Thursday, December 22, 2016

Hee-Haw! It's a Wonderful Life, 70 Years Later

Much like my review of The Stooges' Raw Power, I would suggest that if you haven't seen this film, stop reading, set aside two and a half hours and watch the film all the way through.

When I first watched Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life in its entirety ten years ago, I was a nineteen year old recent high school graduate in a state of transition. I was about to shake free from the confusion of high school and enter the most carefree, joyous times I'd enjoyed up that point. The film's jubilant mood and inspiring message of appreciating life itself will always carry that association with me. I'll always remember the first time I saw the film just after Thanksgiving and shedding real tears of joy by its conclusion. The next day, I declared it to be my new favorite film of all time. Ten years later, it has not only retained but also strengthened that position. 

Simply put, It's A Wonderful Life is more than a great film. It's a spiritual experience, one that transcends the purpose of art and entertainment. It utilizes the storytelling aspect of film to deliver a message that is simple, yet noble. No other film in history has so effectively communicated both the humbling pain and unexpected glory of the human experience.

Most people would balk at the idea of calling an almost universally acknowledged classic "underrated", but I will say that there's a certain stigma surrounding the film, which diminishes its depth. Skeptics (who usually haven't seen the film) tend to critique its ubiquitous, unrealistically "happy" ending or dismiss it as simply that black and white Christmas movie that plays every December on NBC. It's a classic example of a message losing its meaning when removed from its context. Yes, the premise of an entire town chipping in to donate thousands of dollars to the downtrodden protagonist seems to be a ending out of a typical holiday fairy tale, especially in today's world of greed run amok. But is it really that inconceivable? Or are we entirely missing the point?

Apart from its relieving conclusion, It's a Wonderful Life is actually quite bleak in nature. It spends its first half exploring the life of George Bailey, a man whose grand dreams of exploration and glorious innovation are slowly taken from him by fate. Whether it's the call of work, family or simply his morality, George's plans to attend college and become a worldly architect are crushed when he's a teenager, in his mid twenties and his late twenties. As I watch this film every year, I find something newly relevant in George's story. One of the most subtle, yet heartbreaking moments in the film is when he realizes that he's reached his mid twenties and will likely never have a chance to see the exotic countries he'd been dreaming of since childhood. He tosses his brochures to the ground after holding onto them for almost twenty years. This frustration reaches a climax when his business loses an irreplaceable $8000, leading him to contemplate suicide.

As he makes suffers throughout the film, he also makes numerous sacrifices on behalf of his family and the townspeople, often beyond his knowledge. The film makes this important distinction to suggest the probability of all of us having a similar impact on the world around us. Some critics have also pointed out that not everyone can relate to George if they haven't lived life in a similarly altruistic fashion, performing good deeds left and right. The point Capra makes is that even a "saint" like George is completely unaware of the purpose he serves in life. From his perspective, he believes he has very little to show for his life and concludes that life would be better if he were never born.

Capra's message was ultimately for us to appreciate our unlikely purpose in life. Despite our outlook in the worst of times, we're never fully aware of how much we impact others with even the most minute gestures. Whether he's saving his brother from drowning or speaking on behalf of a friend in need of a loan, George spends the film giving to others as often as he laments his own unexpectedly sad life. Through a masterful performance by James Stewart, the audience feels every ounce of pain experienced by George Bailey. While the ending conjures up tears of joy and relief, Stewart also makes it impossible for us not to cry along with more than a few moments of despair more dramatically visceral than one would expect from a "family friendly" film. While it may have earned that classification over the years, It's Wonderful Life is also unequaled in its heavier moments.

While it has deservedly become a ritualistic holiday classic, the emotional sweep of It's a Wonderful Life bears a universal appeal which only becomes more relevant as millennials begin to face a harsh reality not unlike George Bailey. It's not a Christmas story or even an American story, despite its very American character. It's a film which extols the sometimes unrecognized yet increasingly scarce glory of goodwill toward others. Art often attempts to communicate this message, but very little of it succeeds in reigning us in as well as It's a Wonderful Life.

