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Saturday, December 27, 2008

George Bailey’s Wasted Life

Guest Commentary by Edward Cline:

I first saw Director Frank Capra‘s It‘s a Wonderful Life (1946) years ago in New York City, in one of the city’s many “revival“ theaters that featured “oldies,” or movies made before 1965. It was in the Thalia Theater, a small, run-down but comfortable, smoker-friendly Art Deco theater on the Upper West Side. Right around the corner, on Broadway, was the palatial New Yorker Theater, which also featured “oldies,” in which I also educated myself in the art of movie-making and story-telling.

I remember not liking It’s a Wonderful Life (IAWL) that first time, and my animus for it grew every time I saw it after that, chiefly because the life of George Bailey, the anti-hero, was not my life. George, played by Jimmy Stewart, had grand ambitions, but surrendered them to the needs of others. I had grand ambitions, as well, but never surrendered them. For all the American character of the film, I regarded it as distinctly anti-American.

For years I toyed with the idea of writing an answer (or a literary antidote) to IAWL, just as I would someday actually write a literary answer to Dashiell Hammett’s detective novel, The Maltese Falcon (as well as to the Humphrey Bogart film of it). But I had other literary projects to tackle, and an answer to Capra’s film remained far, far in the rear of my priorities, even though his postwar film was becoming something of a cultural “icon” and was being hailed by critics an American “classic.”

In a manner of speaking, Wendell Jamieson beat me to the idea in The New York Times, in his December 18, 2008 article, “Sorry, George, It’s a Pitiful, Dreadful Life.” In it, although he still confesses a fondness for the film, Jamieson projects an alternative destiny for Bedford Falls, George’s home town.

For those who are not familiar with the story, it is about the life of George Bailey, who wishes to become an architect or engineer and build skyscrapers and bridges and planned cities and the like. As a young man, every time he is about to go off to college or see the world beyond Bedford Falls, something happens to keep him home. After his father’s death, he feels obligated to take over the Bailey Building and Loan Association, and so winds up helping the “little people” buy their own homes (echoes of the recent “bailout“ crisis will remain unspoken here). He never leaves town. He is blind-sided by his feckless brother Harry, he marries a calculating, ambition-killing woman (presaging Lillian Rearden from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged) played by Donna Reed, has children, lives in a drafty mansion, and becomes a pillar of Bedford Falls society not because he has accomplished anything, but rather because he is so selfless. He has become a walking vehicle of Kantian maxims.

Then, on Christmas Eve and after VE Day, his chronically sodden Uncle Billy, who also works for the building and loan, misplaces an $8,000 deposit, which is handily snatched up by the “evil” town banker, Henry F. Potter, George’s financial nemesis who wants to “own“ the town. George cannot cover the loss, of course, and never learns who stole the money. But Potter, who is on the building and loan’s board of directors, initiates criminal charges against him. Facing scandal and prison, George snaps, chews out Uncle Billy, his wife, his kids, and others, and contemplates suicide. Then an angel is sent to teach George a lesson. The angel, played as a kind of half-wit, shows George what would have happened to Bedford Falls had he never been born, granting him that wish in answer to a tossed off remark by George to that effect.

Bedford Falls becomes Pottersville, a kind of upstate New York Las Vegas before Vegas was not much more than a literal desert watering hole, alive with gambling and dance halls and raucous taverns. His friends are impoverished by Potter, one of them, a cop, tries to shoot him, his mother doesn’t know him, the town flirt becomes a prostitute, and his wife a spinster working in the town library. George, of course, learns the lesson and is brought back to the present, grateful and full of Christmas cheer. He knows now that he “made a difference” in others’ lives by abandoning his ambition. He reunites with his family, and the whole town comes to his rescue by chipping in to cover the $8,000 loss. He is hailed by his war-hero brother as the “richest man in town” -- “rich” in all his friends.

What astounded me about Jamieson’s article is that he found Pottersville a far more interesting and exciting place to live than sleepy, dull Bedford Falls. “…Pottersville, with its nightclubs and gambling halls, would almost certainly be in much better financial shape today. It might well be thriving.” Thriving, that is, as a competitor of Saratoga Springs, a resort and horse-racing town not very far away from fictive Bedford Falls. “What a grim thought,” Jamieson asks in his article. “Had George Bailey never been born, the people in his town might very well be better off today.”

Jamieson also points out that, after consulting with a county district attorney, George still would have been liable for the $8,000 larceny, regardless of how he made restitution to the building and loan. “I mean, if someone robs a bank, and then gives the money back, that person still robbed the bank, right?”

