Week 5 - Bird Food
The objet you had to find for week 5 was bird food!
Remember that moment in the movie when Mr Banks gets angry with his children because they are too excited after their day out at Uncle Bert.
In the bedroom, Mary Poppins explains to the children that sometimes, even the people we love don't see past the end of their nose.
Her message is that their father loves them very much, but that because of all the difficulties of adult life (especially his job), he forgets the little things in life, like (= comme) listening to his children when they want to tell about their day. But as Mary Poppins says: "Sometimes the little things can be quite important".
After that, she sings the song about feeding the birds: something that may not seem important, but showing compassion IS very important indeed.
THE CUES
CLUES
The OLD woman who sits on the steps of St Paul's cathedral sells food for the birds. The bag of food costs 2 PENCE. The pigeons COO (= roucouler) and they PECK (= picorer) to eat their food.
Because it is food, you had to go to the canteen to find it! And of course, you had to pay 2p to get it. Where could you get those 2p? Well, at the account manager's (= gestionnaire) office.
BONUS
Did you know that "Feed the Birds" was Walt Disney's favourite song? Very often, he would ask the Sherman brothers (the composers) to play it for him.
In this recent video with Richard Sherman, you can hear him tell this story. He says that Walt Disney was, metaphorically speaking, "feeding the birds" all his life. He means that Walt Disney was always giving love to people, this was his life's goal. So Disney recognized himself in this song.
Behind Sherman, you can see Dick Van Dyke (on the left), and next to him is Karen Dotrice, the woman who played the little girl in the 1964 movie! The actor who played the little boy unfortunately died when he was only 21 years old.
The songs of the new movie Mary Poppins Returns (2018) often echo the songs of the 1964 movie. The song that would correspond to "Feed the Birds" in Mary Poppins Returns is "The Place Where Lost Things Go", which is a very emotional song about losing the people we love. Mary Poppins sings this song to the children to tell them that they haven't lost their mother, that she is just in "the place where lost things go", that she is still with them in their heart.
