"It's a Wonderful Life" endures nearly 80 years after its release, not solely due to its sentimental aspects but for its portrayal of life's realism. The film resonates because of its portrayal of George, who isn't depicted as a god, saint, or superhero, but as an imperfect man with a core set of values. The movie showcases human nature's complexity; individuals can be moody, say regrettable things, feel jealousy, or harbor resentment. Yet, George's strength lies in his genuine connections forged through years of generosity and sacrifice. It's a testament to the idea that the value of a person's life is measured not in monetary success but in the lives they touch and the bonds they create. One detail, often missed by most viewers, is a quote beneath George's father's portrait: "All you can take with you is that which you've given away." In essence, "It's a Wonderful Life" is a timeless reminder of the strength in human connections and the profound impact of selfless acts of kindness.
@pammckanna4778
3 жыл бұрын
One of the best, if not THE best movie ever made. Thanks for the review. Rarely does a movie inspire gratitude these days.
@LearningaboutMovies
3 жыл бұрын
it's really good to watch, enjoy, and analyze. thank you!
@curthott1317
3 жыл бұрын
You did a great analysis. This is my favorite holiday movie because I can so relate to George in his dark moments. When he’s on the bridge asking God for help it comes in a way he doesn’t expect. That’s my experience too. Ask sincerely,and you will receive... Happy Holidays everyone ☃️
@LearningaboutMovies
3 жыл бұрын
thank you. Merry Xmas.
@richardranke3158
Жыл бұрын
When he is first on the bridge after being driven out, George pleas to Clarence to take him back to his own life. I notice that it wasn't till he said,"God, I want to live again!"that things went back to normal. Nothing happened when he was calling Clarence, but it all happened when he called God. This shows in it's own way who is the best to pray to when you really need help.
@gohithsrivatsa4746
3 жыл бұрын
Vertigo was my favorite movie of James Stewart. But after watching this movie this became my favorite movie of Stewart. I watched both Black and White and Colorized version.
@LearningaboutMovies
3 жыл бұрын
excellent.
@KentHewittpiano88
10 ай бұрын
Wonderful analysis....you covered all the essential points and then some. Your astute perceptions have increased my appreciation of this extraordinary film. You helped us to understand the dark side and bright side of this character and how, in the end, what is most essential in having a meaningful and good life. Wishing you much success. Subscribed.!
@lobarry22
10 ай бұрын
Thanks for your thoughts. The light bulb moment was how you pointed out the two choices between the women, banks, life, or death.
@liamtaggart57
Жыл бұрын
We are in dire need of George Bailey’s in the 2020’s. It’s just a great movie with a great message. I don’t think it needs ripped apart. I love it 🇮🇪🇺🇸
@LearningaboutMovies
Жыл бұрын
Thank you.
@liamtaggart57
Жыл бұрын
You’re welcome buddy . Merry Christmas 🥳🥳🥳🥳
@billolsen4360
Жыл бұрын
There's still George Baileys out there, just few & far between, like two former business partners I had.
@richardmelville5973
Жыл бұрын
Frank Capra was simply a genius. (From a fellow CalTech grad.)
@billolsen4360
Жыл бұрын
How we miss Cal Tech since we moved away from Pasadena. Took our evening walks though the campus almost every night.
@nudge2626
3 жыл бұрын
Love Frank Capra. All of his movies have these great messages. My favorite film of his is Lost Horizon.
@LearningaboutMovies
3 жыл бұрын
an unknown movie of great interest, since it's one of the rare film depictions of a utopia ala "Candide."
@nudge2626
3 жыл бұрын
@@LearningaboutMovies yep certainly is. I think it was a huge movie when released by overlooked by modern audiences. I love the line near the end about everyone needing to find their own shangri-la
@walterjszafran
3 жыл бұрын
Great analysis, Thanks for the wings!
@LearningaboutMovies
3 жыл бұрын
thank you!
@Nanu67-e9j
2 жыл бұрын
One of those perfect movies.. love it.. the most perfect Christmas movie ever made..
@teacherrichard2081
Жыл бұрын
A perfect review of a perfect film that has me in tears of joy every time.
