to "where the wild things are" because of the illustrations but it wasn't until i was an adult that i became emotionally attached to the the book. it wasn't until 2009, when i heard about spike jonze's film adaption of "where the wild things are", and i reread the book, did i finally identify with max. i wrote a blog post about it, which your can read here: where the wild things are.
this emotional attachment to "where the wild things are" mixed with the honesty of sendak and then soundtracked by karen o (like the the movie) resulted in me crying throughout most of this documentary. i just wanted to love sendak and make him feel loved, he has brought so much joy into the world with his stories yet he doesn't realize it (when jonze tells him this in the doc, he admits he spoiled). maurice also suffered so much in life that the darkness of his books came to light.
i loved all of the stories maurice shared. i will highlight some of my favorite parts but if you haven't seen the documentary, stop here. go watch it and enjoy it and then come back to read my blog.
(start here again)
here are my favorite stories:
the tale of his parents attempting to abort him and constantly telling him about it was sad but like he said it was different time. they were not being cruel but honest. children are a financial burden. i always saw myself having at least four but now that i am older, it might be only one. (i am also getting too old to have multiple kids)
when discussing his parents at a different time in the documentary, maurice made a very important point, "having children requires talent." people have children but are not prepared to raise them. especially today, people are still children themselves and having kids. as maurice said, raising kids is like an art. i have always been extremely grateful that my grandmother raised me because she knew how to raise kids. it was not simply because she had raised her own kids but grandma bea had also gone back to school to become a teacher when she was in her fifties. my uncle boon always jokes that her kids got spanked but the grandkids didn't because grandma learned about child development. i always tell people i had the best childhood and i know it's because of grandma bea's experience as a preschool teacher. she provided a home in which we learned the importance of education in addition to feeling loved and valued. i did well in school and was a well behaved child because of my grandma. i consider myself a lucky one because not all parents know good parenting.
maurice did not speak highly of his parents but it was sweet to hear him talk about his older siblings. he truly loved them and they influenced all he accomplished in his life. his brother jack was the one that taught him how to draw and they created these wonderful toys together. when he talked about his brother, it brought me to tears. i know i am not the perfect sibling but hope that i have been a good influence on my brother and sister.
though the story had happy memories, it was also filled with sad stories. one story that made me sad was maurice's struggle with his homosexuality. he did live in a different time but he spent most of his life wishing he wasn't gay. jonze asked him when he stopped beating himself up about being gay and he said never. when he made the point that he was worried about his career it made even more sense. people would not be accepting of a gay children's book writer, but luckily his books were viewed on his skill versus his sexuality. thought he felt like he missed out on a lot of fun, he did find love.
another sad story was the one about the lindbergh baby. the story in itself is devastating but the story of a young maurice seeing a photo of the mutilated baby's body in a newspaper was terrifying. it was even more horrible considering that his family did not believe him and how it scarred him for life (he became obsessed with the case). i haven't read "outside over there" (i have heard him allude to it in interviews) but saw it as a form of therapy for him to come to terms with the image that was etched into his mind. and again he brings up another sad fact about childhood, how children probably see horrible images like this but never tell anyone. it reminded me of how "world weekly news" traumatized me as a child. i mean why was that newspaper allowed near the grocery checkout stand within eyeview of kids shopping with their parents! thanks to "world weekly news" i was scared that my mother was going to be kidnapped by the werewolf man and that if i swallowed a watermelon seed, a plant would grow in my belly (there was an edition that featured a kid with a vine coming through his belly button). also bat boy was the most frightening picture ever. i remember seeing these images on a family trip to san diego and though i was frightened, i never told anyone. just like sendak shared, kids do experience scary things all the time but how many times do they share it with someone else? i mean i never discussed my "world weekly news" fear until now. childhood can be scary.
when spike jonze's film adaptation of "where the wild things are" first came out i remember reading a critique calling it dark and scary. jonze made the point that childhood is dark and scary but no one every really discusses it. sendak's books show how childhood can be dark because he is all about honesty. he makes the important point that he was often told he couldn't say this or that to kids but he believed that you can tell kids anything you want, as long as it is honest. and this is why "where the wild things are" is so great. it demonstrated how parents and children do act. we fight and we argue and we have moments of anger but it's all temporary because at the end of all it, our love for each other is tolerant and forgiving. it is important for kids to know that their parents love is boundless and that we are all human and will make mistakes but they can always count on their family love.
i have not read all of maurice sendak's catalogue but plan on reading them all. he mentioned specific books that i have yet to read and so i put in some requests. sendak was an amazing person and author and i am sure his books will teach me invaluable lessons about life.
i really loved this documentary. if you have not seen it please see it as soon as possible. your heart will be happier after watching it.
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