A Life Less Wonderful

WHAT A STRANGE experience it was watching It's a Wonderful Life last night. It must be easily the tenth time I've seen it all the way through. Its rhythms and quirks and charms are as familiar to me as my own hand, at this point.

Yet this is the first time that I've seen it with eyes wearied by the economic meltdown of the last little while. The original audience for the film would have had not-too-distant memories of a time when runs on banks were a disturbing reality. But for years that wonderful scene of Stewart doling out his honeymoon money must have played as slightly otherworldly. Yet here we are again, with banks failing and people worried about their every last nickel.

What's even more interesting about It's a Wonderful Life, though, is the difference between its economic vision and the reality that we find ourselves in. In Life, as opposed to Life, the ramshackle Bailey Building and Loan is the instrument by which simple people who otherwise couldn't afford houses work to afford that dream. It doesn't make a lot of money, but it does help people out, and their lives are better off for it.

All that talk of home ownership, and mortgages and foreclosure kind of hit like a faceslap in light of the last year or so, but when you ponder the world of Bedford Falls, two things ring out for me. The first is the exhortation by mean old Mr. Potter that George will be run out of town on the rails when people hear about the missing money. Potter gives the solution to Bailey, but with a sneer. He tells him, mockingly, that he can go to the people for help, and see if they'll bail him out. But they won't.

In our world, of course, the word "bailout" is dirty. Because we've convinced ourselves that we're bailing out Mr. Potter, not a bunch of potential George Baileys. And that might be true, as far as it goes. Which is not very far, really.

The other thing that struck me on this viewing was that sign on the main street. "You Are Now In Bedford Falls," it says. Not, "Welcome to.." not, "Now entering," but "You are now in..." an odd construction that makes it seem like Bedford Falls, far from being a town, is almost a state of mind.

We all know how It's a Wonderful Life ends. What Potter mocked, comes true. The people do come to the aid of George Bailey, rewarding his basic decency and goodness and getting him out of trouble with the Bank Examiner. Tellingly -- and the reason why I think people misread Capra when they accuse him of being a polyanna -- though George is saved, Potter goes unpunished. The rich industrialist is not put in his place. If anything, he comes out $8000 ahead. Capra didn't want to overpromise what Bedford Falls could deliver.

But the people do help each other out.

The other thing about Life, of course, is a very un-American kind of way of looking at the world. The American myth is a positive one...yet the route that takes George Bailey to the end of that movie is anything but positive. Capra suggests that, in fact, it's our hardships and how we bear them that shape us, not our triumphs. During the course of the movie, George endures one setback after another, one hardship after another -- and it's what makes him the decent man he is. I think we screenwriters sometimes believe in that "true character is revealed only through adversity" stuff more than civilians do. But Capra dares to put it out there for all to see.

Here's the thing, though. In our world, it's the biggest banks, and the richest people who cooked up these dubious mortgages for people who couldn't afford them. There was no George Bailey, not anywhere. The lack of oversight, the deception and greed and fraud at play over the last few years would have made even old Mr. Potter blush. We live in the world where George Bailey was never born. We're in Pottersville.

I don't know if we can get back to Bedford Falls. I don't know if there ever really was such a place -- in history, in America, in the hearts of people. But on this day where reflection and peace is on the agenda, take a minute and ask yourself how much George Bailey is in you, and how much more you can let him out. And remember that the hardships and the setbacks you've faced in your own life isn't a reason to keep him in. Because that's what makes him worthy of Donna Reed, and Clarence, and Zuzu's Petals.

Have a Merry Christmas, and here's hoping we can one day look up and look to one another and say, "You Are Now in Bedford Falls."