@billolsen4360
Жыл бұрын
In the small town where I grew up, there were only two banks in the 1960's and both were locally owned, The Farmers Bank and the Prime National. Most people in town and on the surrounding farms loved the Smith Family that ran the Farmers Bank...I didn't know just why since I was just a little kid. What I learned as a teenager was that during the Depression, the Smiths refused to foreclose on delinquent mortgages before they and their debtors had gone down any and every avenue to save the homes, businesses and farms...whereas the other family, the Jones's, jumped on any opportunity to do so. Both families were quite prosperous by the time I came along. What was really funny is that the elder Smith couple had built a beautiful & modest Georgian mansion in town, while down a few streets, the Jones's had one of the ugliest, most sinister mansions I've ever seen, just the place were a villain the caliber of a Vincent Price character would reside. (edit note: not their real names!)
@FallGuysMoose
25 күн бұрын
Great comment, thanks for sharing
@bartbutkis
Жыл бұрын
Hey, thanks Doc! That was an eye-opener. I never looked at the movie this way. I'll enjoy watching IAWL the next time I see it. Merry Christmas!
@adamt1564
3 жыл бұрын
Interesting analysis! However, I don't believe that mainstream Christianity is diminished by the film in any significant way. The original ending, as I recall, included group prayer--and I'm glad that the director chose differently. It seems likely that the director wanted to suggest spiritual/religious themes that resonated broadly across the culture.
@LearningaboutMovies
3 жыл бұрын
thank you. you could see it that way. at this time, interreligious ecumenism is highly valued. See Will Herberg's "Protestant, Catholic, Jew." I see this movie as showcasing that while at best not displaying the particular orthodox tenets of Christianity, which it could, as the pro-Catholic movies of this period did.
@adamt1564
3 жыл бұрын
@@LearningaboutMovies Thank you for the Herberg reference; looks like an interesting and relevant read. Unrelated--the film's nod to "The Bells of St. Mary's" near the end is potentially revealing. Also--membership in one of the mainstream branches, the Episcopal church--didn't peak until the mid 1960s. So if the film is signaling decline, perhaps that signal is premature.
@melissacooper4282
3 жыл бұрын
I recall people were praying for George at the beginning of this movie. The only character I believe was a Catholic was Mr. Martini. Because he did say, "Joseph, Jesus, and Mary."
@adamt1564
3 жыл бұрын
@@melissacooper4282 Good point--there is more than one episode in the film where someone prays or prayer is referenced.
@Famijoly
3 жыл бұрын
There is the clip where Joseph is telling Clarence that, like everyone else, George prayed on various major occasions. During the voice-over, very brief (1-2 seconds) shots of the inside of a Catholic church, a Protestant church, and a synagogue are shown.
@akielsteewart8577
3 жыл бұрын
this channel bout to blow up i can feel it
@LearningaboutMovies
3 жыл бұрын
thank you for the encouragement.
@yoadrian8496
3 жыл бұрын
Thanks for you videos!
@LearningaboutMovies
3 жыл бұрын
you're welcome. very much appreciated.
@marylarkin3951
Жыл бұрын
Good analysis thank you, watched it for the first time today and what a treasure it is. There is a lot of humour in there too I would add. The humour offsets the darker themes.
@LearningaboutMovies
Жыл бұрын
thank you.
@nicholassolomon1234
3 жыл бұрын
Question for you! I am working on a term paper for my film noir class, and I chose to write about Sunset Boulevard. I am making the argument that it and Lynch's Mulholland Dr. have deep thematic connections, and was wondering your thoughts on this subject.
@LearningaboutMovies
3 жыл бұрын
they have to be. somehow it's Old Hollywood vs. New Hollywood, or some kind of establishment vs. a possible new guard. legit question: where are these streets at in Hollywood? do they intersect? it's worth checking on their geographic proximity. I am assuming they are both real streets.
@JHarder1000
3 жыл бұрын
@@LearningaboutMovies Yes. They are in fact, real streets. Mullholland Drive is named for the man who created the water system for Los Angeles. The character Of Hollis Mulray in Chinatown is (very loosely) based on him.
@drdavid1963
9 ай бұрын
I agree with your analysis especially the post-WW2 angle as film noir emerged during and continued after the war as a kind of artistic expression of the darker side of humanity. Your points about theology and economics are interesting but I don't personally think they have any bearing on the movie's ' impact. The key thing here is your point about darkness after WW2, particularly as subsequent films such as Bigger Than Life and All That Heaven Allows would incorporate darkness into their otherwise wholesome American narratives. Like those films, It's A Wonderful Life is devastatingly effective in contrasting the 'black' darkness of death, suicide and cruelty and the joy, optimism and community. This kind of duality would influence filmmakers like David Lynch - just look at Blue Velvet. In other words, claims of the movie's sentimentalism are overstated as the darkness is so bleak as to make the resolution rightly earned and therefore satisfying. The hints at darkness, though, are more significant in its influence in American films. This is also a companion piece to The Best Years of Our Lives as a statement about life after World War 2. Both of these films are great in their intelligent response to the time bearing in mind Hollywood would be making triumphalist movies about WW2 for the next 30 years or so. Though The Best Years is more understated and realistic in its evocation of its subject, Wonderful Life's joyful celebration of life in its ending is not simply a narrative choice but it's an expression of a real-world choice in the spectre of death and the darker side of our natures which added more sophistication and complexity to American film.
