Abstract of article and why it matters

Art in the eye of the creator is always perfect. But a viewer disagrees when the creator’s assumptions and axioms are different from that of the viewer.

To properly judge art created by others, we must first understand their assumptions and axioms. This also holds true when we try to understand opinion of others. Having good relationships in daily life requires us to do so constantly.

Introduction

I want to talk about art in the eye of the creator – not the Creator from religions, I mean the creator of the art. I wrote previously about how a single assumption can totally change one’s perception and understanding of art. In that article, I used the movie It’s a Wonderful Life (IWL) as an example. I concluded that George Bailey, the character played by Jimmy Stewart, is in a fear-based conflict. He values the same things as his father, but says he wants a completely different life because of the fear that his father’s life is not a happy life.

It all started with one of my friends commenting about how IWL preaches that one should give up everything that matters to oneself and be happy that others benefitted from one’s miserable life. I found this to be categorically untrue. But I wondered if the movie could be tweaked in a way to help my friend understand what the real message of the movie is, perhaps a movie where George Bailey does what he planned to do and then realizes he never wanted all that anyway.

The alternative to the alternate reality

This very idea of showing George have the life he wanted was portrayed – poorly, I may add – in the movie Mr. Destiny. In that movie, Jim Belushi plays an almost-George who is unhappy about his life. Almost-George gets to see what his life would be if he had all he wanted and decides that it sucks. The movie did not do a good job. The big failing of the movie is that it undermines the alternate reality very, very badly. It takes the convenient shortcut of making almost-George a bad human being in his alternate life. He is a philanderer, a corrupt businessman and a fair-weather friend. Then is it a big surprise when he chooses his former life?

If you want George to realize his true values, showing him the best of his pseudo-values in the alternate reality is a fundamental requirement. In any case, I just cannot see George Bailey – or James Stewart – in that bad human being role. Therefore, in the reimagining, I elect to keep George Bailey as a good man in his alternate life.

He’s a high-flying (Did you catch the pun? Coz he’s flying when he travels. Ah, never mind.) architect/engineer who has built amazing things and never married, all exactly as he had said in his youth. He visits Bedford Falls and he hates the new town and all the changes in the lives of people he cares about, just like he did in the original. Then he realizes that he is much better off not having given up his values due to his fears.

Would that make for a better movie than IWL?

George’s best life

I imagine George standing in front of – I don’t know let’s just plop him in front of one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings.

Quick digression. Go check out the long list of amazing buildings built by the great man.

Alright – back to George Bailey in his alternate reality who is actually Frank Lloyd Wright in disguise. I can see him being ecstatic for a few minutes at having created all these great buildings. But immediately after, he would enquire about things that really matter to him including his wife, his mother, his brother, and his town.

I can see him being ecstatic for a few minutes at having created all these great buildings. But immediately after, he would enquire about things that really matter to him including his wife, his mother, his brother, and his town.

Perhaps Mary like in IWL is an unmarried librarian, say Harry lives unlike in IWL and their mother lives with Harry but he hasn’t seen them in years since he has been busy, and Bedford Falls is again Pottersville. Maybe a few of the townspeople gawk at the great architect but most people in town still don’t recognize him. And he doesn’t mean much to even those that do recognize him. Of course, he’d demand to be sent back – happily leaving behind the chance to be the greatest architect in the world.

Would it change the movie materially? Certainly, it would ensure that my friend cannot misunderstand the conflict of George’s character. And I think it would make more sense, as I pointed out earlier, to show him the best of his pseudo-values in the alternate reality and then have him choose his current life. Instead, Frank Capra (he made the movie) only shows George the downside of the actions he said he wanted to take – not the upside. Why is that?

Analysis of all alternatives

Now, a cop-out explanation might be along one of these lines:

• The movie isn’t at all saying what I am saying. My friend would certainly say this because again, he thinks the message of the movie is eternal and stupid self-sacrifice.
• Frank Capra didn’t care to analyze all this.

No. I don’t think so.

However, before I can go further, I would like to take a bird’s eye view of how a creator of art could construct George’s character. And I came up with this matrix.

George¹

This is the George Bailey that Frank Capra made. There is no inherent conflict in his situation except the one he made for himself. To restate his conflict, he values the same things as his father, but says he wants a completely different life because of the fear that his father’s life is not a happy life.

