It's a Wonderful Life (some spoilers)

[dreamdead]

So after (finally) viewing Capra's classic, I'm largely struck by the success he has in eliciting true empathy in the goodness of man (represented in George Bailey), and by how much than goodness is trodden upon by other machiavellian forces (Mr. Potter, the epitome of rampant capitalism). As others like Melville have noted, the continual beat-down that George's dreams take affirms a darker vision of the world than is typically granted to this film.

However, I must rescind my praise before it becomes euphoric because I'm stuck by a (perceived) glitch in the film's ideology--namely, how are we to ascertain that the community coming together to reward George at film's end will do anything to assuage the (existential) misery that he's otherwise in? Sure, the family company is saved from ruin, but at the end of the day his life is still sacrificed without any real recompense for his essential goodness. He and his wife are still barred from traveling and getting beyond the small town that he's yearned to be freed from for so many years. Or do others here read the ending to suggest some fuller note of transformation beyond George Bailey? That is, is the whole community going to enable George and his family to find financial in addition to their spiritual contentment?

[Raiders]

Or do others here read the ending to suggest some fuller note of transformation beyond George Bailey? That is, is the whole community going to enable George and his family to find financial in addition to their spiritual contentment?

In a word, yes. Didn't Clarence teach you anything? George thinks he needs to escape Bedford Falls, or rather "disappear," but as Clarence shows him, he can accomplish great things and mean a lot to people and change their lives right within the confines of his "crummy ol' town." The money at the end is a signifier that the greed of Potter won't strip him of his dignity and his chance to help out the citizens of this town, but the real joy is in the collection of people at the end there to celebrate his "return." The people in his life are his wealth. He doesn't need a million dollars.

[Duncan]

Still, it'd be nice to get to New York for a weekend.

[dreamdead]

In a word, yes. Didn't Clarence teach you anything?

Yes, he did. But I'm wondering if that education from Clarence is ideologically satisfying. I largely feel as though you're right with the basic principle that George's "people in his life are his wealth." Capra certainly leans on this front.

However, I'm wondering something different and slightly recursive, which is part of what Duncan (perhaps glibly) identifies. Bailey and his family should get a chance to escape Bedford Falls occasionally; some sort of assistance should be sent his way. Otherwise, doesn't such an ending of George remaining in a town largely owned by Mr. Potter perpetuate an idea that the good must self-sacrifice for their lesser counterparts, and that they'll receive no material reward for their sacrifices. Pragmatically, that is Capra's message, and it seems slightly counter-intuitive. On some level, the good (however altruistic they are) must gain financial power and stability to fend off the Potters of the world. Capra never explicitly makes this point with his ending, when a throwaway line like Potter's financial manager could be shown switching sides and thus enable this line of reason to take hold.

Basically, after being educated in the university in a Neitzschean manner, Capra's ideology doesn't quite mesh with me philosophically. Maybe Mr. Smith Goes to Washington would clarify the matter for me?

[Duncan]

Was Capra at all Marxist? Because that's one way to approach the film.


On some level, the good (however altruistic they are) must gain financial power and stability to fend off the Potters of the world. Capra never explicitly makes this point with his ending, when a throwaway line like Potter's financial manager could be shown switching sides and thus enable this line of reason to take hold.

I think one idea at the end is that George doesn't really need the financial power. Stability, yeah, but on some level we all need that. If a community shares its wealth and grants those in need the means to get by, it can detach itself from the control of Potters. Proletariat support, and a flattening of the social classes as epitomized by the community in Bailey Field. The material reward, then, isn't as important and shouldn't be thought of something that would relieve any existential malaise. Except, with angels and stuff...

Reconciling the film with a Nietzschean perspective is tough. Maybe someone could make an argument, but I think it would be very stretched.

[origami_mustache]

William S. Pechter argued "It's a Wonderful Life should logically have ended with the hero's suicide; the intervention of a guardian angel was a mask for Capra's deep pessimism about his fellow Americans, and revealed his intellectual bankruptcy." I however think this statement is better suited for Capra's Meet John Doe.

Also check out this article:
http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol2no1/Capra1.html

[Melville]

William S. Pechter argued "It's a Wonderful Life should logically have ended with the hero's suicide; the intervention of a guardian angel was a mask for Capra's deep pessimism about his fellow Americans, and revealed his intellectual bankruptcy." I however think this statement is better suited for Capra's Meet John Doe.
That quote is pretty much the most incorrect statement ever. I haven't seen Meet John Doe, but I will admit that the criticism is slightly applicable to Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, where the reversal at the end doesn't seem to stem from any underlying philosophical perspective.