As society in general grows ever distant and resolves to build walls of separation, this film should become required viewing. If I had to describe just one piece of art as truly life-changing in a positive way, this would be it. Watch it. If you've already seen it, start watching it every year and find something new to love about it each time.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Fra-gee-lay....Must be Italian! Remembering "A Christmas Story"

Whenever the subject of quintessential holiday films is raised, A Christmas Story is undoubtedly one of the first choices that comes to mind. In many ways, it is the definitive Christmas film. More than a story set around the titular season, A Christmas Story is one of the few films to be about little more than the holiday itself. Even though the traditions and culture of the December season explored in the film's 1940's Indiana setting may not apply worldwide, audiences still continue to find something familiar in its idyllic depiction of a childhood Christmas.

There's not much of a story to A Christmas Story. Ralphie wants a Red Ryder b.b. gun for Christmas, and he'll stop at nothing to convince someone in buying him one for Christmas. The story is little more than an excuse to explore all of the facets of a typical white Christmas in America. Everything from snowball fights to a somewhat disillusioning visit with a department store Santa Claus is explored. Some of the most memorable moments are standalone vignettes that are only loosely tied to the main plot, such as the unforgettable tongue-frozen-to-a-pole scene or Ralphie's friends dealing with a local bully. Each explores a different aspect of the Christmas season, one the audience may not have personally experienced yet still strikes a chord within everyone.

That's really what drives the legacy of A Christmas Story. Though holiday customs have changed in the decades since the film's setting and vary in different parts of the world, the film still manages to tell a universally familiar story, namely one of innocence. Few other films have equaled its portrait of the innocence of childhood, a time in one's life where nothing else matters but the acquisition of that one toy. Everyone can relate to Ralphie's drastic, elaborate fantasies or his never-ending schemes to manipulate different adults into helping him get his prize.

Though it's a family-friendly film with an accordingly light-hearted touch, it never feels overly saccharine or toned down. There are overtones of satire and an irreverent sense of humor at its core. Ralphie doesn't always win, and film finds more to laugh at in his blunders. The adults in Ralphie's world are depicted in a warts-and-all fashion, from his stern but understanding father to his sweet but overbearing mother. His parents have no names, as they aren't meant to be unique characters. They're universal stand-ins which function as reflections of our own parents, or at least our impression of them when we were young.

One of the film's most notable achievements is itself pitch-perfect, sweetly evocative direction. There's hardly a more appropriate setting for the vision of a classic American Christmas than a Midwestern suburb in the 1940's. The film plays like a film version of a Thomas Kinkade painting, complete with organically vintage toys and visuals that are colorful, but never flashy. Though Ralphie's fantasy sequences are shot with an exaggeratedly blurred effect, the entire film has a similarly muted, dreamy look to it.

When I first saw A Christmas Story in 2006, it had already been classified as a classic holiday film for more than two decades. I'd never seen it before, but it somehow seemed extremely familiar to me, as if I'd grown up watching it as much as the next person. There's a timeless, universal quality to the film that transcends typical "family" fare, to the point where it could be considered a true work of art. As its audience grows with every year and its broad fan base continues to wear out its most memorable quotes, A Christmas Story continues to be essential holiday viewing.

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Top 10 Christmas Films (Part 2)

5.  The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Though it technically deals with Halloween in equal measure, no list of great Christmas films would be complete without Tim Burton and Henry Selick's iconic, imaginative stop motion masterpiece. On a visual level alone, Nightmare introduced memorable characters like Jack Skellington, Oogie Boogie and Sally the Rag Doll, the likes of who have been featured in endless merchandising since the film's 1993 release.

Though the animation and visuals are unforgettable, so is the story and characterization. Drawing inspiration from fairy tale television specials like How The Grinch Stole Christmas and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Burton expands the format into feature length and includes more than a hint of satire, but an equal amount of affection for such holiday tales.

One of the most enduring elements of Nightmare is its music, composed by frequent Burton collaborator Danny Elfman, who also provides the singing voice of Jack Skellington. Many of the songs have seeped their way into the mainstream, including "This is Halloween" and "Making Christmas". So enduring is Nightmare that it has been revisited as a stage show and a feature of Disneyland. Truly a modern classic that can be enjoyed twice a year.