Right. And Teddy Kennedy should have served time for involuntary manslaughter, and both of the Clintons should have donned prison jump suits for their many and various episodes of malfeasance.

Bosley Crowther, in his review of IAWL for The New York Times on December 23, 1946, was not so forgiving or imaginative. He liked certain aspects of the film, and credited the principal cast for its performance, but “Lionel Barrymore’s banker [Potter] is almost a caricature, and Henry Travers’ ‘heavenly messenger’ [Clarence the angel] is a little too sticky for our taste.” Crowther expresses his main objection:


Indeed, the weakness of this picture, from this reviewer’s point of view, is the sentimentality of it -- its illusory concept of life. Mr. Capra’s nice people are charming, his small town is quite beguiling and his pattern for solving problems is most optimistic and facile. But somehow they all resemble theatrical attitudes rather than average realities.

To Crowther, IAWL wasn’t “realistic” or “naturalistic” enough. Apparently, the theme and moral of the story were too pat, too syrupy, too simplistic, too predictable, and not convincingly delivered. But, then, any story in which an angel appears and determines the course of events cannot be at all realistic. One could also say that about any “happy ending” predicated on the triumph of altruism and selflessness, except in such instances as the fate of Catherine Halsey, Ellsworth Toohey‘s niece in The Fountainhead, and then it is a tragedy. And, like Jamieson, he does not question the altruist moral of the story, but accepts it as an unquestionable measure of the good. While Crowther found the film “emotionally gratifying,” it didn’t “fill the hungry paunch.” Jamieson, on the other hand, concludes his review by recounting his first viewing of the film in 1981:

“Fifteen years old and imagining myself an angry young man, I got all choked up. And I still do.”

The altruistic moral of the story is as uncontroversial to Crowther and Jamieson as having cream with one’s coffee: Others have a moral claim on one’s life; to do the “right thing” is to “give back” to others, to the community, to society, to the nation, now called volunteerism or community service. I regard IAWL as anti-American because it touts the virtue of selflessness, when being free to pursue one’s ambitions without any obligation to serve one’s fellow men was the implied moral cornerstone of this country’s founding.

Altruism is a tenacious, poisonous morality, even for those who do leave their own Bedford Falls to pursue their ambition. Look at billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, who are now devoting their lives and fortunes to “giving back” in the best George Bailey tradition. It is penance for being successful, and an unconscionable crime. Crowther was wrong in his estimate of the film. A nagging compulsion to serve the public remains the “average reality” in too many Americans today, just as it was in his time.

Its journey as a non-blockbuster in 1946 to its current status as a cultural icon could serve as a measure of the continuing loss of the country‘s sense of life and the fading of its vision as a nation of selfish, non-sacrificing, benevolent individuals. In 1990, IAWL was deemed by the Library of Congress as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant and selected for preservation in their National Film Registry.” It was nominated for five Oscars but won none, being buried by The Best Years of Our Lives, released also in 1946, and which featured no angels but touted selflessness and sacrifice in a more “realistic” manner. It won seven Oscars. The American Film Institute rated IAWL third only to The Lord of the Rings in the fantasy genre, but definitely ensconced in the top 100 American films.

Ayn Rand, who testified before the House of Representatives’ Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in 1947 about the Communist influence in Hollywood, wished to testify against The Best Years of Our Lives, but was only given a chance to speak about Song of Russia. What she would have said to the committee appears in Journals of Ayn Rand.* Song of Russia was an obvious wartime propaganda vehicle, but The Best Years of Our Lives was a film about the lives of servicemen returning from the war. Rand considered its collectivist “message” far more insidious and effective than that of Song of Russia.


Nobody has ever been endangered by being offered poison in a bottle bearing a label with a skull-and-crossbones. Poison is usually offered in a glass of the best wine -- or, modern version, in a quart of the milk of human kindness.

That criticism could just as well be applied to IAWL, except that instead of the milk of human kindness, its poison was offered in a tall glass of holiday eggnog. Interestingly, Rand wasn’t the only person to see the communist influence in Hollywood. The FBI regarded IAWL as communist propaganda. A memo to Director J. Edgar Hoover in May 1947 begins:


With regard to the picture "It's a Wonderful Life", [redacted] stated in substance that the film represented rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a "scrooge-type" so that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists.

In addition, [redacted] stated that, in his opinion, this picture deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people who had money were mean and despicable characters.

Frank Capra once said that IAWL “was the story I had been looking for all my life. A good man, ambitious. But so busy helping others, life seems to pass him by. Despondent. He wishes he had never been born. He gets his wish. Through the eyes of a guardian angel he sees the world as it would have been had he not been born. Wow! What an idea. The kind of idea that when I get old and sick and scared and ready to die -- they’ll say, ‘He made The Greatest Gift.’”

