…an angel gets his wings.
Around this time of year, we get the smattering of holiday movies that are as much a part of Christmastime as any holiday ritual. My favorite is “A Christmas Story”, but I ain’t talkin’ about that one today. Today I came across two reviews of “It’s a Wonderful Life” which I felt were rather insightful. The whole premise to the film, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, if you haven’t seen it before, is the banker protagonist, George Bailey, has had a run of bad fortune and is contemplating suicide. He gets a brief chance to see what life would be like if he had never been born. Blah blah blah, he realizes he actually did have a wonderful life and doesn’t off himself. Oh don’t act like I spoiled it for you. As if a black-and-white Christmas film would end with a man’s suicide. Pfft.
Wendell Jamieson from the New York Times gives a fantastic discussion of the film and brings up the major point that Pottersville is fabulous. Pottersville is the town shown in the alternative “what life would be like without George Bailey” scene that would have spawned instead of Bedford Falls (the town that George Bailey lives in currently.) Pottersville is like a mini-Las Vegas. Back then, the movie is trying to state it’s the worst possible outcome – hedonism (which is sinful and dangerous) everywhere. What a tiresome Puritanical way to look at something. You’ve either got small-town boredom or extreme Sin City.
However, knowing our current economy, and what is and isn’t working in the mid-to-upstate New York area (which Jamieson touches on), what would you rather have NOW? A manufacturing or a resort town? Those of you who answered “manufacturing” can move to Detroit.
Gary Kamiya of Salon.com elaborated on this topic several years ago in his “All hail Pottersville!” article.
“The gauzy Currier-and-Ives veil Capra drapes over Bedford Falls has prevented viewers from grasping what a tiresome and, frankly, toxic environment it is. When Marx penned his immortal words about “the idiocy of rural life,” he probably had Bedford Falls in mind. B.F. is the kind of claustrophobic, undersized burg where everybody knows where you’re going and what you’re doing at all times. If you’re a Norman Rockwell collector, this might not bother you, but it should — and it certainly bothered George Bailey. It is all too easily forgotten that George himself wanted nothing more than to shake the dust of that two-bit town off his feet — and he would have, too, if he hadn’t gotten waylaid by a massive load of family-business guilt and a happy ending engineered by God himself.”
Oh yes, George Bailey wanted to leave Bedford Falls. He wanted to go to college. His brother got sent instead, and ended up meeting a rich girl, marrying her and working for her father, thereby keeping himself from being tied to the Bailey family business. His brother got the wonderful life. Watch the film and see how many times George gets angry and frustrated because of his surroundings and the yokels around him. (His poor wife, Mary, I exclude from this because, frankly, she was a glutton for punishment.)
No, George, it wasn’t a wonderful life you had. You had a really mediocre, tired life and you bore it as best you could. You accepted the cards you were dealt and didn’t ask for anything in return because you were trying so hard to take care of your responsibilities to everyone else. There were times you couldn’t handle the pressure because a person shouldn’t have to live in a town where the only entertainment is a movie theater that only shows “The Bells of St. Mary’s”.
It’s a hard, boring, shitty life sometimes.
We’ll be waiting for you here in Pottersville. I’ll save you a seat at the bar. Cheers.
