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brandywine
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
56 Posts |
 Posted - 12/16/2006 : 9:26:10 PM
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Oh God, I had to watch it again tonight. 11th on the goddamn AFI list. How do I hate thee, let me count the ways. How about the trendy anti-business collectivism brought to us from an industry that would have given Adam Smith so many orgasms he would have required hospitalization? Mr. Potter would have been at home in Soviet anti-capitalist propaganda. Some things about Hollywood never change.
And you know, Pottersville looked like a prosperous city that attracts a lot of tourist dollars, however we must reject it because it has THE HORROR, THE HORROR, OH MY f--- ING GOD THE HORROR: nightclubs and burlesque joints. Listen my morally indignant friend George Bailey, Mr. Potter is a pragmatic business man and he wouldn't have opened burlesque joints unless he thought there was a market in Bedford Falls for them.
Oh, and George? In the words of Brian Griffin: "I'll be on the veranda since you're already on the cross." And just why couldn't his brother have taken over the Building and Loan when he got back from college? And why the hell DIDN'T he invest in Sam Wainwright's business? You'd think, in general, with a friend like Sam's, he wouldn't have been so helpless before Potter, he could have had Sam or one of Sam's buddies sitting on the board, or be an investor.
And another thing, if George wanted to be a saint so bad, he should have taken the sweet job with Potter and thrown his rich man's salary off his roof in fifties.
And another thing, his restored house was probably worth a lot more than $8000, especially considering how housing prices rose after the war. He could have sold it if it really came down to it and his friends were as horrible he assumed they were. And if you keep someone like Uncle Billy in charge of all your assets you deserve whatever happens as a consequence.
And oh yeah... "Where's Mary?!" "I can't tell you, it's TOO HORRIBLE!" "Tell me! Where's Mary?!" "She's... she's... she's... NOT HOME-MAKING BABY MACHINE !" "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!"
I feel better now. |
Edited by - brandywine on 12/16/2006 9:32:30 PM
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Sardu
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1126 Posts |
Posted - 12/16/2006 : 10:22:50 PM
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*lol* There's one every year... I pretty much agree though. Yes, every time a bell rings an angel gets their wings and MY FRAKING HEAD EXPLODES!!
"Meeting you makes me want to be a real noodle cook"
--Tampopo |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2006 : 06:04:27 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by brandywine
And another thing, his restored house was probably worth a lot more than $8000, especially considering how housing prices rose after the war. He could have sold it if it really came down to it and his friends were as horrible he assumed they were. And if you keep someone like Uncle Billy in charge of all your assets you deserve whatever happens as a consequence.
That's definately true. I see the movie as anti-BIG business, rather than anti-BUSINESS. Bailey Park is not a housing project. Anti-BIG business is pretty hypocritical for Hollywood, I admit. |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2006 : 06:54:09 AM
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I think Florence King wrote once that the offices of the Baily Building Savings and Loan reminded her of a Lesbian/Feminist Marxist Co-op in some run down neighborhood of Ann Arbor.
Yes, the Evil Mr. Potter spinning his webs like a spider. Just like Soviet agit-prop.
The rationalism of capitalism, market forces, profit motive, fluctuations in the market, all that is complicated. It is how the world works, but it isn't simple to understand. The appeal of socialism is that you get to ignore all that stuff and personalize/personify everything.
Rent too high? Blame the evil landlord. Seize his property and redistribute it. Fun times for all.
But look what they've done to "A Christmas Story" on TV. Seen those commercials yet?
When I first saw the cell phone commercial made to look like "A Christmas Story" I chuckled along with everyone else at how cleverly it was done.
Then I got to thinking that we live in an ere where 10-year-old boys get hot under the collar for a cell phone.
A cell phone? I can remember when I was 10. I wouldn't have wanted a cell phone. I would've lost the damn thing in a creek or something. There is just something nauseating about seeing young boys gabbing away on a cell phone or eagerly text messaging.
I suppose I should count my blessings in that the most popular Christmas movie in America is still one in which a boy wants a BB gun for Christmas. It could be a movie about a boy who leads a Christmas crusade against Global Warming or something... |
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Nowhere Man
Minister of the Sacraments of Jabootu
USA
45 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2006 : 08:04:14 AM
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After 46 years, I let someone talk me into seeing IaWL. I reckon that that should hold me for another 46 years.
