Tuesday 26 December 2023
Fading Values
Noel Yaxley has an interesting Critic piece on It’s a Wonderful Life, Frank Capra’s 1946 movie.
Is it still a wonderful life?
The values Frank Capra celebrated seem to be fading in our times
Christmas. A time for tradition. This meant burned turkey and overcooked Brussels sprouts when I was a kid. It involved racing downstairs in my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pyjamas to check if Santa had visited our house. Along with the rest of the country, the family would get together after Christmas Day dinner to watch a movie. Sometimes it was Home Alone, but usually, because it was my father’s favourite film, it was It’s a Wonderful Life.
As it passes its 75th anniversary, it seems no movie has improved more with the passage of time than It’s a Wonderful Life. Frank Capra’s 1946 classic tells the story of George Bailey, a businessman pushed to the brink of suicide on Christmas Eve, only to be given a glimpse of what the world would look like without him. Once he learns his value to his community of Bedford Falls, he breaks out of his depression and returns to his family, where he realises that love and companionship are what make life truly wonderful.
The whole piece is well worth reading, especially at this time of year. I haven't seen the film, but that isn't necessary in order to grasp the familiar enough point Yaxley is making.
We will never see a film like this again. It belongs to the bygone days of movie production, when concepts such as family and patriotism were important cultural values. A more romantic time.
For decades, critics have dismissed it as nostalgic and schmaltzy. On its theatrical release, Bosley Crowther, writing in The New York Times, claimed its sentimental tone made it weak. I disagree. The film is a dark, yet uplifting story about a hero pushed to the brink of despair, time and time again sacrificing the American dream for family responsibility. To me, that proves that good old-fashioned optimism and passionate storytelling are timeless.
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6 comments:
How can you have avoided seeing it?
It is as schmaltzy as a Church Nativity play.
I never saw it in full and uninterrupted form until I was a married adult.
Prior to that it was on in the background to normal family Christmases, pre digital pause, reverse and playback. They same applied to other classics - Casablanca, The Third Man, Citizen Kane, and others.
Seen in full, Wonderful Life just leaves me feeling good and optomistic.
Nowadays I feel as if the Potters (the cold blooded monopolist, not capitalist - Bailey is the true capitalist) are winning in The West. WEF, Reset, WHO, Nett Zero, all the to-big-to-fail-bankers. Abetted by the "Workers'" Political Parties.
Now I shall use your link to go and read Yaxley's words.I
Have as good a new year as is possible in the circumstances.
One short scene explains more about banking than most of the population absorbs in a lifetime.
As you will see when next there's a "banking crisis".
75 years ago is history... and I think it is a gross error to project modern values back on those times. The past is a different place, as they say.
People who are convinced that their values are unassailably and absolutely true should walk around a museum or view other 'classic' DVDs - if they are willing they could appreciate that values change.
I tell my (grown up) lads that in 'my days' we lived in black and white. Clearly an exaggeration but 'stuff' was less distracting back then.
Doonhamer - there are many classics I haven't watched, including Casablanca, and Citizen Kane. Not sure about The Third Man. Mrs H and I aren't film fans, although we watched a Cary Grant film over Christmas. Have an excellent New Year.
dearieme - as a guess I'll say the lesson is that people think the money they have in the bank is still theirs and not an IOU.
DJ - yes it is a gross error and one people should be aware of it if they want to understand the past. Unfortunately modern pressures usually promote misunderstanding rather than understanding.
Yup; our hero explains that "your" money, and "yours" and "yours" isn't locked in a vault in the back room, it's been used by the bank to provide the mortgage loans to him, and her, and them.
On the subject of banking people do glory in their own stupidity.
dearieme - assuming it was James Stewart, I can certainly picture him saying that.
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