Abstract of article and why it matters
The movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, is a celebration of the wonderfulness of an individualistic, rational, and value-oriented life. Our culture puts a ridiculous amount of emphasis on professed goals, dreams, and materialistic success. This movie shows that to be really happy, sometimes we have to dig deeper to know what we truly want from life.
Analysis
Few things can get people into the Christmas spirit faster than watching James Stewart run through the streets of Bedford Falls screaming, “Merry Christmas”, to everyone and everything in town. Some people mistake this iconic movie as a symbol of extreme altruism and self-sacrifice. But nothing could be farther from the truth. It’s a Wonderful Life is a celebration of the wonderfulness of an individualistic, rational, and value-oriented life. Then how could some people misinterpret this movie?
It’s a Wonderful Life is a rich, complex movie full of symbolism and well-crafted scenes and characters. But to understand it, one cannot simply take it or its protagonist George Bailey at face value. We do not think our romantic partner loves us simply because they say those words to us, do we? While it is always wonderful to hear our partner profess love in words, their actions towards us matter immeasurably more. Someone who says lyrically beautiful things to us but doesn’t care for us wouldn’t get a second date; much less the title of romantic partner. The same principle applies here.
1. George Bailey, our hero
The movie introduces adult George Bailey, played by James Stewart, in a scene where he spreads his arms as wide as he can and says, “Look, look, look, I want a big one”. The frame freezes for several seconds to ensure we get a good look at George’s professed dreams.
And indeed, George always says he wants “something big, something important”, a life larger than life. At different times, he says he wants to build new buildings, modern cities, airfields, skyscrapers, bridges. He says he wants to see the world, be a millionaire before 30. However, as the movie progresses, he makes one decision after another to pursue something else entirely based upon his circumstances rather than his professed dreams. Perhaps that’s why some people assume he is the model of self-sacrifice.
But the question to answer is what does George really want?
But the question to answer is what does George really want?
For this, let us first analyze the other characters, none of which are superfluous, and the events of the story. Since the movie does such a tremendous job in explaining them, this article borrows phrases liberally from the movie dialogs.
2. The businessmen
Peter Bailey
Peter Bailey, George’s father, runs a “cheap, penny-ante Building and Loan” in the town of Bedford Falls, helping a few people get out of the slums. He is a “man of high ideals … without common sense.” Even George agrees that his father is no businessman. But he is a happy man, and George tells him that he is “a great guy”.
Potter
Contrast him with the “sick… warped, frustrated, old… money-grubbing buzzard” Potter, who “hates anybody that has anything he can’t have” and hates the Bailey family most of all. Potter is an extremely wealthy man who disdains humans and treats them “like cattle”. He sees the working class as “a discontented, lazy rabble”. The Building and Loan extends loans to people because of their hard work and character, which is the true guarantee for future payment. But Potter cannot see hard work and character as virtues. Therefore, he sees this as the management of Building and Loan colluding with their friends to give out loans despite insufficient salaries.
Sam Wainwright
The third type of businessman that we see in the movie, is George’s friend, Sam Wainwright. He hits it big in a plastics factory after George “read(s) someplace about making plastics out of soybeans” and tells him about it. Sam’s father, presumably a rich man, decides to invest in plastics. But when they decide to open a factory in Rochester, George tells them to open that factory in Bedford Falls. He explains that it would be much more profitable. An old tools and machinery works went out of business and half the town lost the jobs they held there.
Sam and his father, both natives of Bedford Falls and businessmen themselves, are not the ones to make what in hindsight is a tremendously successful decision. It is George.
George
George is first caught between a false alternative: being a moral man but a bad businessman like his father; or an immoral man yet a good businessman like Potter. No surprise then that he says, “I just feel like if I didn’t get away, I’d bust!” Eventually he sees Sam, who is both a decently moral man and a decent businessman, and it makes George upset at his own life.
It is very telling that these three characters are not seen on-screen at all in the version of events where George was never born. These three characters were introduced only to allow us to see different types of businessmen contrasted against George. We therefore know that George is different from all three men. He is a highly moral man (like his father, but not like Potter) and a good businessman (like Potter but not like his father). Of course, George must go through a long, arduous journey before he can see that for himself.
3. The love interest
Introducing Mary
An important secondary character in the movie is George’s wife, Mary. We first meet Mary as a little girl, who secretly says that she will love George Bailey till the day she dies. She has tremendous conviction and is a confident person, characteristics she carries into adulthood. Amusingly, when Mary confides her love, George, who didn’t hear her, says he will “go exploring someday and have a couple of harems and three or four wives.”
