It’s the holiday season, which means it’s time for winter movie marathons. Family audiences search for stories that will remind them of their individual worth, warm their hearts with well-written characters, and will teach them valuable life lessons. Having genius screenwriters, Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Frank Capra, and Jo Swerling, come together, the classic masterpiece, It’s a Wonderful Life was created and brought to the big screen in 1946.
This elderly winter story was inspired by the booklet The Greatest Gift, by Philip Van Doren Stern in 1943, which took its own inspiration from Charles Dickens’ 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol. Despite Christmas being in the title of the novel that started all the meaningful madness, the stories radiate much more philosophy and emotion rather than holiday cheer.
The reason this story resonates with audiences of all ages and still holds sentimental value today is because everyone at one point in their lives can relate to the main character, George Bailey, a hardworking man who after all he gives helping those around him, loses sight of his own self-worth. As everyone else is shaping up to be as festive as possible in the most wonderful time of the year, George begins to question the meaning of everything around him, and what life is really all about.
In the beginning of the story, George seems to have all of his life planned out, with so many sights he wishes to see, and tasks he hopes to accomplish. George knows “what [he’s] going to do tomorrow and the next day and the next year and the year after that.” He hopes to “build skyscrapers a hundred stories high. [To] build bridges a mile long.”
Things seem hopeful, and keep the audiences on their toes towards which way the story is going to go. The writers are strategic in breaking up the shifts in the movie with the use of the beautiful night sequence. As the sequence is given room to breathe with prayers from George’s loved ones as an act of foreshadowing the struggle that George is bound to endure, a vertical, upward tilt of the camera travels up through the sky, almost as if passing by stories upon stories, different lives that go around from all around, then the camera is brought to a focal point on a single brightest shining star. Voices are heard, and the story begins.
George is seen on a bridge in Bedford Falls, NY, getting ready to end his life by jumping into a river. An angel is sent from heaven to assist him in understanding again what great value there is to life. George is in desperate need of this assistance, as he has seemed to lose sight of the simple joys of life after becoming preoccupied with his work and personal life.
The angel shows George what a great impact on a great amount of lives he made around him, and what life would look like for these loved ones of Georges if he were to never have been born. George never got the chance to fulfill his dreams of exploring the world, and now feels burdened at the hands of having to pay back a $8,000 loan. However, the angel shows George the countless lives he saved by saving his brother since his brother went on to save countless lives in the military during World War II. George had also prevented a child from accidentally being poisoned by a pharmacist. If George were to never exist, neither would his four children, and his wife, Mary, would have ended up with another man in town that she would not love nor care for as much.
Ultimately, George decides to stay alive, after being reminded of all the good he has done for his community and the merit there is to life. The story ends with a merry get-together of all the characters who sing with joy around the Christmas tree. There is a moment at the end where a “little silver bell on the tree swings to and fro with a silvery tinkle,” and the happy voices of the people sing “Old Lang Syne” into a final crescendo for a magical fade out.
This story maintains a great balance between being relatable as well as remaining polished enough to appeal to viewers. The theme it gets across with meticulously pierced-together details creates a beautiful bigger picture when they all come together in the end. After George Bailey’s life epiphany, everyone can realize what a wonderful life they have.