“In a 1946 interview, Capra described the film’s theme as ‘the individual’s belief in himself,’ and that he made it to ‘combat a modern trend toward atheism.’”**

It was a belief in himself as a capable servant of society that Capra is speaking of, not anything so offensive as individualism and self-confidence. The union of and alliance between left-wing collectivism and religion, a phenomenon we are witnessing today (such as in the presidential campaign, articulated by both major candidates) began longer ago than anyone could have imagined.

Jimmy Stewart in a 1977 article summed up his own estimate of the film:

“…[T]here is nothing phenomenal about the movie itself. It’s simply about an ordinary man who discovers that living each ordinary day honorably, with faith in God and selfless concern for others, can make for a truly wonderful life.”

My own “answer” to It’s a Wonderful Life would have seen George Bailey escaping Bedford Falls and leaving all his hapless, parasitical beneficiaries of his selflessness to their just fates. But, some years ago I realized that I could write such a story only if I made the fate of the residents of Bedford Falls the chief story line, not George Bailey’s life and achievements beyond that “one-horse town.” It was just not interesting enough a story in which to invest any creative energy.

There is, however, one specific episode in my rendition of the film I would have definitely included: George elopes with the town flirt and sex siren, Violet Bick (played by Gloria Grahame), spurning Mary Hatch. I leave the rest of the story to your imagination.

Happy New Year.

*Journals of Ayn Rand, New York: Dutton, 1997. Edited by David Harriman. Pp. 367-386 for a full accounting of her HUAC testimony and her article on The Best Years of Our Lives for the Motion Picture Alliance.
**It’s a Wonderful Life: A Memory Book, by Stephen Cox. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2003.

Crossposted at The Dougout

Update, by Grant:

Over at the Huffington Post there is an incoherent rant posted by has-been actress Jamie Lee Curtis that has to be read to be believed. It's titled "It is a Wonderful Life" and touts the joys of government caused poverty as being good for the super-sized masses.

What this crisis is going to do is bring us into financial alignment. Families may have to live together again! What a concept. Grandparents will live with their grown children and help raise their grandchildren -- even at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Neighbors are going to meal share and carpool and child care for each other and maybe even rent out parts of homes to other families. Less meat, more beans. Might be better for you anyway. Less indoor gym workouts and more walking, more park time, more family outdoor time.

Curtis then goes on to cite the moral superiority of the Joads in The Grapes of Wrath for being poor, humble, "little people" who abandoned their "I" for the collective "we."

The woman personifies naked evil. To only thing worse that Curtis are the mindless fools in the comments cheering for a new Great Depression. Go read her screed if you dare.

8 comments:

  1. Edward Cline,
    Grant Jones,

    You said,
    --------------------------------------------------------------
    The altruistic moral of the story is as uncontroversial to Crowther and Jamieson as having cream with one’s coffee: Others have a moral claim on one’s life; to do the “right thing” is to “give back” to others, to the community, to society, to the nation, now called volunteerism or community service. I regard IAWL as anti-American because it touts the virtue of selflessness, when being free to pursue one’s ambitions without any obligation to serve one’s fellow men was the implied moral cornerstone of this country’s founding.

    Altruism is a tenacious, poisonous morality, even for those who do leave their own Bedford Falls to pursue their ambition. Look at billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, who are now devoting their lives and fortunes to “giving back” in the best George Bailey tradition. It is penance for being successful, and an unconscionable crime. Crowther was wrong in his estimate of the film. A nagging compulsion to serve the public remains the “average reality” in too many Americans today, just as it was in his time.
    --------------------------------------------------------------
    Actually the founding of this country did not imply "being free to pursue one’s ambitions without any obligation to serve one’s fellow men" It was not "the implied moral cornerstone of this country’s founding." Thomas_Jefferson would disagree with Rand on morality. You even mention this in your jefferson_vs_plato commentary. I also left a few critical comments there that no one is responding to. Now there is good reason for thinking that altruism is incompatible with individual rights, but there is also reason to think that egoism is as well.

    You said,
    --------------------------------------------------------------
    For those who are not familiar with the story, it is about the life of George Bailey, who wishes to become an architect or engineer and build skyscrapers and bridges and planned cities and the like. As a young man, every time he is about to go off to college or see the world beyond Bedford Falls, something happens to keep him home. After his father’s death, he feels obligated to take over the Bailey Building and Loan Association, and so winds up helping the “little people” buy their own homes (echoes of the recent “bailout“ crisis will remain unspoken here). He never leaves town. He is blind-sided by his feckless brother Harry, he marries a calculating, ambition-killing woman (presaging Lillian Rearden from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged) played by Donna Reed, has children, lives in a drafty mansion, and becomes a pillar of Bedford Falls society not because he has accomplished anything, but rather because he is so selfless. He has become a walking vehicle of Kantian maxims.
    --------------------------------------------------------------

    Actually here's something about Kant's ethics that may surprise you.