Odd (or maybe not soo odd) note about names and places. A "potter's field" is a cemetery for the poor, unidentified, and homeless, whose relatives (if any) could not afford a standard cemetery plot. And Bailey Park was built on a cemetery.
Fred |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2006 : 08:22:25 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Nowhere Man
Odd (or maybe not soo odd) note about names and places. A "potter's field" is a cemetery for the poor, unidentified, and homeless, whose relatives (if any) could not afford a standard cemetery plot. And Bailey Park was built on a cemetery.
I know what a "potter's field" is. I don't remember Bailey Park being built on a cemetery. |
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Capt. Nemo
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
630 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2006 : 09:12:20 AM
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I was reading [url="http://www.mises.org/freemarket_detail.asp?control=209"]this article[/url]. And it hit on some good points.
Here are the highlights:
What is not explained--what is never explained about the vindictive tycoons of fiction--is where Potter gets his money. (In the depths of the Depression, he is waited on by liveried servants.) He can't have made a fortune renting a few hovels, and none of the properties he owns will bring in a penny unless they offer something people want. So, although he is shown doing nothing but pushing other people around, Potter must be providing a valuable service or selling something in great demand
Potter gets his first chance to break Bailey during the 1933 run on the banks, when Bailey's panicky stockholders want their investments back. Potter has already saved (and acquired) the remaining independent banks of Bedford Falls by guaranteeing their loans in exchange for control, and he tempts Bailey's stockholders by offering to guarantee the loans owed to the association if they sell him their shares at half price. But Bailey foils Potter's plan to capture his company by tiding his stockholders over with small loans from his own pocket until the banks re-open.
Let's stop the music here to ask why Potter would tender his offer. Presumably, Potter was willing to take over the banks because he believed there was money to be made from owning them. If he wants Bailey's B&L, he must likewise believe it is profitable, and that the loans outstanding will be repaid. But why would he think this if, as he says, "Bailey has never made a dime?" Why would he buy something worthless for any fraction of its original price, or guarantee loans he thinks he will end up paying?
Of course, Clarence does not undertake the mission for the purely self-interested purpose of advancing himself. He is as kind as angels should be, and really wants to help. But the fact is that he does not save Bailey as an act of pure goodness, and the audience is expected to rejoice when, as a result of his efforts, he rises in the celestial hierarchy. Even in Heaven it is recognized that useful services should be rewarded.
________________________________________________________________________
"Ward, the Beaver blew up the 7-11 again."
"I'll have a talk with him Dear" |
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Dirk
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
237 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2006 : 12:30:05 PM
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Isn't everyone overthinking this one a little bit?
IaWL is a Christmas movie. Christmas is the season of giving, caring, and generosity. George is giving, caring, and generous. Mr. Potter is not. Remember that scene where he STEALS the money from George's uncle in an attempt to drive him out of business? Yeah, Potter's a GREAT guy! Exactly the kind of guy I'd want to be owning every single business in town! I wonder if he'll bring Boss Hogg and Roscoe in to help him out?
Can we expect to see posts in which Scrooge is lauded for his capitalist savvy and Bob Cratchit is ridiculed because he doesn't understand the free market? |
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twitterpate
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Canada
1026 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2006 : 2:50:08 PM
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It was a standard assumption of liberal thinking in the first half of the 20th century that one of the causes of economic stagnation was the lack of capital available for small businesses. What truth there was to this idea, I don't know for sure; but Capra did an earlier movie on a similar theme, American Madness, which stressed that "to get people back to work, you have to put money to work". Technically, I'd say that IaWL isn't an attack on capitalism so much as showing that Potter's banking, presumably centred only on larger businesses, led to economic decay, where as the Bailey model, concentrating on what today is called "microcapital", was capable of reviving the community.
Considering Capra's childhood experiences with financial institutions, (father was a Sicilian immigrant who came to America through Ellis Island, worked as a manual laborer until he saved enough to buy a small farm; then died in a farming accident, upon which the family lost the property and had to start again from scratch), one can perhaps understand his fascination with the idea. |
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Terrahawk
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
644 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2006 : 3:13:57 PM
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That's an excellent point twitterpate. Remembering back to my college economics class and Depression era history class, that was one of the theories at the time. Even during WWII, the Feds made extensive efforts to make sure that small businesses got gov't contracts. It's like the debates today about local businesses and Wal-Mart.
