I’ve been in the mood for classic Hollywood films lately it started with The Maltese Falcon, and I’ve been crossing them off the list, one-by-one.
Naturally, I’ve seen It’s a Wonderful Life several times when I was an anklebiter. Around Christmas, it played on free TV, maybe twice or even three times in a week.
When something’s free, it doesn’t feel like it has any value, so I’ve skipped it for years and years… until last week, I had no recollection of the movie except for the vaguest of plotlines.
This movie has been deplored by several critics for being a predictable feel good movie, written to stir up some Christmas spirit and inspire the little guy to take on the big bad capitalists.
It’s a Wonderful Life is indeed a tearjerker, using an angel to show a suicidal man the fate of his home town had he never been born. Watching the film, it’s easy enough to identify with the protagonist and wonder the same: ‘What would the world be like without me?’
In my case, there’d be a lot more tiramisu left in the world. Who’s gonna stop me?
To watch it today, there’s a certain atmosphere that the movie brings with it a glimpse of a Hollywood making black and white movies, where men and women spoke in that stiled, formal English, where soda jerks served ice cream and chocolates and where everyone wore a suit or a dress.
Surprisingly, most of the movie centers around the main character, George Bailey, showing the virtuous, unselfish life he’s led for himself, and how that has created his misery. Today, cookie cutter movies in the megaplex hand us scenarios, expecting demanding, rather that we understand the characters in 17 seconds, identify with their conflict and then cry when they die predictably.
I don’t mean to say that there aren’t good movies coming out just the ones that are pushed on us tend to be fodder for the masses fantastic films are being made everyday, in countries all across the world.
When It’s a Wonderful Life came out (in 1946), most of the world was still reeling from the end of World War II and the threat of Hitler’s world dominance, and there weren’t many movies being made.
Why not make a heartwarming story about the strength of the human spirit? Why not watch it today and throw yourself back into a past life of simpler times? On some level, it’s even more accessible in these modern times, where technology and the Internet has both brought people together and isolated them more than ever.
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