On this Christmas Eve, many of you I’m sure are spending the holidays with loved ones, cherishing the warm feelings of Christmases of old. Whether it’s the joys of opening gifts Christmas morining, or preparing the delicious Christmas dinners, or sharing the day with a loved one or a whole family, we all have our ideal Christmas experience that we want to relive each year. For many like myself, the experience of the season is almost always tied with a love of cinema, and like so many years before, I am spending the holidays revisiting some of the classic standards of the season. There are many Christmas movies out there that bring a different sensation out of me depending on what I’m looking for. If I’m feeling nostalgic for Christmases of my childhood, I watch some of the Rankin Bass specials, or A Charlie Brown Christmas, or the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas. If I’m looking for a good laugh, I watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989). And if I’m looking for a mixture of both nostalgia and laughs, I put on Home Alone (1990). There really is an endless supply of Christmas movies to appeal to any mood we have during the holidays. But, while Christmas is a time filled with great joy, it can also be a time when we tend to reflect too much on the things wrong in the world. And for a troubled year like 2016, when it looked as if the whole world was falling apart around us, silly things like Christmas movies just don’t seem to do enough to raise up our spirits again. And yet, Christmas films also have the special ability to inspire, and make us see through the glitz and commercialism of the season to what Christmas is really all about in the end; hope. And there has never been a Christmas movie that illustrated that better than Frank Capra’s masterpiece, It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
It’s amazing to think that It’s a Wonderful Life is celebrating it’s 70th Anniversary this year. Even more amazing is the fact that it was once considered one of Hollywood’s biggest failures. Now, we can’t even imagine a world without it in our lives. It plays every year on television, it’s a highly influential movie that is referenced constantly and not just at Christmas time, and it is frequently held up as one of the greatest movies ever made. The American Film Institute even placed it as high as #11 on their list of the Top 100. But, it was a long road for this little film to become the classic that it is today. In many ways, what turned it into a classic was the changing shift in our modern culture. It’s a Wonderful Life told the story of a changing nation, where the America of old was being pulled towards a new identity, where life’s answers were no longer going to be so easily explained through the magic of cinema. And yet, at the same time, It’s a Wonderful Life unashamedly delivers on all the same traditional Hollywood tricks to deliver a message that is considerably more modern. And that message is specifically intended to say “you mean a lot to this world.” You have to remember, 1946 was America’s first year out of a World War. Soldiers who had been abroad for many Christmases were now asked to return to a sense of normalcy during the holidays that I think some of them thought would never come again. It was an uncertain time for many Americans, and It’s a Wonderful Life spoke to that period. I think that is why the movie has endured all these years; because it speaks to the worries of all Americans during times of uncertainty, renews their belief in the hope of the holiday season, and shows that through celebration and charity, the best of humanity can endure.
The wartime atmosphere had a lot to do with the making of this movie too. In particular, it shaped what would become the quintessential American hero of George Bailey, who is brought to life in a career-defining performance by the incomparable Jimmy Stewart. George Bailey is a man so driven by his kindness to others, but none of that same kindness is ever redirected his way. Bad luck seems to follow him wherever he goes, and yet he never lets hardship turn him bitter. It’s that basic sense of giving up oneself that defines him, and yet the movie has us believe that such men are unjustly punished by the world. When he saves his brother from drowning in a frozen river, it causes hearing loss in one of his ears. He finds the ideal woman to become his wife (played wonderfully by Donna Reed), and yet doesn’t have the means to give her everything she deserves. He saves his hometown from financial ruin, but does so by sacrificing his nestegg for a vacation that he’s always wanted to take. By being so nice, he has created a self-imposed prison. It’s not the kind of narrative that you would expect for such a heroic character, but that’s what Capra and Stewart were trying to show us in the end. We as a society tend to undervalue the kindness of the average individual and in many cases we only recognize their value once it is too late. By the third act of this movie, George Bailey himself feels there is nothing he can do to set things right, and only taking his life will bring some sort of release from the pressure that’s on him. That’s when the the Hollywood magic of a deus ex machina comes into the story, pulling him out of his despair, with the visit of an angel named Clarence (played by Henry Travers). What follows is a considerably different tale than before, but it’s also what makes this movie the holiday classic that it is.
For a lot of postwar Americans, this movie must have been a bitter pill to swallow, with George continually losing out to others and driven so close to suicide. The supernatural element of an angel coming to his rescue and showing him an alternate reality where he was never born, thereby showing his worth, must have seemed pretty naive as well. And yet, this is exactly what ended up speaking to an entire new generation soon after. We don’t see the value of the good works that we do in other peoples lives, but they do, and that goodwill manifests itself in the love they extend out to us in return. We, like George Bailey, may think that what we do is foolish and unrewarding in the moment, but a lifetime of kindness gives us the right kind of rewards in the end, and that’s the distinction of being honorable. That’s why this works so well as a holiday film, because it reminds us of the benefits of goodwill towards others. In the years since it’s release, people have looked at the concluding act of this movie as a plea for generosity in our society, as many people who make our lives better often go unrewarded. In the wake of World War II, a few American veterans were unsure if all their sacrifices were worth it in the end. Sure there was peace, but they were returning home to families that they no longer recognized and with scars both physical and mental that would never heal. But, in the years since, they would learn that George Bailey had more in common with them than they realized and that the message of generosity was not meant for them, but for everyone else. It’s a Wonderful Life was a movie meant to make a changed American society remember that it is indeed virtuous to reward sacrifice for the greater good, especially during the holidays.