@chrisgermain3
9 ай бұрын
Disagree on the economics slightly. GB is not a fractional reserve banker. He has a Building and Loan, not a bank. The B&L has time deposits not demand deposits. The depositors have to wait 60 days before cashing out. However Potter creates the crisis and offers fast cash to the depositors. If enough sell Potter owns the B&L.
@davidgracely7122
Жыл бұрын
Very thoughtful and accurate analysis in my opinion. While I consider this a very special and uplifting movie, I was always disturbed by what you have perceived to be the case: That Christianity is watered down in this movie, and I dare say there was some sacrilege in the presentation of George's guardian angel who adores Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer. Twain had no time for Christianity, preferring to make fun of it even though he was married to a Christian woman. This depiction of a bumbling guardian angel is insulting to those of us who take Christianity seriously. I will give you a case in point. Decades ago I was in the small office of my Dad and Uncle's plumbing store where I worked, and the thought suddenly hit me: "If you care about your sister, you better pray for her." So I asked the Lord to take care of my sister. She told me later that she had picked up a stranger to give him a ride and then realized that she had done something very unwise. She became very, very frightened. She started to witness to him pointing out there must be a God to make all the trees. He agreed. She was finally able to drop him off somewhere. As he got out of the car he made the cryptic remark, "You were lucky this time." Luck had nothing to do with it. She told me that while she had the man in the car she happened to look into the rear-view mirror and saw three beings, all dressed in white, sitting in the back seat. She didn't know why he couldn't see them. I asked her. "Did they look like men or women". She said that their faces were blank. She couldn't tell. After she let the guy out, she looked into the rear-view mirror again, and the three guardian angels were no longer visible. The highlight of the movie was when Jimmy Stewart has his prayer. He said that as he began saying the prayer he suddenly felt the loneliness and hopelessness of people who had nowhere to turn, and his eyes filled with tears, and he broke down sobbing. Stewart said this was not planned at all. In spite of the flaws in this movie, the Lord obviously intervened to make that prayer real to Jimmy Stewart. Frank Capra was so impressed that he had the lab enlarge the film frames to make the prayer a close up shot, because he knew he had a once-in-a lifetime shot that could not be duplicated with a retake.
@LearningaboutMovies
Жыл бұрын
thank you very much.
@davidgracely7122
Жыл бұрын
@Learning about Movies You are most 🙏
@joelsieradzan
6 ай бұрын
incredible video for the most beautiful movie
@nedelchohristoskov2434
3 жыл бұрын
I am on this channel for the first time but it wont be Last for sure.
@LearningaboutMovies
3 жыл бұрын
thank you. stick around and have fun. If you have any recommendations for us from your viewing experience and your native land, please leave them somewhere here.
@Highway-Hobo
3 жыл бұрын
I wonder how many suicides this film helped to stop....
@LearningaboutMovies
3 жыл бұрын
I would like legit stats on what therapy movies give to viewers, including suicide prevention.
@billolsen4360
Жыл бұрын
@@LearningaboutMovies I used to go down to Mexico to lend a hand an ongoing volunteer church group who did nothing but build orphanages in border towns and witness about Christ among the public. Helped me be thankful for all I had up here in the U.S. when I saw how happy people were just to have a regular job, even if they did live in what we Americans would call "shacks." My broken automatic dishwasher or the $2000 major brake job for my car needed didn't seem to be such a tragedy when I got back home.
@amritpaulsingh2639
3 жыл бұрын
hey its great.. please suggest some reading on film analysis..
@LearningaboutMovies
3 жыл бұрын
it depends on the level of analysis you want. Probably David Bordwell mixes academic analysis with popular writing best. Try him, even his textbook is pretty good.
@wagnerfontenele3653
Жыл бұрын
I strongly disagree with you regarding of the watered down christianity. This movie was indicated by the Vatican and Capra said it was intended to preach the christian values to the atheists back then.
@davidpar2
3 жыл бұрын
The relatability
@LearningaboutMovies
3 жыл бұрын
sounds like the name of a hipster band.