There is no inherent conflict in his situation except the one he made for himself.

Greek tragedy²

This George Bailey gives in to his fear and although he wants to have a life just like his father’s, he runs off to travel and build things. He gets the best of his pseudo-values but then he realizes his error – perhaps too late and must live with the knowledge that by giving in to his fear he lost his chance at happiness and cannot reclaim it. As I said, a Greek tragedy. And obviously this is the best alternate reality to show George of George¹ so that he can rightfully conclude that he is happy as he is.

Quick digression. I highly recommend reading Greek tragedies. Pick one and read it. Wikipedia has a list of all the surviving tragedies. They are not soul-sucking as people sometimes claim. View them with the exact lens of George of George¹, the exact lens that the author hopes you use – that is to get you to understand how much you value whatever the protagonist loses in this story.

Soviet tragedy³

This George Bailey sacrifices everything repeatedly for others. But those other people are better off thanks to George even though he is a broken man. This is what my friend interpreted George Bailey was being portrayed as. I began to think what type of other work would show something like this and realized that it had to be a freaking Soviet propaganda type of work – something that says that your life is immaterial. Now I am not a spiritual masochist, so I don’t know any such work. Therefore, I Google searched the term and ta-da! I came across this.

I am not the self-sacrificing type and hence won’t read the original work even for the benefit of this article. But as can be gleaned from a little more research, the idea is that this person loses his love, then his eyes, then his legs and his hand, pretty much loses his wife because she is overworked and then loses the manuscript of his first book but hurray for the man! (Pardon me while I go take a shower to wash this muck off my mind.)

Showing this as an alternate reality to George of George¹, and then telling him that it was a good life because “See how you benefitted Mr. Nameless” would be a Soviet tragedy – not a Greek tragedy. The Greeks wouldn’t stand such nonsense and as I have since concluded, neither would Capra.

Harry⁴

You may have noticed that Capra gave us the foil for the mirage that George chased all his life – his brother Harry. On the surface, it appears that Harry wanted to travel and do great things and he did. He became a hero and was feted for it. I think he would have made a fine story as the main character, but Capra doesn’t seem to think so. He cannot seem to resist pointing out one more time that George, who wanted to live in Bedford Falls, is still better off than Harry as evidenced by Harry coming home and toasting his brother as the richest man in town.

Capra gave us the foil for the mirage that George chased all his life – his brother Harry.

Frank Capra’s views on life

That brings us to the point of this article. Frank Capra views the life of George Bailey and his father to be the best kind of life.

Why is that? Because Capra was making this movie right after WWII, not in the 2020s where we think of traveling and building as idealistic and worthwhile goals. To Capra, like to most other Americans of the time, the American dream was establishing stability through work, family, and community. Again, by portraying Harry as the immature younger brother, Capra makes it obvious that he thinks that traveling and doing big things is what little kids dream of doing but idealistic men like George value work, family, and community. It is not a coincidence that Potter says that George’s father, Peter Bailey was the Building & Loan. George’s father is a self-made, good man and so is George.

And since Capra just cannot see traveling and building as serious values, even in his alternate reality he does not show George the best of his pseudo values, just the lack of his real values. To him – if not to the audience today – that is enough information for George Bailey to identify his real values.

Since Capra just cannot see traveling and building as serious values, even in his alternate reality he does not show George the best of his pseudo values, just the lack of his real values.

Conclusion

In short, the artist’s axioms in life will shape the art he creates.

I didn’t know very much about Frank Capra before I wrote this article. I didn’t even know that he was the one who made the movies It Happened One Night and Mr. Smith goes to Washington. Then I read about him here. It says here that his movies “promoted and celebrated the spirit of American individualism.” I am not surprised.

References

1. Understanding how assumptions affect our understanding of art
2. Analysis of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life
3. Wikipedia page on the great architect Frank Lloyd Wright
4. Wikipedia page on Greek tragedies
5. Wikipedia page on the Soviet propaganda novel How the steel was tempered
6. Wikipedia page on director Frank Capra

For comments or questions on this article, please email nayana@tobeandwhattobe.com 

Article image courtesy: 8thstar, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1944750