![]() He runs home, where friends and relatives have gathered to save him. Just like that, he's returned to life, resurrected. In this new world, George Bailey's wife is a spinster. To make this point, the angel famously shows George what the world would be like had he never been born, leading him back into town, which had been Bedford Falls but is now named after the treacherous banker who controls it: Pottersville.īedford Falls was quaint and fine Pottersville is vulgar and mean. Though he wants to jump, he dives into the river to save another suicide, instead - the angel, it turns out, who has come to show George that his life has been wonderful after all, because human commerce is a web and as part of that web George has affected and saved thousands of people. Finally, it's about George Bailey, whose decency prevents him even from killing himself. It's about the many ways a good man is stymied. But another, deeper message is there, too - it's Capra wailing at that secret register picked up by bats and dogs, saying, "Help, help, America is in trouble!" It's the explicit message of the final scene: A man with friends is never poor. The story of the George Bailey who is honored and saved remains. In other words, I did not miss the point. Did the Chicago Bears lose? Well, then let's find the channel on which the Chicago Bears win. On that channel, Barack Obama stumbles but is resurrected in the way of George Bailey. ![]() On this channel, Barack Obama fails and is condemned. It's the same with the narrative experienced by everyone every day. ![]() That's all modern literature is: the identical image cropped. Where you start and where you finish is the whole story. It's just Jesus on the cross saying, "Oh, Father, why hast Thou forsaken me," followed by a star wipe and end credits. Following the trials of George Bailey without seeing his rescue is like hearing the story of the Passion without knowing of the Resurrection. Oh no, you might say, you've missed the entire point. That's the movie: The good man driven insane. If you were to cut "It's a Wonderful Life" by 20 minutes, its true subject would be revealed: In this shortened version, George Bailey, played by a Jimmy Stewart forever on the edge of hysteria, after being betrayed by nearly everyone in his life, after being broken on the wheel of capitalism, flees to the outskirts of town, Bedford Falls, N.Y., where he leaps off a bridge with thoughts of suicide. The result was that special melancholy, blue shot through with black, that runs through his films, the best of which are parables that operate on various levels, some of which were probably unknown to Capra himself. He knew, too, that the United States was not immune and this knowledge spiked his love with the worst kind of fear. Capra lived through the Depression, then through the rise of terrible ideologies. It's one of a handful of masterpieces directed by Frank Capra, an Italian immigrant who loved America because America saved him. "It's a Wonderful Life," that reassuring holiday spectacle, is really the most terrifying Hollywood film ever made.
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