- While science has societal benefits, science is not a social virtue. - |
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Nowhere Man
Minister of the Sacraments of Jabootu
USA
45 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2006 : 3:30:18 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by New Hinda
I know what a "potter's field" is. I don't remember Bailey Park being built on a cemetery.
Well, I'm not going back to check, but I'm pretty sure I remember (a) the discussion of the Bailey Park layout mentioning a cemetery at one end, and (b) when George runs to find Bailey Park, he winds up in the cemetery where his brother was planted.
Wasn't Potter's development called "Potter's Fields" or some such? [edit ot add] Or was my brain turning "Pottersville" into "Potter's Fields"?
Fred |
Edited by - Nowhere Man on 12/17/2006 3:38:46 PM |
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brandywine
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
56 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2006 : 4:08:52 PM
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I admit Depression era economics are over my head. What got to me mostly was Potter's line about how giving the working class loans creates "...a discontented, lazy rabble instead of a thrifty working class."
More things I hate:
It was hard to be sympathetic to George when he spends so much time lashing out at others in bitterness for choices HE made. In the famous scene with Mary at her house, he spends most of the time being a disagreeable jerk because he's too much of a smuck to let his heiress-wed brother to run the business.
I really didn't have one iota of sympathy for him during that whole sequence leading up to the suicide attempt, you know the "let me abuse my family 'cause my problems are obviously their fault and then pretend I'M the victim and wallow in self-pity when my wife kicks me out." Then when the teacher's husband punches him he's all "that's what I get for praying." Oh, George, your martyr card has been revoked. No, that's what you get for screaming nasty insults at his wife who called to see how your daughter was doing.
Things I liked:
My favorite scene is the one where Potter is offering George the job. First, George's tiny chair, so Potter can lord over him, "I'm an old man, and most people hate me. But I don't like them either, so that makes it all even." HA! Also there's a skull paper weight on his desk, and an oil painting of himself on the wall. If you look closely you can spot a bust of Napoleon. Oh, and I love at the beginning when he's talking to George's father and wants to make an emotional point so he tells his servant to shove his chair up. Potter rocks so hard. |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2006 : 5:20:02 PM
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Actually, IaWL is one of those few instances I know of where you can see Jimmy Stewart's dark side.
Especially when he yells at the old man in the office. "Do you REALIZE what you've DONE!?"
He mostly played amiable characters. George is deeply flawed. Difficult to like when you get down to it.
As far as the politics of the movie, I cannot help it if that is what I usually notice about movies. Every frame of every film is controlled for content. Nothing shows up there that the director doesn't want to show. I tend to notice these nuances moreso than my friends or family who watch the same movie.
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 12/18/2006 : 04:20:48 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Dirk
Isn't everyone overthinking this one a little bit?
IaWL is a Christmas movie. Christmas is the season of giving, caring, and generosity. George is giving, caring, and generous. Mr. Potter is not. Remember that scene where he STEALS the money from George's uncle in an attempt to drive him out of business?
Potter is ABLE to steal the money because George trusts it to Uncle Billy, who I wouldn't trust to buy me a newspaper. |
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nshumate
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
464 Posts |
Posted - 12/18/2006 : 07:27:09 AM
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I love It's a Wonderful Life. I watch it every year, and dammit, I cry. I didn't used to. Now, as a man in his thirties with children and responsibilities that weight heavily on me, I cry. And I don't apologize.
To paraphrase from "A Christmas Carol," I think It's a Wonderful Life has done me good, and will continue to do me good, and so I say, God bless It's a Wonderful Life.
Nathan Shumate
http://www.coldfusionvideo.com |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 12/18/2006 : 09:23:33 AM
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Oh come on, the ideology of Wonderful Life is more Mid-Western populist than anything "left wing" or socialist. It's about the little guy battling an East Coast style monopolist, straight out of a William Jennings Bryan Jeremiad and as American as apple pie. If you want something left wing go after The Grapes of Wrath.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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