finding neverland. um belo filme, talvez um pouco demais para os lados do cinemão, mas digno, bem feito. o que se segue são pedaços de coisas que fui catando pela internet, em busca de respostas para algumas dúvidas que o filme traz. do que de fato aconteceu ou não. se você não viu o filme, talvez não queira ler o que se segue.

esse é um trecho interessante sobre a questão da "adoção" posterior dele dos garotos. ao contrário do que mostra o filme, o pai dos meninos ainda estava vivo quando ele os conheceu. o resto procede. então:

When Arthur and Sylvia died of cancer within a few years of each other, the playwright found Sylvia's handwritten will in which she requested that Jenny, the sister of the boys' nanny, help look after them. In copying the document for Sylvia's mother Barrie mistranscribed "Jenny" as "Jimmy," i.e., himself--unintentionally, according to Birkin. But even if he did it on purpose, family and friends agree he alone had the resources to take care of the boys, and he became their guardian. Judging from their correspondence, Barrie was part father to the five, part mother, and part . . . well, lover gives the wrong idea, but he was emotionally attached to a degree some found morbid, to George and Michael particularly.

George was killed during World War I, however, and Michael drowned at Oxford in 1921. (Some suspected it was suicide.) Peter, who became a successful publisher, threw himself under a London subway train in 1960. You may think: these were troubled folk. Maybe so, but no evidence survives to pin the blame on Barrie, who died in 1937. As for pedophilia, Nico offered what, barring some shocking revelation, will surely stand as the last word on Barrie's sexuality, or lack of it: "He was an innocent--which is why he could write Peter Pan."

sobre a estréia, sobre o sucesso inicial da peça ou não:
No one knew if this preposterous play would work, especially its anxious author. On opening night, Barrie was ill with nerves, holding his breath at the critical moment when Peter asks the audience to clap their hands if they believe in fairies. What if no one clapped at all? But the audience responded with such wild applause that the actress playing Peter burst into tears.

continuo noutro post, pra que a coisa não fique tão mamute.