@vtrunzo1
3 жыл бұрын
I generally like the analysis except for one thing: bourgeoisie values are Potter's values-ie, economic self interest over and above the interests of the community/nation etc. It's Potter's values that, carried forward, lead to Pottersville/USA today. George is the anthesis of self-interest and they lead to community cohesion . The reviewer gets their but with misplaced value views.
@LearningaboutMovies
3 жыл бұрын
George runs a bank that develops private property, and he develops his own. You surely know that Bailey's values have been attacked by all kinds of leftist positions, which would label this middle-class bourgeois (pro nuclear family, pro Christianity, etc.), as I have experienced all my life in academia. . I am fine with saying Potter is one kind of bourgeois that the movie is rejecting.
@vtrunzo1
3 жыл бұрын
The critic was discussing values, so George's values weren't bourgeois, despite his ownership. Even there, he actually ran the bank as a a collective institution. Interested in the leftists you say were critical of George based on his class position. He runs the building and loan without profit maximization as it's primary function.@@LearningaboutMovies
@LearningaboutMovies
3 жыл бұрын
Google "Capra bourgeois". You are going to run into many descriptions of George as a bourgeois banker.
@nihilisticadventure
2 жыл бұрын
@@LearningaboutMovies dear diary, today I learned that one of my favorite movies is really about the struggle between two bourgeois ideologies
@Rob_F8F
Жыл бұрын
No bank or Building & Loan has enough money to pay all deposits out at the same time. That does not make them bankrupt. These institutions make loans and receive interest from these loans. That is how they make money. If they kept all of the deposits, they would earn no money and would truly become bankrupt. The Federal Reserve was created, in part, to provide a pooled reserve for banks to draw in the case of a bank run.
@LearningaboutMovies
Жыл бұрын
you've just described FTX and other scams. It is always fascinating to try to pull a few thousand bucks out of any bank and watch them squirm. The Federal Reserve was so amazing at preventing bank runs that look at the 1930s!
@Rob_F8F
Жыл бұрын
@@LearningaboutMovies If there were no banks, then, like George Bailey said, a person would have to save their entire lives in order to afford a couple of room and a bath. Perhaps you subscribe to Potter's opinion that people should not be able to obtain loans and just pay rent for the rest of their lives.
@achasingafterthewind
3 жыл бұрын
The religious aspects of this film have always struck me as unserious and generic. As you say, it's a sort of melding of elements of Christianity with so-called "American values." I think the year this movie came out explains that. After WWII, the world entered a period of bipolarity, where the US and the USSR were the only countries that had any substantial economic/military power, and the resulting Cold War was essentially a conflict between the two heavily fought with cultural images and arguments. Prior to WWII, America was an important country, but it had never experienced the dominance it had at that point, and I think the victory over the Nazis--you couldn't find better villains in any movie--gave Americans the sense of self-importance and superiority that allowed them to see themselves as the arbiter of world affairs and protector/champion of western liberal democracy. Thus, you see this sort of cultural shift in the country toward an idealization of capitalism and family values (most blatantly depicted in 50s sitcoms) as a symbol of the greatness of American culture and institutions. Around this time--and growing more as time goes on--you also see a steady decline in religiosity--both religious practices (praying, going to church, etc.) and religious beliefs (belief in God, sin, the afterlife, etc.). Why is this? There's a lot of sociological research on the issue and many factors involved, such as a higher degree of consumerism, greater awareness of and dependence on scientific knowledge, and an interest in and embracing of self-definition and self-determination borne out of the existentialist movement that grew in popularity after the war. Basically, America--and the West in general--got more worldly, and as the Bible makes clear, though Christians are in the world, they cannot be of it--they must not make it and the things in it their reason for being and the prism through which they view existence. So this movie is a sort of signpost of what was to come--what you see today--when Americans pay lip service to Christianity as something integral to our view of history and society, but only as a cultural symbol, rather than a religion that is not particular to one nation or people, but is meant for all, and which is beyond many of the divisions we set up to differentiate ourselves from others. Ultimately, I don't think the depiction of religion in this movie is a huge deal as far as its impact on viewers, but it does reveal a lot about how America has changed in the last 75 years, and it would be interesting to study how religion has been portrayed in films since then as a way of reflecting changing beliefs and practices in the country at large.
@LearningaboutMovies
3 жыл бұрын
excellent, thank you.
@clockworkNate
2 жыл бұрын
This movie is basically accept the crap hand you're dealt because your shitty life may make someone else's better.
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