It's a Wonderful Life
Film Friday
It’s Christmas Eve, which gives me an excuse to write about what I consider cinema’s greatest Christmas movie: Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life.
It’s a Wonderful Life is a variation of the archetypal Christmas story, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Both feature extraterrestrial spirits. Scrooge is shown how the world will become if he doesn’t change. George is shown how the world would have been if he weren’t in it. Each protagonist emerges with a life-affirming vision of the world.
We associate Capra with sappy sentimentality, and even during his day people applied the phrase “capra-corn” to his movies. But a story that my father tells me about my grandfather (who died before I was born) gets me to think twice about that assessment.
The two of them attended the film when it came out in 1946, my father just back from World War II. Midway through the film, my grandfather declared it too dark and they left.
We are so struck by Jimmy Stewart’s upbeat personality and the final gathering around the Christmas tree that we forget that It’s a Wonderful Life contains a suicide attempt. The very title is part of an expression that signifies, not exuberant celebration, but grim hanging on: “It’s a wonderful life if you don’t weaken.” Note how visually dark the film is, much closer to 1940’s film noir than 1930’s MGM light and air.
It’s not at all surprising that the film is dark. Both Capra and Jimmy Stewart were heavily involved in the war, Capra having witnessed the carnage in the Soviet Union, Stewart having flown as a bomber pilot. Both men returned feeling shaken, and war veterans’ emotions show up in the film: for instance, Stewart yells at his family, feels suffocated, and attempts suicide. No wonder that my grandfather, a man with a sunny disposition, walked out.
But the darkness is an essential part of the film’s power. The magic of Christmas is that it comes at the darkest time of year. The darker the film, the more miraculous the ending.
All the Christmas classics have comparable darkness: the different versions of Dickens’ Christmas Carol (the 1951 version especially), the 1944 Meet Me in St. Louis (which I have written on here), the 1983 Christmas Story (filled with stories of childhood trauma), the 2005 Family Stone (with the mother dying of cancer).
As I think about my grandfather’s life, I have another theory about why he walked out of It’s a Wonderful Life. My great-grandfather was a Chicago lawyer who determined that his son would enter into the family firm. My grandfather studied the law with him as an adolescent and then jumped over college, going straight into Northwestern Law School. My father always thought grandfather would have liked being a literature teacher as he loved Dickens, Scott, and other Victorian authors. In fact, to compensate for not being able to go to college, he built up a large collection of Victorian classics, which are now in my father’s house.
So I wonder if the plight of George Bailey cut a little too close to home. After all, George is forced into the family business. No matter how hard he struggles to break free, he is always pulled back into it.
There’s another detail that further emphasizes parallels. My grandfather, like George, dreamed of travel. My grandfather compensated by becoming an ardent stamp collector.
I’m sorry that my grandfather didn’t watch It’s a Wonderful Life to its end. He might have found his own life affirmed by the film’s conclusion. By all reports, the world was a better place with my grandfather in it, and there was even an Evanston Park named after him. I wish I had known him.
We each of have the potential to be George Bailey in each of our communities. Yes, despite the dark times, it is a wonderful life.
3 Comments
Hi Robin,
It’s a Wonderful Life is actually the 100th film review on my blog (I’m about to post it tonight). I just read that while they were filming the shot of George on the bridge praying to come back to his life, Jimmy Stewart was so moved that he began sobbing for real. Capra didn’t want to take away from the impact, so instead of doing another take for the close ups, he used enlargements of the original long shot. I feel like there’s a universal drawing power to this movie in particular; you’re right – we all have the potential to be George Bailey. Anyway, thank you for sharing your story of your grandfather. I hope you and your family had a merry Christmas!
Please visit A Pocketful of Nickels, which is listed on my blog roll. This is Amanda’s website. Amanda, I’m going to post a quote from your essay on It’s a Wonderful Life here because it’s very much in the spirit of my own website. It’s an instance of better living through film:
“Returning to memorable lines from the film, I’m going to end with my favorite, a line that is in a note from Clarence to George: “Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.” I can’t tell you how many times that line has comforted me over the years. I’ve had those dark moments where everything looked hopeless, but I’ve been lucky enough to have some very steadfast friends to bring some light back into my life. I think we all have those times where we look at all the choices we’ve made and wondered if the path we’ve chosen was the right one. I know I’m not alone in having foregone some dreams for one reason or another, and like George we may all feel frustrated and disappointed at times, maybe even hopeless. But George finally realizes that life isn’t about material things or dreams left unfulfilled; it’s about the dreams that do become reality and the enduring strength of love and friendship. His epiphany gives all of us hope.”
Patrick Logan, a freelance writer who has been exploring his relationship with his father, e-mailed me this story about how the film opened up his own insights into that relationship:
As I became a teenager, I began to identify with the younger George Bailey, while my father represented the one who settles in Bedford Falls (our town has its Salmon Falls). Somewhere in the film, George asks his Uncle Billy what the three most exciting sounds in the world are. As Billy is guessing incorrectly, “Breakfast is served; lunch is served; dinner is…,” George interrupts, “No, no, no, no! Anchor chains, plane motors, and train whistles.” These were the sounds I wanted to hear. To me, they represented travel to exotic places and adventure. To my father, however, they meant separation from the things that he loved. While living in Yokohama in the 1990s, I received a letter from him saying, “Every father someday writes a letter to his son telling what is right. Perhaps some day, I’ll write that story – if I live as long as my father.” He didn’t. After suffering a stroke in August 1997, he recovered well enough to agree to heart surgery. I telephoned as he was being prepped for the operation. He spoke slowly, “Well, I guess I’ve got to go and take my punches.” He died on the operating table the next day. Years ago, I wanted to hear George Bailey’s “anchor chains” and crossed the world in search of them. Now I realize that my father’s words and deeds have become their own anchor chains, but not ones to hold me back, as I once believed, but chains which provide strength and have given me a kind of philosophical mooring. It takes time, it seems, for sons to understand fathers.
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