The best filmed performance ever...

Rating: Null/10 (4 January 2002)

Interested in learning everything you need to know about film acting in just over 2 hours? Then observe the glorious Jimmy Stewart in "It's A Wonderful Life." It's all there. Just keep watching his eyes. Ask any actor and he/she will tell you that the secret to good acting isn't what you do when you're reciting lines - it's what you do when you're NOT saying anything. Stewart was the MASTER. Proof? Take a look at the scene towards the end when George turns away from talking to his mother (who in Clarence's world does not recognize him) on the porch of Ma Bailey's Boarding House... oh my GOD, the way he looks into and THROUGH the camera, the film, the walls of the studio, across time and straight into your soul! How did he do it? And to think he never won an Oscar - shows what a sham that whole concept is.
So I watched it again for the billionth time this past holiday (NBC actually seems PROUD of the fact that they have a lock on the TV rights and yet feel no pressure to perhaps NOT cram as many commercials as possible into a masterpiece) and a funny thought occurred to me: wouldn't it have made more sense for Clarence to simply tell George WHAT HAPPENED TO THE $8,000 ?!? :-)