The Pitiful, Dreadful, Wonderful Life of a Classic Film
Christmas is here with a vengeance and with it, the annual denunciations of It’s A Wonderful Life , a movie that wound its way into the cultural slipstream in the early 1980s and has never left it. This year’s popular denunciation can be found here in the NY Times. It’s a great review by Wendell Jamieson, who calls the film a “terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your father driven to the grave before his time, of living among bitter, small-minded people. It’s a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away….” When reading this, I thought to myself that Jamieson is spot on – It’s a Wonderful Life truly is a dark and foreboding film, though remarkably uplifting at the end. To me, it’s a tribute to the filmmakers that a film about the relinquishment of dreams can provide such inspiration and hope. Jamieson also thinks that Pottersville, with its strip joints and gambling halls, would not on...