George lays eyes on her again when his younger brother Harry and Mary both graduate high school. But this time around, George is absolutely smitten with her and dances with her. He can hardly believe how grown-up little Mary is. He thinks she is “the prettiest girl in town”. After they accidentally fall into the swimming pool, they still continue dancing. On their way back home, he flirts with her, has a romantic conversation with her and almost kisses her. But he is interrupted by the news of his father suffering a stroke.
Avoiding Mary
Four more years pass as Mary finishes college. In the meantime, with Peter Bailey now dead, George takes over the Building and Loan. It would not have stayed afloat without him. He decides to spend the money he was saving for college to instead send Harry to college. When Harry graduates, George plans to go find a job traveling to places like the Venezuela oil fields or the Yukon. But Harry returns home married and with a great job offer. Even though Harry offers to take up the responsibility of the Building and Loan, George decides not to take him up on that offer. And yet, he is angry at himself for the choice he makes.
Right at that moment, his mother exhorts George to visit Mary. He refuses and instead goes in search of another woman. Yes, literally, any other woman, as he checks out other women around the town.
He meets an old friend, Violet, who is the sex symbol of Bedford Falls and they decide to make a night of it. When asked about what they should do, George replies with things that he values – walk barefoot in the grass, swim in a pool near a waterfall, climb a mountain to watch a sunrise and so on. Violet is outraged at the idea of doing such things. And we know, as does George, that Mary, who danced in the swimming pool with him and comfortably walked home singing in a bathrobe, would have agreed to all these things in a heartbeat.
Reintroducing Mary
George finally finds himself at Mary’s doorstep and behaves atrociously. While Mary tries to remind him of their romantic tryst four years ago, he downplays it in every possible way. He mentions his mother twice in that conversation and storms off leaving Mary angry and distraught. When he ends up having to share a telephone receiver with Mary, he struggles desperately to not give in to his obvious attraction and attachment. But why?
The repeated mention of the mother here is not a coincidence. Mary is to him, what his mother was to his father. But if he marries Mary, it would be accepting that he is following his father’s footsteps and will never get away from Bedford Falls. He thinks it means that he will die a moral but unsuccessful businessman who was never good at what he did. But this is his “chance of a lifetime”, and he cannot let Mary go and marries her.
Though George can’t see it, Mary sees what the Building and Loan means to George. She gives up their savings without hesitation to prevent a run on the bank. Every bit his match and an accomplished homemaker, she raises a wonderful family with George and builds them a nice house. But George doesn’t think he deserves her, asking her “why in the world did (she) ever marry a guy like (him)”.
4. The community of Bedford Falls
George builds Bailey Park with “dozens of the prettiest little homes you ever saw” in an area that had an “old cemetery, squirrels, buttercups, daises”. Ninety percent of those homes are now owned by the working class of Bedford Falls, “suckers, who used to pay rent to (Potter)”, all thanks to George. He doesn’t make very much money from this venture, though.
When World War II comes along, almost everyone in town does their part to help America, including Potter. Several of the working-class men are part of glorious conquests. Harry becomes a national hero, shooting down 15 enemy planes, and saving the lives of 15,000 soldiers that were about to be hit by enemy planes. But because of a disability he acquired in saving Harry’s life as a kid, George is stuck doing measly jobs like being an air raid warden or collecting paper, rubber, and scrap for the war effort. The irony is not lost on George that he, who wanted to do big things, is the only one who didn’t do anything big even during the war.
The irony is not lost on George that he, who wanted to do big things, is the only one who didn’t do anything big even during the war.
5. The alternate reality
Due to his absent-minded uncle’s carelessness, George finds himself missing $8000 of the Building and Loan funds. In 2023 terms, that is about $150,000. He is horrified, fearing scandal and possibly jail. Unable to reach Sam Wainwright for help and convinced that the other people in town don’t have that kind of money to help him, he turns in desperation to Potter. Potter, who had always been thwarted by the Baileys, sees this as his chance to finally rid himself of George. He tells him, “You are worth more dead than alive.”
George is at the end of his rope. He is about to end his life when his guardian angel saves him and tells him that he doesn’t know all that he has done. George scoffs because he thinks his family and friends would be better off if it hadn’t been for him. But knowing that killing himself now would hurt the people who care about him, he wishes he had never been born. The angel grants his wish and lets him see what would have happened if George had never been born.