However, I must rescind my praise before it becomes euphoric because I'm stuck by a (perceived) glitch in the film's ideology--namely, how are we to ascertain that the community coming together to reward George at film's end will do anything to assuage the (existential) misery that he's otherwise in? Sure, the family company is saved from ruin, but at the end of the day his life is still sacrificed without any real recompense for his essential goodness. He and his wife are still barred from traveling and getting beyond the small town that he's yearned to be freed from for so many years. Or do others here read the ending to suggest some fuller note of transformation beyond George Bailey? That is, is the whole community going to enable George and his family to find financial in addition to their spiritual contentment?
I don't think anything in the film implies that the community is going to suddenly make George rich (and he was already financially content). And thank God, since such an implication would ruin the whole impact of the film. The point is that George has learned to love life as it is—in other words, to love his ineluctable entanglements with other people. His dream to go to other places and to build monumental things is an idealized expression of an existential (or Nietzschean, if you prefer) desire to make the world his own, to escape his involvement in a community of Others. Conversely, his perpetual self-sacrifice for others is an admission of the responsibilities inherent in that involvement with Others. The way in which he follows the latter path while desiring the former is the reason why I have always considered him an existential hero: he does not merely do what is expected of him because it is the way things are done (i.e. he is not living in habit according to his sense of how people live, as a Heideggerian "they-Self"); he lives with one foot outside the social norm of "the they", and from that position he commits himself to aiding the individuals who form his community (and not to some normative ideals abstracted from that community).

George's vision of a world in which he was never born fully reveals to him the validity of his self-sacrifice: outside his intersubjective existence, there is nothing. When he returns to the real world, he returns "authentically", aware of the structure and limits of the intersubjective world and committed to his engagement in that world. (The same can also be said of the facticity of his existence: his particular intersubjective role is, in part, factically determined. By seeking to flee his birthplace, he seeks to annul this facticity. In remarking at the glory of Zuzu's petals and his bleeding lip, George embraces these factical ties to the world.) Since existential anguish is inherent in this authentic mode of being, in which George will perpetually be aware of the "nothingness" underlying his existence, it would be philosophically false for Capra to satisfy George's earlier dreams.


However, I'm wondering something different and slightly recursive, which is part of what Duncan (perhaps glibly) identifies. Bailey and his family should get a chance to escape Bedford Falls occasionally; some sort of assistance should be sent his way. Otherwise, doesn't such an ending of George remaining in a town largely owned by Mr. Potter perpetuate an idea that the good must self-sacrifice for their lesser counterparts, and that they'll receive no material reward for their sacrifices. Pragmatically, that is Capra's message, and it seems slightly counter-intuitive. On some level, the good (however altruistic they are) must gain financial power and stability to fend off the Potters of the world.
I'm not sure where you're coming from here. George (and by extension, much of the community) already has fended off the Potters of the world, as much as they can be fended off. Bedford Falls persists, rather than transforming into Pottersville. George's involvement with the community (and its reciprocal involvement with him) has maintained its stability. As Duncan noted, the economic power required for this comes from the community as a whole: remember, "Your money's not here. It's in Bill's house and John's house"... or however that line goes.

[dreamdead]

:pritch:

Thanks for the thorough response, Melville. Your reasoning was what was needed to assuage my doubts that resisted bits of the film. I hadn't considered George Bailey's angle as you do--that his initial attempts to flee Bedford Falls in effect allow him to resist "his involvement in a community of Others." Though I'm still a bit cautious toward these types of self-sacrifice in cinema (oddly, Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game evokes this same sense of self-sacrifice in the end, and it's my favorite novel), the idea of George understanding his authentic self is key to enabling me a greater appreciation of the film. If Capra means to suggest that we all must contribute to the community of Others, as I think you're suggesting, then that assuages my basic hesitance in the contributors receiving little reward save for their own assurance of their goodwill. The contributors are recognized, they are appreciated, and they are vindicated. There is reciprocity and from that reciprocity comes stability.

I guess I was expecting less of a communal climax and more of an individualistic climax, which runs counter to Capra's thinking here.

[Melville]

I guess I was expecting less of a communal climax and more of an individualistic climax, which runs counter to Capra's thinking here.
Well, I'd say that George's authentic embrace of his community is intensely (even absolutely) personal. But, yeah, the resultant ethics that Capra presents is definitely communal rather than egoistic/individualistic.