This movie is a timeless classic that will never die; this film will be on television every Christmas a hundred years from now. Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” is a story of humanity, love and life. The film expresses
This movie is a timeless classic that will never die; this film will be on television every Christmas a hundred years from now. Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” is a story of humanity, love and life. The film expresses how the world should be. The film brings to mind the great quote of President John F. Kennedy “…we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children’s future and we are all mortal”. Every single person will relate to this film, if they take the time to watch it.
Jimmy Stewart (“Harvey’) plays George Bailey. A man who has grand ideas to travel the world and explore life. However he gets side tracked into running his father’s business. This is a film, that even if I discuss ,it’s not spoiling a moment of the movie. Early in the film we see George as a young boy that helps others and is kind and loving. He has true values. These values and themes were always channeled through Frank Capra (“Mr. Smith goes to Washington”) and his films. The old American ideals that we helped our fellow man, stayed true to ourselves that love was more important than money. I’m not saying these values don’t exist, but I think we can all agree people could be more kind to one another.
George Bailey followed the path life gave him, not the one he wanted (with that comes resentment). George is blinded to the fact he has love, plenty of friends, a good character and his job helps people. George thinks he has nothing when in fact he has everything. One night George (Jimmy Stewart) decides he wants to end his life, an Angel appears and shows George what life would be had “never been born”. It is a truly original cinematic sequence that gave us a whole new style of film-making.
The film also boasts excellent performances from Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore (his character Old Man Potter is why we had things like Enron). This film is black and white and can be found (unfortunately) in color; sorry…to me that is like re-doing the Mona Lisa, OK maybe that was too dramatic (but good art should be left alone). I decided to write this review because I was walking down Rice Street and I was in the cross-walk and some guy yelled at me for walking too slow. I instantly thought he must be pretty sad, I’m having a wonderful day. This film hit me as a must.
I laugh because our Dad used to force my brother and I to watch this film. We of course never got the point. I now rent the film once a month. The ending requires plenty of Kleenex, so be prepared. There is no top ten this week, because not many films stand aside this film equally. I also wanted to take a moment to say we’re all human. We all have tough days or someone we’re mad at. Let’s take a lesson from this movie and realize “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Check back next week as I close out the year with a review of Paul Thomas Anderson’s EPIC take on greed and oil in “There Will be Blood.” Maybe this week and next week’s review will give some of us a few New Year’s resolutions.
Year: 1946
Director: Frank Capra
Starring: Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore
Oscars: Multiple Nominations
6:30 p.m. Jan. 5 (free)
at the Lihu‘e Library Conference Room
Short Films from L.A., Vancouver, Sacramento and Honolulu
Call 241-3222 for more information