4. Die Hard

Though it's not a necessarily a film about Christmas, there's enough tongue in cheek references to eggnog, reindeer and miserable family get-togethers to qualify Die Hard as a genuine Christmas film. Best known as one of the films that launched the action craze of the late '80s. It's also one of the best. Directed by genre heavyweight John McTiernan (Predator, The Hunt For Red October), it's as silly as it is violent. Nearly every instance of the scruffy, reluctant hero John McClane killing a conniving terrorist is accompanied by a perfectly timed, crude wisecrack.

One of the reasons Die Hard stands tall above other action movies is its ability not to take itself seriously. Even with all of the executions and on-screen neck breaking, there's not a glum or grim moment to be found. Much of this results from the almost cartoonish characterizations; McClane is almost an archetypal beer-bellied American Joe who happens to be a resourceful cop and his rival Hans Gruber is a worldly, clever terrorist straight out of a superhero comic.

While it has a very different character from say, the next entry on this list, Die Hard nevertheless deserves a spot due to its break-neck (no pun intended), non-stop fun and for taking a very different spin on a Christmas film. Set in L.A., it's the only one of these films that doesn't feature a touch of snow!

2. Miracle on 34th Street (1947) 

Miracle on 34th Street isn't so much a film about Christmas as it is a film about the loss of whimsy that comes with being an adult. Centered around a department store Santa Claus who believes he is the real 'Kris Kringle', the entire film is a parry between the innocence of fantasy and the cynicism of commercialism around Christmas. It isn't necessarily a tale of youth vs. adulthood, as one of the most initially jaded characters is a young child from a single parent family, and one of the most whimsical characters is a capable adult attorney. The film follows Kringle as he gradually makes "believers" out of the skeptics around him.

It's such a time-honored message that has grown beyond the film's humbler 1947 settings, as commercialism has only tightened its reign on the world and innocence in a lifetime is seemingly more fleeting than ever. Though the film has undergone a few more dramatic remakes, the original version is the most moving and the best-made film of them all, due in no small part to Edmund Gwenn's definitive, Academy Award winning performance. One may not expect it from a "family" film, but its story holds up in terms of depth compared to just about anything out there today.

2. A Christmas Story  (1983)

In many ways, A Christmas Story is the definitive Christmas film, as one may guess from its straightforward title. Unlike almost every other film, A Christmas Story really is a film about Christmas itself, with no particular focus but the general scope and feeling of the weeks leading up to December 25. There really isn't much a significant plot, as the film is loosely framed around the story of a kid doing everything in his power to receive a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. Everything about the direction perfectly lends itself to the definitive "Christmas" feeling, from author Jean Shepherd's folksy narration to film's setting in 1940's Indiana. It's a picturesque coming of age tale that perfectly encapsulates the feeling of being a young child excited for the holidays, fit for the warmest of greeting cards.


1. It's a Wonderful Life  (1946)

And here it is. This is an obvious pick for anyone who knows me, as it's my all time favorite film, regardless of holiday affiliation. There never was and hasn't been such a powerful statement on the human experience as the one detailed in Frank Capra's 1946 magnum opus. In the years before I'd actually seen the film, I was familiar with critiques of its fantastical outcome and status as that old black and white movie that plays in every house on Christmas Eve. When I'd finally taken the time to watch it from beginning to end, I was moved to tears which has NEVER happened to me while watching a film, even Titanic. It's almost as if everyone who disparages the film as light family fodder only watched the last fives minutes.

It's a Wonderful Life is far beyond just a Christmas film, or even the tale of a man who plans to commit suicide only to be deterred by a vision of life without him. With each repeated viewing, I took more notice of the part of the film that leads up to its famous conclusion. It's really a tragic story of how one's dreams evades them and they subsequently end up feeling trapped by a life much humbler than they'd imagined. Yet the film's parting message is that even the most insignificant of lives can have the most profound impact on the world around them. It manages to impart that message with overtones of both the Great Depression and post-war optimism.

There's really too much I could write about this movie. All I can say is that everyone needs to watch this film all the way through at least once. I've seen very few films that are this moving, and it only grows more relevant as life becomes ever more complicated. It's one of a very few films I could say has had a profound impact on my outlook. It was an easy choice for no. 1.