Bedford Falls without George
He finds that Bedford Falls is now Pottersville. All his friends are unhappy, most are in dire straits, and some of them have become just downright mean. And it’s no surprise because Pottersville is a sin city, an immoral cesspool of fights, gambling, alcohol, and lewd shops. He finds his home as ramshackle as it was before Mary fixed it and cannot seem to locate his wife and kids. His mother has become a cold, harsh woman and his uncle has been put into a mental asylum. When he attempts to find Bailey Park, he instead finds that it is a cemetery. And there at the entrance lies buried Harry, who died at age nine because George wasn’t around to save him.
In a brief digression, let’s think again of the comment that before George built Bailey Park, it had an old cemetery, squirrels, buttercups, and daisies. But now the cemetery has expanded to usurp that entire land. Only death remains on the land of George’s greatest achievement – Bailey Park. And buried there is George’s little brother.
Only death remains on the land of George’s greatest achievement – Bailey Park. And buried there is George’s little brother.
George’s family without George
At Harry’s grave, George finds out that Harry never went to war. Harry wasn’t there to save those 15,000 soldiers because George wasn’t there to save Harry.
George’s final breaking point comes when he sees Mary, his beautiful, confident, happy wife, now an old maid, plain, scared, and edgy. Unable to stand there witnessing the complete destruction of everything that mattered to him, George desperately begs to live again.
And miraculously, he is sent back to his life. Wildly ecstatic with joy, he runs through the streets of Bedford Falls, screaming, “Merry Christmas”, to everyone and everything in town, including to Potter. He is overjoyed to see his wife and kids and home. A wonderful surprise awaits him. The townspeople, who he didn’t think had enough money to help him, pour out their savings to help him out. They all express their sentiment of gratitude for all that George has done for them. And this list includes Sam Wainwright, who sends a telegram informing him that his office will advance him up to $25,000. But the greatest gift he receives that night is Harry.
6. The brother
Harry has everything that George said he wanted – college, travel, fancy job, and heroic glory. He even gets the Presidential Medal of Honor. George would have achieved it all too if he had made different choices in life. But Harry has been portrayed as the immature little brother and as his father pointed out, George is “born older”.
Put another way, Harry, like a besotted child, went off to achieve things just because they were fashionable. And George, the man, stayed true to his values and achieved it all right where he lived. Harry recognizes this. He arrives home early by ditching a banquet held in his honor to be with George. The choice of words that he uses to toast George is the perfect description of George’s achievements – “to my big brother, George, the richest man in town.”
Wait, but the immature, besotted child went to an actual war. What kind of a war was the man fighting? That brings us back to Potter.
7. The antagonist
Potter has been partially covered before. However, he is an important enough element of the movie that he needs deeper examination.
In a conversation with his father, George insists that he wants to leave Bedford Falls because he cannot live a small life like his father. His father, in a dignified manner, defends his life as being important to himself. Yet, he agrees that Bedford Falls “is no place for any man unless he is willing to crawl to Potter”. When Peter Bailey dies, the Board of Directors threaten to close the Building and Loan at Potter’s instigation. He says that Peter Bailey “was the Building and Loan”. George vehemently states that Bedford Falls “needs this measly one-horse institution if only to have someplace where people can come without crawling to Potter.”
Potter’s characterization
To put simply, Potter is the stereotypical Robber Baron, wealthy and immoral. While that epithet is often doled out unfairly, the movie takes great pains to show us that Potter, who is a good businessman, in fact is wealthy precisely because of his immorality.
He owns slums and when he starts losing tenants to the much more respectable and affordable Bailey Park, he refuses to improve his slums. Instead, he offers a giant bribe to George, presumably to downgrade the quality of Bailey Park. It is implied that he causes a run on the bank of Bedford Falls to take it over. He similarly attempts to take over the Building and Loan. In the alternate reality, he has very much taken over Bedford Falls and converted it to a sin city, which is a perfectly reasonable conclusion.
As mentioned before, Potter hates the Baileys most of all and it is because they have “something (he) can’t get (his) fingers on, and it’s galling (him).” That something happens to be living a moral life. Now, Potter is not Gail Wynand from The Fountainhead. Wynand needed to prove to himself over and over that the virtue of integrity doesn’t exist because he gave up belief in its existence. (And if it does exist then he has wasted his life as he finds out later from Roark). Potter never believed in morality. Humans have always been cattle to him and all that matters is making money. He hates these moral Baileys and others because according to him they are wasting money in pursuit of nothing.
Potter’s immorality spelled out
George seeks Potter’s help to cover the $8000, and Potter asks him if there might be a discrepancy in the books. George denies it and says he has simply misplaced the money. Incidentally, Potter is the one who found the $8000. He knows that the uncle misplaced it, and is surprised when George takes responsibility for it. George does so because he did employ his uncle, a man he knew to be absent-minded. George’s moral behavior of accepting responsibility is too much for Potter to digest. Potter accuses George of immoral behaviors. He asks if George lost the money “playing the market” or spent it on “a woman”, all the while knowing exactly where the money is.
