For anyone who grew up watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, it seems impossible that there are children in the world who’ve never heard of Fred Rogers. Airing on national public television from February 1968 to August 2001, the show was a staple for three generations of American children. Director Morgan Neville’s new documentary, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? pays tribute to that legacy. Culled from archival footage of Rogers and interviews with contemporaries and admirers, the film is a bittersweet trek down memory lane that serves as a beautiful reminder of Rogers’s big-hearted message.
Nowhere is Rogers’s particular sense of goodness and logic more elegantly displayed than his appearance before a Senate Subcommittee on May 1, 1969. As Rogers gives an impassioned speech about the importance of public television to children, we watch as he convinces previously cold-hearted Senator John O. Pastore to provide the funding to make that public television possible. “I think it’s wonderful,” Pastore says at the end of Rogers’s speech, before playfully adding, “looks like you just earned the 20 million dollars.” There and elsewhere, Neville gives us a picture of Rogers as a man who cared deeply about children and was dedicated to giving them the tools to understand themselves and their place in the world.
Perhaps the best example is the series of episodes Rogers did on superheroes and fantasy. Disturbed by reports of children hurting themselves while pretending to be Superman after seeing Richard Donner’s 1978 film, Rogers revived the show after a brief hiatus to emphasize that even playing pretend can have real-life consequences. On its own, the anecdote feels relevant because of how immersed current pop culture is in superheroes, but what really makes it resonate is the way Melville edits the footage. We don’t just see Rogers talking about make believe, we also see images from Donner’s film spliced with children in capes roughhousing in a way that feels almost painfully violent compared to Rogers’s quiet thoughtfulness.
Throughout the film, it’s often the way Nelville assembles what he has that makes each emotional beat so effective. Near the end, musician Yo-Yo Ma explains that when he learned Rogers was dying, he played a piece for him over the phone. He performs what we assume is the same piece live for the film and as Neville splices in soundbites of Rogers’s wife Joanne talking about his illness, we see images of Rogers holding a small funeral for one of his goldfish on the show. It’s an elegant, understated moment that conveys both a sense of loss and a surprising sense of comfort.
As Won’t You Be My Neighbor? winds down, it’s inevitable to look at Rogers’s ability to bring comfort in times of sadness or turmoil and wonder how he would have addressed today’s current events. We get some idea from the special PSA he made after 9/11. Tentative and daunted as he may have been about contextualizing such unfathomable tragedy, he still found the right words. “I’m just so proud of all of you who have grown up with us,” he says, “and I know how tough it is some days to look with hope and confidence on the months and years ahead.” Still, it’s impossible to know what he would say in these extraordinary time, but as Fred Rogers Center co-director Junlei Li suggests, perhaps it’s not what Rogers would have done, but what we do that’s important.
Though Neville doesn’t necessarily offer viewers anything new about Mister Rogers, he does remind us how good it felt to be one of his neighbors. The only question is whether this intimate look at Rogers’s life works for those who never knew that feeling. It seems impossible that spending 90 minutes with this kind, attentive man could convey the weight of his calm, steady presence over the course of a childhood. As one of the people who used to work behind the camera explains, “Now there isn’t room for a nice person on TV.” Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood represents a different time—or at least a time that felt different because we were too young to understand. Perhaps that’s the inevitable destiny of all childhood things: fondly remembered, but impossible to get back.
Rating: 9/10
