AND LASTLY, SOME CHRISTMAS CHEER : "IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE"

Directed by Frank Capra, this film is often described as “Hollywood at it’s worst”. By this, I don’t mean it is generally considered a bad film. On the contrary, this is the height of “old”, classic Hollywood in every sense, with stars like James Stewart and Donna Reid it is a warm and fuzzy Christmas Tale, just right for Christmas Eve round the telly with the whole family. If you go for it for pure entertainment value, well and good. You will love it. If you try and analyze it with your “political” glasses on however, you may not like what you see that much. It really is up to you; but let’s get round to the story first, and then we can discuss what we want to do with it.
It is Christmas Eve. And Clarance the clockmaker is on a mission. This may seem odd at first as he has been dead for 200 years, but there is more to the story than you may think. He is due to be promoted as an angel; but to get his wings he must accomplish this one rather difficult task, and honestly, he hasn’t proved to be the brightest bulb in the box so far. His duty is to stop George Bailey (James Stewart) a man living, seemingly quite happily, in a small town from committing suicide. Now, George lives with his beloved wife and four children, he has lived in the same small town all his life. He is notorious for his good heart, generosity and helpfulness and the family’s loans and banking business is the town’s last bastion against the greedy banker ??? who would suck the town dry if he only could… However, ?? has dreamt of leaving the town, travelling, going to university and making something truly great with his life as long as he can remember, he is a good man with ethics, but deep down he hates his job and wishes he could have had a different job and different experiences in life. When crisis strikes his business, it is the last straw for him and the only way out he can think of is into the river off a high bridge. Can his rather unlikely – and seemingly rather unable – little guardian angel convince him that life is worth living after all?
This film was a Christmas gift to me from a well beloved friend. I know he checks the blog out from time to time, so allow me to thank him for it once again from here; I honestly and truly enjoyed every minute of it. However, I could quite understand if you watched and became slightly aggravated with it too. The thing to remember is that one of Hollywood’s principal roles, back in the day as well as today was the propagation of a certain life style; and this film is a walking, talking advertisement of a particular lifestyle, patriarchal – with the wife, clever and able of course, clearly positioned as “beta” to her husbands “alfa” and the general message that “one should be happy with what one has and not make ones dreams too lofty” almost shoved down one’s throat in unequivocally Christian terms (if the whole “don’t let your imagination fly away with you” line confuses you in today’s viciously capitalist society, do remember that this was 1947, not that long after the Great Depression and a mere two years after the Second World War, conservatism was the “mot du jour”). So, small town life, family and 2,4 children are in fact presented as the “ideal”. Now this may annoy you, and I don’t blame you. In places the film almost reads like a propaganda reel. However, as annoyed as I was with bits of it, there were other bits of it I simply loved. The film is sweet overall; there are some very funny little touches and well… I mean look back on all the black and white classics we know and love; which doesn’t have a streak we would consider “politically incorrect” today? Yet we still watch and love them. I say, be tolerant, don’t take it too too seriously and enjoy it of an evening with the kids. You can ease your conscious but ranting about it to friends later. And do you know what, you needn’t really tell them you quite enjoyed it =)

LET'S START WITH A CLASSIC FROM A MASTER - ALFRED HITCHCOCK - "VERTIGO"

I think we are all in agreement as to the greatness of Alfred Hitchcock. Not only did the man almost re-invent camera technique single handedly, to this day he has yet to be toppled from his throne as the king of mystery and suspense. Of course his great mind has given birth to many masterpieces, too many to name here, but Vertigo is surely, surely one of the greatest. I had watched this film when I was a very little girl, I recall. I mean I recall I watched the film, to my shame however, I do not recall a single thing about the film itself. It was before my “awakening” to cinema no doubt…
John Ferguson (James Stuart) has a successful career as a detective when a tragic incident forces him into early retirement. While giving chase to a criminal across the rooves of some houses, a sudden fit of vertigo makes him the inadvertent cause of the death of a colleague. However, no sooner does he leave his official job than an unofficial one land in his lap. An old school friend contacts him in great distress; he claims his wife to be possessed with the spirit of a dead woman and wants Ferguson – or Scottie as his friends call him – to follow her during the day; just to gain more information on her actions and keep her safe to help him decide what course of action to take. Scottie first pooh-poohs the idea, but then decides to follow Madeline (Kim Novak), his friend’s wife, anyway. To his amazement, Madeline does seem to enter trances and mirror the actions of a young woman who died 100 years ago. Scottie becomes fascinated with the young woman in more senses than one… Whether all his experience at policing will be enough to save the woman he loves however, remains to be seen…
In a lot of Hitchcock’s films, the story throws us curveballs. Seasoned viewers are used to it by now. However even in Hitchcock’s work, rarely are these curveballs so well hidden. I defy you to figure out what will come next, right to the last 30 second. And even if you do figure out what is going on, there is the typical trick of suspense Hitchcock uses in his film; you bite your nails as you wait for the characters to catch up, fretting whether they will put two and two together in time and trying to figure out where the story will take us. And a word must be said about the short side-line Scottie has with his friend Midge; a young woman who is very evidently besotted with Scottie but whose love goes completely unnoticed and unrequited. I enjoyed their dialogues as much as I did the dramatic tension between James Stuart and Kim Novak. In short, and as usual, there is nothing bad to be said about Hitchcock’s work of art. I mean, if it still features so high in “must watch” lists to this day, there must be a reason for it… Right?