Happy holidays everyone! Welcome to the time of year where ABC has their 25 Days of Christmas where the classics are running rampant through the channels, plus everybody and their mother are quoting movies like Elf, Rudolph, and Home Alone. There are so many Christmas classics that everyone holds near and dear to their heart but where did this all really begin? What exactly even really constitutes as a Christmas classic anyway?
When the discussion of Christmas classics comes up there are obvious choices: the Nutcracker, A Christmas Story, A Christmas Carol and of course It's A Wonderful Life. It's interesting though because when you ask people what they know about the movie they can maybe give a very vague overview of the plot; yet, a good percent of the current population has never seen the movie. Quotes from the movie are seen everywhere and apparently not a lot of people can even name where the quotes come from. It's A Wonderful Life was the Christmas movie to end all Christmas movie but why? What makes it so memorable that people who haven't even seen the movie can recognize it?
In the movie the viewers follow the life of George Bailey (James Stewart) through his childhood to his adulthood seeing every part of him. We see him go through his failures and his victories, him falling in and out of love, him at his best and worst. We see him try and try again to achieve his goal of seeing the world and living his life and we see him fail and fail again as life pushes him back two steps everything he takes a step forward. We see this until finally he feels like he's had enough after another failure with losing a huge amount of cash, he finally snaps. He feels as though life is better without him. As he intends to take his life a man falls into the water and forgetting about himself jumps into the water to save the drowning man. Turns out the man was George's guardian angel, Clarence (Henry Travers), that was meant to save him. When George Bailey still remains skeptical he makes the wish that he'd never been born. The angel shows what life would be like without George Bailey. His family company would've been long gone, Bedford Falls-his hometown that he's been desperately trying to leave behind-has turned into Pottersville, his younger brother would've drowned and died young, his wife would be an old maid and never married, his old boss Mr. Gower (H.B. Warner) would've gone to jail for poisoning, and his uncle (Thomas Mitchell) would've been sent to the insane asylum. In the end George Bailey realizes that his life isn't as bad as he believed and the whole town comes together and funds George with the money he needs and he becomes "the richest man in town."
The thing about the movie is that it can be really applied to everyone. At one point in time we've all felt a sense of failure or resentment at where we're at. What George Bailey goes through isn't new to any extent in fact it's so common in the world. We've owed money we couldn't payback, we've helped people when we couldn't afford it, we've tried to go out when life told us no, everything he goes through is applicable to real life. Even his victories and triumphs aren't new to the human experience: falling in love, making friends, buying your first house, having a family-they're things that can happen to any of us. In essence, we are George Bailey and George Bailey is us. He's not just some epic hero who overcomes life threatening journeys; instead, he's just some day to day person that we would pass on the street and that's what makes the story stick. Even though there are mystical elements with the angels, it's still very much a true story; and even with the angels, there's been someone you've met along the way that's saved your life in one way or another.
The Christmas classic with the movie I think is the most interesting part because it's not necessarily a Christmas movie. Only the last ten/fifteen minutes of the film are actually set during Christmas, yet it's a Christmas classic and I think that's why it is the epitome of a Christmas classic. In It's A Wonderful Life, gone away is all the cliches of Christmas, and the commercialism, and all the campy jokes, and in the middle of it all is the meaning of
Christmas in its purest form. Christmas is about giving and family and unity-that's everything It's A Wonderful Life talks about and is about without it actually being Christmas. That's what makes it such a classic. Walking out of watching this movie there's a sense that there is actually good within the world and maybe everything isn't as bad as we believe. It's hard to walk out of there without getting emotional because there's this warmth that over takes you when everyone in town is there to lift George Bailey up and support him. He really ends up being the richest man in town and you can't help but feel like for a split second everything is actually good and it's the closest to perfect it can be.