Good question. A black and white flick. Ten minutes in and I am fighting back tears as George is trying to tell his dad he’d rather see the world than take over the savings and loan. Then cheering as George tells Potter who actually works and sweats and lives and dies in this town…saving the S&L but dashing his college plans.
The first big cry is when Mary tells George he is facing the opportunity of a lifetime, with Sam Wainwright on the phone and her mother mortified on the extension. The next scene they are getting married and celebrating a round-the-world trip only to discover there is a line at the S&L, with its doors locked.
George Bailey is a good man, not without his flaws and blinders, but a decent and loving business man. He is the classic pillar of the community, protecting regular folks from having no option but to crawl to Potter, the business man without a heart. You can see on George’s face that he really cares and thinks. This makes the repeated trashing of his own dream of seeing the world and building things all the harder to stomach.
George stays calm when the rest of us are gripped by the fear Potter amplifies. “We can get through this thing alright. We’ve got to stick together.” Then we list our needs, doctor’s bills etc and Mary Bailey pulls out their personal $2000 savings to share. “Could I have $17.50?” This is the next big cry. She listened to George and trusted him when he said, just tell me what you need (rather than your balance to withdraw it all).
Over the years I have often tried to figure out why I cry so often and sometimes so hard during IAWL. I think the main reason is that this movie paints a moving picture of how I think like should be and seeing it overwhelms me with my own inadequacy. Of course, even in the film, life as it should be is beaten against the rocks of Potters. But since I know the ending, even the earlier scenes (like keeping the S&L open until 6pm with $2) cannot but scream to me: this is the way life could (and should) be.
Suddenly, George recognizes that his wife is calling to ask him to come to a home he did not know he had, with Bert the cop and Ernie the cabbie singing in harmony outside their bedroom window. The entire town rallies behind George, just as it should be. The good man is seen and recognized and supported and not alone.
Sure the film focuses on a good man, and it should be clear that life as it should be would recognize good woman, black and white, as well. And it is easy for me to say, that is how I always interpreted it anyway. I did and I understand that my own experience and vision is limited and partial and blind. But for me, I saw the good person doing the right thing, over and over, publicly and privately, and being seen by his family and friends and community as just that: worthy, if only for a brief moment.
Then, on top of that story line, we see George get tired of giving and sacrificing without reward. He gets angry and desperate and we then see him seeing his life if he had never been born. This allows us to feel the sadness of ‘life should be this way but it is not’ and then balance that disappointment with a dose of all we are missing when we only see the day-to-day.
“Even though they know Bailey’s never made a dime out of it.” But, as the story goes, his is the richest man in town.
George is in Potter’s office, in the chair two stories lower than Potter’s throne, as Potter offers him a job as a man at 27 making $45 a week, able to save $10/week… “who hates the building and loan almost as much as I do.” Starting at $20,000 a year, “providing he has enough brains to climb aboard.”
George asks for a day to ask his wife but then stops as he is shaking Potter’s hand and changes his mind. “You think the whole world revolves around you and your money!” George goes home exhausted, then the S&L books do not balance (because his Uncle Billy lost a deposit) and even the decent life he had built appears to be on the verge of falling apart.
But George overcomes all obstacles. Mostly just by being a good, level-headed, person who cares about his community. And we learn over time that his community has noticed; they care about him too. That does not seem to be asking too much—for community to matter, but seeing it on the big screen just reminds me how far short we fall. So, I cry tears of both sadness and joy at the same time every time I watch ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’
No comments:
Post a Comment