Much more than a sentimental film

Rating: 10/10 (25 December 2009)

Maybe it has something to do with waiting a few years between viewings of the same film. Maybe it has to do with maturing or that mysterious acquisition of wisdom that comes with years. Maybe it has to do with slowing down in retirement, paying more attention to details and people and surroundings. Maybe it's a combination of these and other things. But after going many years without seeing "It's a Wonderful Life," I played the DVD at home just before Christmas this year and saw much more than I had remembered of the film in the past. To be sure, there is nothing wrong with the warm sentimentalism I had associated with the movie over the years. But this time I saw and heard and became immersed in a film steeped in values and development far beyond plain entertainment or of a happy story with a happy ending.
Good movies of various genres must be entertaining to be enjoyable. Comedies, romances, musicals, and others may provide good talented performances, humor, action, excitement or mystery. And some may have one or two social values or morals interwoven in their plots. But good drama demands exposition and exploration of more values and a wider range of emotions and mores. That is what we see and hear and become part of in "It's a Wonderful Life."
This film has the standard good guys versus bad guys, and the good-over- evil happy ending. But it probes and reaches much deeper into life in its many characters. It contrasts greed with unselfishness, ambition and dreams with sacrifice and kindness, disrespect with trust, arrogance with humility, lies with truth, power and loneliness with compassion and friendship, exploitation with integrity. It's about taking and giving, honesty and dishonesty, hating and loving, family and friends. And as these themes weave throughout the texture of the story, we see the emotions of love, anger, happiness, shame, fear, hurt and joy play out.
In his state of despair, George Bailey gets a chance to see his world without his having been born. We viewers share in seeing the sharp contrasts in the people, places and events that we had seen in George's life up to that time. The enduring message is the huge importance of a single life in the lives of all others. And how one person – each one of us – is so important in shaping the lives of others and the events of life far beyond our own small worlds. We have much to celebrate when we realize how wonderful life really is.
A 1991 documentary special has interview snippets with Frank Capra in which he reflects on this film. "Frank Capra's 'It's a Wonderful Life': Personal Remembrance" was hosted by Frank Capra Jr. He says of his father, "the theme that everyone's life touches so many other lives was one that moved my dad more deeply than any other idea." Of all his many hits and achievements, Capra most cherished this film.
In that documentary – 45 years after the film, Capra himself talks about finding more and more in the film over time. "There's more to the picture than I put in it," Capra says. "There's more to the picture than was written in it. There's more value in the picture than we knew we were playing with  and that we didn't expect. There's more to it than we thought we had."
This addendum is added to these comments in December 2016. One of my latest realizations in watching "It's a Wonderful Life" again this Christmas season, has to do with the crisis that led to George's self- destructive and desperate behavior. Uncle Billy is in the bank to make a deposit of $8,000 for the savings and loan. He has his wits and sense about him. But, when Mr. Potter enters the bank in his wheelchair, Billy goes berserk. He grabs Potter's newspaper and boasts about the Bailey brothers and the latest hero, Harry, who will be getting the Congressional Medal of Honor. He insults Potter. "After all, Potter, some people like George had to stay at home. Not every heel was in Germany and Japan."
Potter himself doesn't care that no one likes him, as he says he doesn't care for them. But, Billy is acting out his dislike, anger, even hatred that he and others have toward Potter – maybe even George. And, this dislike or hatred is so strong that it distracts him from the responsible task he had. The fact that Billy then couldn't recall how he might have lost the money shows how deeply cutting one's anger and hatred can be, and the harm it can do to oneself.
A second new insight came to me watching the film again these years later. A bank examiner is in the building and loan to check the books just before Christmas. George shows him the newspaper and says, "Mr. Carter, we're all excited around here. My brother just got the Congressional Medal of Honor. The President just decorated him." And Carter replies, "Well, I guess they do those things."
Was that a cinematic dig at commercialism, or seeming cold-heartedness of people in the business world? Anything to do with a Medal of Honor would normally evoke praise, or congratulations or some positive response. World War II had just ended. And, here was this stodgy old bank examiner indifferent toward the highest military honor of America going to a local hero. Was this to show that there was a lack of patriotism among some? Or, perhaps not everyone was elated over the end of the war? I don't know the answer, but as director Frank Capra said, we will continue to discover more and more in this great film as time goes on.