Potter acts just like Guido, the husband of Monna Vanna, who simply cannot believe that Prinzivalle did not rape her when he had the chance. Guido himself would have raped a helpless woman. So he cannot believe that Prinzivalle didn’t. It is so far beyond Guido’s comprehension that he threatens Vanna for having lied.
In George’s place, Potter would have very much thrown the uncle under the bus. In fact, he is immoral enough that he might have tried to find a scapegoat if he had himself been to blame.
George’s war
Having now established Potter as the embodiment of immorality, we must answer the question of why George doesn’t just wash his hands off Bedford Falls. Why does he choose to stay back and fight for morality?
The simple answer is because he thinks fighting for morality is more valuable to him than building things. A perfectly rational choice. But the movie is also making a bigger statement. A relatively amoral businessman like Sam Wainwright can do business anywhere and be happy. But a moral businessman like George can best achieve his greatest triumph and happiness in establishing a moral business in a lovely town that is threatened by immorality. The war that George fights then, is the war between morality and immorality, an equally difficult and more nuanced war than WWII.
The war that George fights then, is the war between morality and immorality, an equally difficult and more nuanced war than WWII.
8. An alternate hypothesis
Confusions about the motive for George’s actions in this movie occur because George’s conflict is majorly focused on his career. It is very easy to see the progress one makes in a career making something where nothing existed before. If George builds a city where no city existed before, it is perceptually obvious. But if George saves a town from becoming a sin city, the progress is not a perceptual one but a conceptual one. Some may not value making a career out of such a crusade. But it is not the viewer’s personal preference but George’s personal preference that the movie is concerned about.
A harem, really?
If we change the conflict slightly, we can drive home the point much more easily. Let us ignore George’s claims about wanting to build and travel and make money and focus on his romantic life.
In the movie, as a child, he says that he wants to “have a couple of harems and three or four wives”. Let’s take that as a starting point. As he grows older, let’s assume he finesses that wish and says that he wants to marry a tall, buxom, blue-eyed blonde and have five kids.
If then he eventually meets the sweet girl next door, who is not tall, not buxom, not blond, and not blue-eyed, and he falls in love with her for her character and her values, would anyone think he was sacrificing? Let’s up the ante. What if this sweet girl next door tells him that she cannot have children and George decides that he would rather be with her and explore options like adoption than have kids with another woman? Would anyone think he was sacrificing?
Those who personally value physical attractiveness and biological children over a romantic connection might think so. But most people would roll their eyes if he felt conflicted about letting go of his so-called dreams of having harems or buxom blondes; and hope he realizes that he was only chasing a mirage anyway. After all, he has everything he really wants with the sweet girl next door.
9. The theme
The theme of the movie is that the explicit ideas which we accept as our entire self are but a fraction of our true self. Worse, they may even conflict with our true self. Allowing those explicit ideas to fully take over our lives would be disastrous. George runs ecstatically through Bedford Falls because he finally realizes that what he said he wanted is not what he wanted at all. And he has everything he wants. He was never confident in his achievements before because he had assumed he was unsuccessful. But now he sees that he is very successful indeed and very happy.
The theme of the movie is that the explicit ideas which we accept as our entire self are but a fraction of our true self. Worse, they may even conflict with our true self.
To propose that he is ecstatic because no matter how awful his life, at least others benefitted from it, is categorically incorrect and misconstrued. No man, however altruistic, can feel such tremendous joy if he sees his values destroyed. George is not a self-sacrificial altruist. He is a hero, who was confused about his values and finds clarity to see that all is as it should be.
He now sees that the Building and Loan is not just a penny-ante business but a symbol of triumph against the immorality of Potter. It is finally obvious to him that he won against that immorality single-handedly. He alone built Bailey Park that made his hometown a safe, moral, and happy place for everyone, including himself.
The final scene of the movie shows a written message that the angel sends George. It reads, “Remember no man is a failure who has friends.” George never did build big, big cities. He built something vastly more important to him – a community in the image of his own values.
References
- Wikipedia page for the movie It’s a Wonderful Life
- Discussion on why some people mistake this iconic movie as a symbol of extreme altruism and self-sacrifice
- Wikipedia page of The Fountainhead to contrast Gail Wynand against Potter
- Goodreads page of Monna Vanna to contrast Guido against Potter
For comments or questions on this article, please email nayana@tobeandwhattobe.com
Article image courtesy: National Telefilm Associates – Screenshot of the movie, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6397263
