George Bailey is the person I strive every day to become. Conceptually, I know that he is nothing more than a fictional character. But I don’t pay attention to reason when I think of It’s a Wonderful Life. I pay attention to where my soul is driven, and Frank Capra’s 1946 classic takes me to a spiritual reserve of solace to which I can return, time and time again, to remind myself of what I can be, what I can imagine to be, and what I can attempt to be.
It’s a Wonderful Life is the first movie that I can remember watching in entirety. I recall sitting down to view this picture at a very young age, maybe four or five, never having heard of it. If memory serves me well, I didn’t feel like I understood it all. Having a very sensory focus as a kid, it only felt like a bunch of adults talking. I thought I was missing something. This was, indeed, a life. Someone else’s.
I haven’t grown up with the film. It of course became a Christmas tradition to my family, to screen the movie late into the night before we would eventually open gifts. But throughout my life, it has often left my field of vision. I can’t help it. I contemplate movies more than people may think I do (not sure I wouldn’t call it spacing out during class), but in this sea of thought alone, there is quite an expansive realm. I think about old movies, new movies, small and big movies. Coupled with responsibilities issued by school, sports, clubs, and family, I lose sight of It’s a Wonderful Life and what it means to me from day to day.
And how remarkably does this movie capture that aspect of the human. It's a Wonderful Life does not tell George Bailey’s entire story. We skip around in chronological order, meeting him at older ages as the movie progresses. We can tell when time has passed, part of the magic the film possesses; other than the exception of his child self, Bailey is played entirely by Jimmy Stewart, who was merely living one of his years throughout filming. The same is with us as we take the time to pause and reflect on what we’ve really valued in our lives. Just as we clamber for anything worthy of our thought, we may take in fond memories of the younger George Bailey, here or there. But never will we truly appreciate them until the turning point in his manhood, when he decides if he will take those memories and make something out of them, if he will lose track of them in his hysteria or use them to pull his wonderful life together. Memories make a story, but only time can bind them.
And so, I continue to familiarize myself with George Bailey on two levels. The first is through the natural sequence of the movie. Of course, that makes sense. The more time you spend in a film with a character, the more you will get to know that person. The second, the level of greater complexity, is through my own life and the points at which Bailey and I cross paths. Every time I witness George Bailey’s “life,” I do not visually experience anything different. But I do realize more things about him. A fixed amount of time with someone does not dictate the emotional depth you can reach. Whether it is by personal doing or Bailey’s, It’s a Wonderful Life holds a new blessing every time a new moviegoer is given the gift of its telling.
“Wonderful Life” is central to George Bailey. He is surrounded by the complete, beautiful people that inhabit the town of Bedford Falls. His animated and heartfelt wife Mary (Donna Reed) breaks his boundaries of hesitation and brings love into his life. Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) is family to everyone, inside and outside the workplace of the local bank. Even the villainous loan shark Potter plays a necessary role in accentuating the upstanding working class citizens loyal to our protagonist. But Bailey is the thread to which we can relate, the channel through which we can access all these experiences, and the passage in the memoir about which we can reminisce. Stewart is an acting icon who appeared in other cinematic greats, but in my heart, he will always be George Bailey, the man whose life would be just that of any other had he not intertwined them so deeply in the stories of the people both in his world and in ours.
The last time I saw this film (it couldn’t have been less than the tenth for me), it was the scene with Bailey being approached by his childhood admirer Violet (Gloria Grahame) in the middle of the lazy urban street that touched me, when he’s caught wandering back and forth, not sure what to do with himself in his young manhood. Violet just wants another guy to play around with. She spots George, remembering him from when they were kids, and goes over to try and pick him up. George couldn’t be less interested in her. But the idea of being with someone, the idea of having a partner to help him unleash all the wild desires kept in his mind, to take off his shoes and run along the beach in his bare feet, lights a fire behind his eyes, and he spatters aloud all the images that make him feel alive, unaware that anyone’s even listening.
People watch on the sidewalks, gawking at the spontaneous couple as Bailey manically jumbles his words. Violet’s head swivels around apprehensively. George isn’t worth the scene. With her chin held up in disdain, she inches away from him, joining the crowd in laughter as George, left to be humiliated in a circle of onlookers, stuffs his hands into his pockets and marches offscreen.
It isn’t that he’s misunderstood. It’s that no one will even attempt to listen to him.
Why is he treated so small in this scene? We love him too dearly to see him pushed around. He gave a lonely Mary that dance at the high school ball. He’ll loan needy townspeople money using his own wedding gifts. He’s stared Potter straight in the face and called him out for his greedy likes.
A wonderful life is not without its twists. That adventurous spirit will bring him adversaries, but they’re nothing compared to the friends he’ll also earn. That one statement is of the most effective I’ve ever seen a movie make.
I said earlier that, among many, It’s a Wonderful Life is seen as a holiday movie. Why is that? Capra didn’t intend it to be. And just because the final twenty minutes or so takes place around Christmas Time, it shouldn’t automatically be a holiday film.
If “Wonderful Life” does anything to associate itself with the holiday spirit, it’s that it makes us care about someone. And maybe that someone is just a character. But maybe that character is the one who helps us pass on the caring sentiment he shows us.