    You said,
    --------------------------------------------------------------
    Bedford Falls becomes Pottersville, a kind of upstate New York Las Vegas before Vegas was not much more than a literal desert watering hole, alive with gambling and dance halls and raucous taverns. His friends are impoverished by Potter, one of them, a cop, tries to shoot him, his mother doesn’t know him, the town flirt becomes a prostitute, and his wife a spinster working in the town library. George, of course, learns the lesson and is brought back to the present, grateful and full of Christmas cheer. He knows now that he “made a difference” in others’ lives by abandoning his ambition. He reunites with his family, and the whole town comes to his rescue by chipping in to cover the $8,000 loss. He is hailed by his war-hero brother as the “richest man in town” -- “rich” in all his friends.




    --------------------------------------------------------------

    So a lot of people like helping others and other people like it when they get helped, especially when they need it. That makes perfect sense. Plus didn't George Bailey save someone's life, who didn't survive in the alternate Pottervill universe? It doesn't sound like someone who had a life like George's would be a wasted life.

    You said,
    --------------------------------------------------------------
    What astounded me about Jamieson’s article is that he found Pottersville a far more interesting and exciting place to live than sleepy, dull Bedford Falls. “…Pottersville, with its nightclubs and gambling halls, would almost certainly be in much better financial shape today. It might well be thriving.” Thriving, that is, as a competitor of Saratoga Springs, a resort and horse-racing town not very far away from fictive Bedford Falls. “What a grim thought,” Jamieson asks in his article. “Had George Bailey never been born, the people in his town might very well be better off today.”
    --------------------------------------------------------------

    And assuming it was not a work of fiction, they might be much worse off today. Aren't there nightclubs and gambling halls in some bad neighborhoods?

    You said,
    --------------------------------------------------------------
    Ayn Rand, who testified before the House of Representatives’ Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in 1947 about the Communist influence in Hollywood, wished to testify against The Best Years of Our Lives, but was only given a chance to speak about Song of Russia. What she would have said to the committee appears in Journals of Ayn Rand.* Song of Russia was an obvious wartime propaganda vehicle, but The Best Years of Our Lives was a film about the lives of servicemen returning from the war. Rand considered its collectivist “message” far more insidious and effective than that of Song of Russia.
    --------------------------------------------------------------

    From what I have heard of the Song_of_Russia I would find it very offense. In this area I do agree with you. But I can't say much about The_Best_Years_of_Our_Lives

    You said,
    --------------------------------------------------------------
    It was a belief in himself as a capable servant of society that Capra is speaking of, not anything so offensive as individualism and self-confidence. The union of and alliance between left-wing collectivism and religion, a phenomenon we are witnessing today (such as in the presidential campaign, articulated by both major candidates) began longer ago than anyone could have imagined.
    --------------------------------------------------------------

    But doesn't one often benefit by helping make society better? Don't individuals benefit from living in a better society? Wouldn't you as a an individual benefit as well? Also aren't the people who help make society better doing so in their own unique way? So how is wanting to make society better and help others, in and of itself a form of collectivism?
    Can't one still believe that he should make society better and still support individualism?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Damien-I saw your comment on the other thread...and agreed...
    As much I like Rand's take ...read her books 30+ years ago while in university--

    I must state that I am 'grateful' to the Founders of the USA to putting their lives-and fortunes on the line for its establishment...
    I am also grateful for the 'sacrifice' of the soldiers (militia) then and for the Best of the BEST now-who volunteer to protect and defend...
    Sacrifice is a virtue ...

    BTW-Jefferson had great vision...he -after all-sent the new US Navy and Marines to put a stop to hostage threats and the US payment of tribute to the Barbary pirates...
    He - also- when Superintendent of the Wasn. DC schools (while Pres)...demanded that the Bible be taught... so the young would have a moral basis for learning upon which knowledge is built---I'll get his exact quote when my books are finally on their shelves again (re-modeling)....

    I usually do not post here because I no longer think nor write in essay type form...so-- I hope this is clear...

    ReplyDelete
  3. You would think by now I would no longer be surprised at the lengths to which those who believe self-sacrifice defines morality and the only way to build a moral basis is to read their Bible will go to try to get those of us who don't to hide our heads in shame.

