Wonderful Life

"It's a Wonderful Life" was on last night. This is one of my favorite movies, ever, and my opinion of it was reinforced last night (and I got to see the whole thing, from the start, without interruptions - in previous years, I've either forgotten it was on and come in a bit late, or got a phone call in the middle of it, or I was working on something like grading during the movie and couldn't really pay full attention...)

The movie does make me cry a little at a few points - at the end, of course, but also at the beginning when you hear all the prayers everyone's sending up for George Bailey (would that it would be so for every person who ever finds himself or herself troubled). And at the point of "realization," where George realized that Bert the Cop knew him - that he was back and had been born after all.

I realize the plotline has been used a lot over the years (and there have been a couple made-for-tv remakes), but in this movie, it seems fresh and surprising.

I also realize that there are people who view the movie with a cynical eye - the people in it who are good are TOO good, that people wouldn't really do what they do at the end to "save" George, that in real life Mr. Potter should have got the tar kicked out of him for what he did. But you know, I kind of like to wave my hand and ignore those things.

Yes, maybe the people in the movie are "too" good, too upstanding. Maybe the working class really is more like Mr. Potter's description of them than George Bailey's sense of them. But I love the movie because it portrays people as being good - that it portrays people as being able to be grateful for the help they were given and able to pay it back when it becomes necessary to.

For me, one of the "purposes" of art or entertainment is to uplift me, to make me believe that people can be better than what we see 24 hours a day on Fox News or CNN. To believe that people have that spark of the Divine in them that pushes them to do what might not be in their best self-interest in the most selfish sense, but which reaches out to a fellow human being and makes their lot better.

It's a good antidote to the hundred little news stories of "bad stuff" that nibble away at my good will - people looting the homes of folks in shelters during an ice storm, kids vandalizing the Christmas decorations at the home where a developmentally-disabled kid lives, people pushing and shoving and being rude and snappy in the stores, the whole gimme gimme gimme mentality that tends to come out this time of year.

At the end of the movie, through my tears, I said, "I'd like to step into the frame of the movie and live in Bedford Falls." Oh, I don't know how I'd fit in there - I'd probably wind up as the spinster librarian that Mary Hatch didn't become because George Bailey was born. And maybe, as some cynics have suggested, there's bad stuff lurking behind the pretty exterior - I know in the era the movie was made there was more overt racism and sexism and xenophobia (and I admit that even in the movie, the Martinis do border on being caricatures), and things like antibiotics and most childhood vaccines didn't exist (otherwise, George Bailey wouldn't have lost hearing in that ear). But I want to believe that the world of the movie would be better - maybe not more luxurious, maybe not more easy, but BETTER - than the world of today. Because of the people. Because most people are hardworking and good, and the ones who are bad (Potter), you know they're bad - they're not someone who hides their venom behind a smile and who then shocks you after you've been friends with them for a while.

And when you're down and out, people pray for you, and then, when they learn of something concrete they can do to help you, they do that. (And Clarence gets his wings at last.)

It's not a movie, I think, that would be likely to be made today, at least in the same form it was made then. I think there is too much cynicism in the world (or, perhaps, it's believed there's too much cynicism. Maybe the fact that the movie is loved by so many people puts the lie to that). And, certainly, the movie makes faith a bigger feature than most mainstream movies would today - the Martinis are seen crossing themselves, people pray, even Joseph and his "boss" (St. Peter, I assume?) are portrayed as talking to each other. And I don't think the ending would be the same.

(I know there is, but I have never seen, a Saturday Night Live skit where the townspeople gang up to attack Mr. Potter and exact their revenge. Perhaps it's a funny skit, but I have to admit another thing I love about the movie is that the townspeople do not exact revenge on Potter [well, he's probably never found out, that HE got the $8000 by mistake and just kept it]. But they show they are better than he is - he keeps money that he knows will break the Bailey Building and Loan; they dig into their pockets to save it. And that fits in with my worldview: when there is a problem you can do something to fix, you do it, you don't look for someone to blame or beat up on instead.)

The other thing that's striking about the movie today is how self-denying George Bailey is: he gives up his dream of traveling, his chance at college, even his lavish honeymoon because there are things he can do (either with his time or money) that help other people. And he does them. Oh, there's regret - he doesn't immediately jump cheerfully to do those things (when his newly-married brother comes home and George finds out that Harry's probably not going to want to take over the Building and Loan, the look that passes over George's face...you can see the wheels turning in his mind, going through the various stages of mourning for his dreams - but then he puts on a good face and goes along). George is a grown-up, and that's something that is striking, watching the movie today. He doesn't whine. (Oh, yes, at times he gets angry, he gets fed up. But most of the time he does what he knows is right - even though it might not be what he really wants - because he knows it is right). That might be another reason the movie wouldn't be made the same way today - I think society is different and a George Bailey figure might be viewed (by some, at least) as a chump rather than the hero he really is.

I guess that is why I love the movie so much: it reinforces my worldview of how things SHOULD be. Of how people (well, Mr. Potter excepted) would believe if they generally listened to their better natures.

(I also have to admit a little curiosity about the whole "what if you had not been born" thing. I doubt seriously I'd leave a "hole" like George Bailey did...but I'd like to believe that maybe there'd be differences...that the world is better with me in it. Of course I will never know, but the movie raises that tantalizing question - what have you, specifically, done to make the world a better place?)

And maybe that's another good thing about the movie - perhaps on some level it challenges people to act in a way that they would be missed if they were not here.