Is the movie a tad too sentimental at times; of course. But, using the traditional Hollywood routines of old actually helps the narrative out a great bit. George Bailey may seem like the quintessential Hollywood hero, but what we realize after watching the movie is that he’s not the typical Hollywood character at all. He is a man on the periphery of society; the everyman whose small contributions make a little difference but more commonly go unnoticed. He’s a community hero whose influence and recognition will probably never be recognized outside of the city limits of his hometown. The ones who do gain national recognition tend to be the ones who make big, sweeping gestures that often come at the cost of disenfranchising people like George Bailey. And that type of character is personified vividly in the form of Mr. Potter (played to perfection by the legendary Lionel Barrymore). In It’s a Wonderful Life, George’s struggles often come as a result of Mr. Potter’s manipulations, as the shrewd old businessman is trying to force his will on the town of Bedford Falls as a whole. Mr. Potter in this sense is a quintessential Hollywood baddie, but also one that is sadly all too recognizable in American society. We see too many of his type in the world of business, in public discourse, and unfortunately far too often in the realm of politics (this election year clearly illustrating that point). That’s what makes the story of George Bailey such a potent one for audiences, because it is the typical Hollywood underdog story, but given to the ordinary American servant doing what’s best for his community. It’s a movie that inspires as much as it comforts, and reminds us that one of the important things to remember in life is to not let the Mr. Potters of the world make us feel worthless.
The common man struggle was always a favorite motif for director Frank Capra. You can see it throughout his work in the 1930’s, especially with his Oscar-winning Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and You Can’t Take it With You (1938). But in all his earlier films, it was always the underdog that had a clear sense of purpose in life, and who set out to change the minds of others. It’s a Wonderful Life flips that narrative around and shows us that the underdog can sometimes be the one who’s lost and is in need of a new direction. Capra understood the mind of a wayward soul because both he and Jimmy Stewart served in the war, and no doubt had come across many George Baileys during that time who probably had lost all faith in themselves and humanity. Capra intended this to be a movie that spoke for those broken men, and show everyone else that more than ever before, this was the time to reach out to them. That message may not have been received right away, and it’s probably only because of the fact that movies at the time were still dismissed as lighthearted fluff. But, thanks to television, which sought to fill airtime during the holiday season with anything that fit the theme, this movie found new life and it spoke to an entire new generation that finally could understand the pain that so many of their elders were going through. It’s because of this movie that a tradition of charity prospers during the holiday season. It’s great to receive during the holidays, but it’s even more rewarding to make one poor person feel like the “richest man in town” just for one day, and help them realize that they matter. Could such a tradition exist without this movie? Absolutely, but It’s a Wonderful Life made such an outpouring of charity feel magical and it gave us an ideal to live up to for every holiday season.
On top of everything else, the movie just makes the holiday season feel even brighter. The interesting thing about the movie is that very little of it actually takes place during the holidays. It’s only once we get to the dire third act of the movie that a theme of Christmas begins to take center stage. In many ways, the movie takes inspiration from Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol, which also focused on a man’s redemption through the intervention of heavenly spirits on Christmas Eve. It’s a comparison that’s not unusual, because both Dickens and Capra were deeply humanist artists, usually casting their spotlights on the average forgotten citizen. But, unlike Dickens, the story renews a man’s faith in himself, instead of showing him the error of his ways. George Bailey’s fault is his own low self esteem, and thinking that he’d be better off dead. As we learn from this movie, loneliness is the worst mood to have during the holidays. Loneliness turns good men bitter, and seeing the eternally optimistic George fall into a void of isolation becomes the story’s most tragic element. As the final act proves to us, George’s sense of duty and honor closed him off and that all he needed to do was to not be ashamed to ask for a little help in return. Wishing to never be born and seeing the consequences of that illustrates to him that every good deed he makes reciprocates in the love and well-being of those around him, creating an atmosphere of normalcy that may not be apparent right away. Seeing all of this, he becomes thankful for the greatest gift of all; life. It’s that joy of understanding that every day of life is precious and that being a good person matters that makes George’s redemption so memorable. Joyfulness for what we have in life is one of the great pleasures of this holiday season, and I don’t think there has ever been a better illustration of joy put on film than George Bailey running through the snow covered streets of Bedford Falls yelling, “Merry Christmas.”
It’s really hard to believe that a movie that was a box office failure in it’s time, and responsible for bankrupting the company that made it as well as halting the once prosperous career of it’s director, is today celebrating it’s 70th Anniversary as one of the most popular American films ever made. Virtually every person in America has seen it, and that’s partly due to it’s inescapable presence on television during the holiday season. But, despite it’s widespread exposure, audiences still adore it and hold it up as probably the greatest Christmas movie ever made. I think that’s largely due to the universal themes within it. It is a uniquely American tale, about a common man who through hard work and good deeds achieves some semblance of the American dream, and becomes an essential part of his community. At the same time, the message of the movie speaks to all of us no matter where we come from. It teaches us that charity is a fundamental tradition for the holiday season and that we should all help those in need feel welcome and appreciated, not just at Christmas time, but year round as well. It also teaches us that giving back and being grateful are essential feelings to share with others during the holidays. In a time right now when we as a country and as a world feel so helplessly fractured, the message of this movie becomes all the more timely. I hope that It’s a Wonderful Life continues to live on for many more generations, because the happiness that is felt by George Bailey at the end of the movie should be one that is shared with every human being from this Christmas on. So, please make another person feel special, give assistance and kind acknowledgement to a complete stranger, show unexpected kindness towards an enemy, and enjoy the festivities like they mean everything in the world to you, and your holidays will feel all the more worthwhile and life-fulfilling. And maybe, even in these turbulent times, we can help a million angels earn their wings.