Film Journal July 2018

generation of youngsters in the late
A 1960s grew up with Fred Rogers, the
host of public television’s “Mister Rogers’
Neighborhood.” In Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,
documentarian Morgan Neville opens
a fascinating world behind the show and
its star. A Focus Features release opening
June 8, it’s one of the most unexpectedly
rewarding movies of the year.
Speaking by phone, Neville admits
that he questioned his initial instinct to
make a film about Rogers. “The original
seed of the idea came from Yo-Yo Ma,
probably six or seven years ago, just when
I was getting to know him. I wanted to
know how he figured out how to be a
famous person.
“He said, ‘Mister Rogers taught me.’
I laughed, and he said, ‘No, he really did.
I went on his show when I was young
and he mentored me. He recognized
I was struggling with fame. And he
showed me how I could use fame as a
force for positive social change.’”
Neville watched the show as a child
himself. Then, like many viewers, he
left Rogers behind as he developed
other tastes. While considering this
project, Neville screened videos of
commencement addresses Rogers had
given, profound speeches that suggested
the performer had a much deeper
personality than his television persona.
“I started to feel that okay, maybe
I’m not crazy thinking there’s something
to be said about Fred Rogers,” Neville
continues. “Here’s this voice saying
things that I don’t hear anymore. He
was an empathetic adult with no other
agenda. It’s a voice we’re missing today.”
That voice, and Rogers’ show as a
whole, was the result of years of work.
An ordained minister, Rogers studied
child development and child care with
psychologist Margaret McFarland and
other experts. He also had a degree in
music. Working on children’s television
shows in New York was so discouraging
that he set out to make his own in
Pittsburgh. For almost 15 years he played
supporting roles in live, unscripted
programs.
Finally, in February 1968, Rogers
premiered “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood”
on WQED, Pittsburgh’s publictelevision
station. The show ran until
2000, almost 900 episodes in all.
Each episode began the same way,
with Rogers changing into a cardigan
and sneakers while singing his theme
song, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”
From there he could go off into any
number of tangents, telling stories,
talking about serious subjects like divorce
or indulging in mild slapstick.
Neville interviews Rogers’ family and
workers, who explain how he developed
puppet characters from people he knew.
One friend notes that Rogers’ show was
the “exact opposite of good production
values.” Sets and camerawork were
simple, stories unfolded slowly, and Rogers
maintained a calm, cool demeanor in
a television landscape filled with flashing
colors, noise and commercials.
Morgan Neville
That doesn’t explain how Rogers
connected with children, however.
Neville and his crew found footage
showing Rogers at work developing
his communication strategies. Field
pieces of Rogers in classroom sessions
with children, raw footage from a 1967
documentary about Rogers and outtakes
from his show paint a portrait of
someone devoted to his work.
“When I first met with Joanne
[Rogers’ widow], she said to me,
‘Don’t make Fred into a saint,’” Neville
remembers. “Not only are saints twodimensional,
but to sanctify Fred is to
say that it came easy to him. The fact is
he struggled his entire life about whether
or not he was living up to his potential.
I want my film to ask us to evaluate our
own struggles trying to measure up.”
So Neville includes some of Rogers’
relative failures, like “Old Friends,
New Friends,” a magazine show for
adults he developed for prime-time
television. There we see Rogers talking
with classical pianist Lorin Hollander,
an excerpt that is both awkward and
intriguing.
“He was trying to listen more than
talk,” Neville observes about the show.
“It’s strange, but I actually really like
those episodes. He had some great
people, like Hoagy Carmichael. Milton
Berle gives this incredible interview
talking about the shame and humiliation
of being a clown for a living. They did
about 24 in total. They’re just sitting on
the shelf right now, I hope they get rereleased.”
Unlike many documentaries, Neville—whose
2014 20 Feet from Stardom
won both an Oscar and a Grammy—had
almost too much to work with for Won’t
You Be My Neighbor? The crew pored over
the “Neighborhood” shows, the existing
entries of his previous shows, scores
of commencement speeches, a million
pieces of correspondence and annotated
scripts for every episode.
“We decided in the very beginning
we weren’t there to make a film
about the story of Fred Rogers, we were
there to make a film about the ideas of
Fred Rogers,” Neville says. “We never
felt like we had to check any boxes in
terms of his biography. I said to my editors,
‘This isn’t like making a archival
documentary, it’s like making a verité
documentary. The footage has to speak
to you and reveal itself.’”
In a way, Neville and his crew
adopted Rogers’ methods to tell his story.
Won’t You Be My Neighbor? is comforting,
reassuring, quiet and measured in its
assessments and opinions.
One section addresses the cultural
backlash against Rogers and his show.
Comedians like Johnny Carson are seen
mocking Rogers and his personality.
“I loved him when I was four, but
then when I was sixteen I made fun of
him,” Neville adds. “As you get older, as
you have children of your own, you come
to realize how important he is. Because
what he was doing was so unique. Those
of us who know the media landscape for
children understand that Fred was oneof-a-kind.
“I think the popular idea of Fred Rogers
today is that he’s kind of a cardboard
wimp, a punch line,” Neville continues.
“I think the idea that there was something
profound around a character like
him might strike some as ridiculous. But
what I came to realize is that he had this
incredible profundity about him. He had
the ability to reach children in ways that
other people couldn’t.”
Rogers spoke to children about their
fears, using simple words and examples.
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