A Sidebar Point Or Two

Rating: Null/10 (16 December 2000)

There's no need to echo the praise this film receives from seemingly everyone, but I've always been fascinated by its continuing, if not growing, appeal to modern audiences. The Bedford Falls of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE has never existed and I think we all know that: it's sheer fantasy composed of equal portions of wish-fulfillment and nostalgia, but the type of fantasy that summons the better angels within us and ennobles us by lifting us out of the mundane and towards the ideal. Bedford Falls is childhood and innocence tucked away in the safe harbor of the past. Where this movie's immense power lies is in the Pottersville scenes...let's face it, Pottersville is what contemporary America IS. (Has anyone ever noted that while Bedford Falls is obviously a studio set, the camera pans through nightmarish Pottersville look like stock footage of any postwar American city?) That contrast, that emotional dichotomy, is what strikes such a chord within us: the idealized never-was vs the harsh, unforgiving can't-wish-it-away of grim reality. By the same token, the movie's true message - Bedford Falls is within reach of us all if we love our friends and family, stay the course despite setbacks, and treat others with kindness and respect - is even more seductive and affecting now than in 1946. It's little wonder this movie tanked on first release, as its peculiar magic needs to acquire antique status to reach its full power. I'm sure the first half of the film seemed as unbearably corny to postwar audiences as it now seems impossible to resist to audiences who are unceasingly bludgeoned with entertainment built upon callousness, carnality and levels of brutality once unthinkable. (Which is why the notion of a remake is utterly laughable: even younger audiences who don't 'get' old black & white movies are intuitive enough to grasp that this kind of heartfelt sentiment properly belongs to a different America - the America contemporary Hollywood has taught them to despise.) Though everyone focuses on the well-known plot and a truly stunning performance by Jimmy Stewart, it's worth noting that this might be Capra's most superbly directed project. There's no exotica a la LOST HORIZON or showy MR SMITH filibusters on view; WONDERFUL LIFE is more introspective and mellow a film, Capra in a minor key. But every setpiece is staged and photographed expertly, and all the big payoffs resonate with honest and powerful emotion. The scene with young George Bailey and the drunken, grief-crazed druggist is as beautifully done as any in Capra's long career, and that's just the first of many high points here. Maybe the most satisfying aspect of the film is the inability of film critics to resist taking a shot at it: you keep reading over and over how IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE is a 'dark' film with a pessimistic view of middle-class aspirations, despite the fact that millions of viewers, year after year, watch it as a reaffirmation of those same values. And Frank Capra made movies for ordinary people, whom he loved, and not critics, whom he tolerated.