    CS, isn't it too bad the Founders failed to understand that by refusing to knuckle under to the British monarchy and by fighting for their vision of a free society they were actually "sacrificing" a more satisfying life spent kissing King George III's ass and leaving that legacy to their children? Those men put their lives and their fortunes on the line for their principles. Principles are selfish things, CS and Damien. Trying living with your principles as your highest values and listen to everyone from your mother to your wife to your kids whine about how you are inconveniencing them with your goddamn stubborn impractical principles. How could you possibly have liked Rand's "take" on things if you despise "selfishness"?

    Damien, explain to me how someone like George Bailey graduating and going on to become a successful and happy architect would make the world a worse place? I seem to have missed the logic of artists devoting themselves to their work and succeeding being a bad thing.

    And to the both of you, if your God were real, would he truly take satisfaction in creating you with talent and intelligence and then demand that you give them up to slog through life doing only what makes other people happy? Sadistic old S.O.B. he'd be, wouldn't he, if such were the case? But then again, since your God defines reality, the faithful would have no choice but to submit. Ah, submission... the next highest good after self-sacrifice.

    Well, now I've hurt sensitive believers' feelings again, but I'm just not in a "Yass'ir, Massa!" mood tonight so I think I'll go start ordering copies of Cline's novels. I need something besides Terry Pratchett to help maintain sanity while trying to work with people who disdain the likes of me for not being selfless enough.

    Bah. I say it's humbug and I say to hell with it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. rra-Our Founders wanted to rid the world of royalty...
    That is why Washington refused a crown ...
    That is why I find 'royal' families whether it be the Rothchilds ...the Saudi princes...or the 'Kennedys' et al..offensive...
    I guess the second paragraph from my comment above was not clear to you...

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think part of the problem is the belief that there is an inherent conflict of interests among men. And by this I mean that sacrifice is necessary to a free republic.

    If Bailey went on to become a productive architect, not only would he have been happy, but also "society" would have benefitted from his efforts. One, of many, problems with altruism is its belief in a zero-sum universe. As if there is a fixed amount of happiness in the world and that a George Bailey's misery is required to make others happy. As if it were possible to make someone else happy.

    Regarding the motives of the Founding Fathers, I am reading the memoirs of Joseph Plumb Martin who served in the Continental Army for eights years. During this time Martin endured enormous hardships. However, he didn't appear to view his service as a sacrifice. First it was an question of honor to fulfill his enlistment and not leave his comrades in the lurch. Also, he recognized that the Revolutionary cause involved his own interests. In explaining why the Connecticut regiments mutinied in the winter of 1780 he wrote:

    "We were unwilling to desert the cause of our country, when in distress; that we knew her cause involved our own; but what signified our perishing in the act of saving her, when that very act would inevitably destroy us, and she must finally perish with us."

    Martin is referring to the deplorable conditions of the winter encampment, which including starvation rations, or no rations at all.

    George Bailey was not his brothers', or uncles', keeper. His moral right to choose his own route to happiness is what Joseph Plumb Martin was fighting for.

    The sad aspect of this movie is that it provides excuse for those who are too weak to pursue their dreams, or too thick to have any in the first place.

    ReplyDelete
  6. revereridesagain,

    If George Baily or anyone else values the well being of other people what is wrong with that? Its not the same thing as blinding serving a government that doesn't respect your rights.

    I remember that in the movie George was happy through out most of his life and as the story went on, only in his later years he wanted to off himself. I never interpreted the story as saying people ought to give up everything to serve other people.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Grant Jones,

    I personally find the interpretation that you, Edward Cline, and Revereridesagain, have of this story to be rather odd. I never saw "Its a Wonderful Life" as a call for selflessness and sacrificing everything to a collective. I've seen the movie at least once or twice and there probably aren't many non objectivists who would share your view of the film's message. I've always interpreted the film message as saying, "That you shouldn't give up on life and when you think you have it bad, and your life has no meaning, you may not realize how good you have it, or how much good you have done." Far from putting down the individual, I think this story points out what a difference one individual can make.

    ReplyDelete
  8. revereridesagain,

    You said,
    ------------------------------------------------
    Damien, explain to me how someone like George Bailey graduating and going on to become a successful and happy architect would make the world a worse place? I seem to have missed the logic of artists devoting themselves to their work and succeeding being a bad thing.
    ------------------------------------------------

    I never said that it would make the world a worse place, if he had been more successful. But in the story, he did things, that when it was shown what the world would be like if he had not been around to do them, it turned out to be worse off. Like I said earlier about my own interpretation of the "Its a Wonderful Life", sometimes we don't realize how much good we have done.

    ReplyDelete