Limits on infinity...

Rating: Null/10 (20 January 2009)

I never saw it on the big screen. I was ill in bed when it first came out but like thousands of others picked up on it much later via television, which had transformed a half-forgotten curio into a Christmastime classic. A good man, worn down by vicissitudes, is rescued from the abyss and restored to self-worth when the community he's supported rallies round to bail him out of his troubles. Capra's orchestration of human joys and sorrows, of frailties, frustrations, dilemmas and temptations is extraordinarily, dazzlingly, powerfully good. But his tacked-on fantasy elements become irrelevant to a point of annoyance.
His 'hereafter' is a cosy extension of Bedford Falls, just dial a prayer to the Chief who can preside with perfect equanimity over World War II and so on but moves heaven and earth to reclaim one random individual from the (pertinently Catholic) sin of trying to do away with himself. This goes directly to the heart of all that's wrong with organised religion. It's partisan and self-serving. The world-without-George would have been better dramatised as a straightforward nightmare from which he awakes with relief to be saved by his friends. Same story, but without the guardian angel who belongs in a lighter-based film. This alternate world is like a scripting equivalent of trick-photography, a leaf through the family album from which all images of George have been carefully snipped while leaving the space around him intact. He still exists along with his memories and he can interact with other people but he's no longer RECOGNISED by his peers, even his loving mother doesn't accept him. In effect he's been blackballed from the club, his achievements stricken from the record. His ultimate oblivion is that of social exclusion, possibly reflecting the deep-seated fear of a good loyal assimilated immigrant like Capra, the American Dream turning to dust.
This fear induces conformity, the need to stand with the crowd and to view with prejudice the stranger, the outsider, those who don't fit the frame, young girls who become old maids, wear glasses and work in libraries. It's not enough for a man to be heroic he needs a medal to confirm it like little brother Harry who gets to meet the President. Everyone must shape up and show their credentials (even Clarence the trainee angel). Bert the cop and Ernie the cab-driver also went to war, we're hurriedly told, though when we see them at the end they don't really appear to have gone anyplace. The point is well taken - hilariously by some posters - that Pottersville seems more fun (dancing girls and sinful jazz music !)- a welcome relief for many from all that overbearing apple-pie surveillance (guardian angels and nosy neighbours). Paradise, like perfection, is relative. And personal. But the truly great Jim Stewart (not Jimmy, he hated that) triumphantly transcends the naffness and the gimmickry to give us an Everyman for the ages. He's the real classic here.