I don't care what your parents told you. "It's a Wonderful Life," that reassuring holiday spectacle, is really the most terrifying Hollywood film ever made.
It's one of a handful of masterpieces directed by Frank Capra, an Italian immigrant who loved America because America saved him. Capra lived through the Depression, then through the rise of terrible ideologies.
He knew how bad things could get. He knew, too, that the United States was not immune and this knowledge spiked his love with the worst kind of fear. The result was that special melancholy, blue shot through with black, that runs through his films, the best of which are parables that operate on various levels, some of which were probably unknown to Capra himself.
If you were to cut "It's a Wonderful Life" by 20 minutes, its true subject would be revealed: In this shortened version, George Bailey, played by a Jimmy Stewart forever on the edge of hysteria, after being betrayed by nearly everyone in his life, after being broken on the wheel of capitalism, flees to the outskirts of town, Bedford Falls, N.Y., where he leaps off a bridge with thoughts of suicide.
That's the movie: The good man driven insane.
Oh no, you might say, you've missed the entire point. Following the trials of George Bailey without seeing his rescue is like hearing the story of the Passion without knowing of the Resurrection. It's just Jesus on the cross saying, "Oh, Father, why hast Thou forsaken me," followed by a star wipe and end credits.
It's the power of editing.
Where you start and where you finish is the whole story. That's all modern literature is: the identical image cropped. It's the same with the narrative experienced by everyone every day. The story is reframed for taste. On this channel, Barack Obama fails and is condemned. On that channel, Barack Obama stumbles but is resurrected in the way of George Bailey. Did the Chicago Bears lose? Well, then let's find the channel on which the Chicago Bears win.
In other words, I did not miss the point. The story of the George Bailey who is honored and saved remains. It's the explicit message of the final scene: A man with friends is never poor. But another, deeper message is there, too -- it's Capra wailing at that secret register picked up by bats and dogs, saying, "Help, help, America is in trouble!"
