Failure™ Magazine

It’s a Wonderful Life

Frank Capra examines failure.

Written by Kathleen A. Ervin   Filed under Arts & Entertainment

Wonderful Life Gets Its Wings
In 1974, twenty-eight years after its release, the copyright owner (a bankrupt film production company) failed to renew It’s a Wonderful Life’s copyright. Ignored and apparently forgotten, the film quietly slid into the public domain—hardly the desired end for a Capra classic. But from this mistake something truly wonderful happened. Television discovered It’s a Wonderful of Life anew. Stations all over the country realized they could show the picture whenever they wanted at no cost. And show it they did. It was not uncommon to see the movie go up against itself on many of the country’s cable stations. Millions of viewers were introduced and re-introduced to the classic. Video would soon follow and thousands were making the little film that had almost been forgotten a part of their holiday traditions.

Good Friends
After fifty years why do people continue to be drawn to Capra’s creation? “People make a direct emotional connection to it,” says Basinger. “They reach it and it reaches them. People have the idea that this is an extremely sentimental film. Actually, this is a very dark movie. It’s about a guy who’s a failure and who feels like a failure.” Basinger agrees with Capra that people identify with George Bailey and his crisis of faith. “A lot of people don’t get what they want out of life,” she notes. “A lot of young people dream of adventure, travel, success, wealth, luxury—and it doesn’t happen. They stay in the same little town that they’re in and they have smaller lives than that. The movie raises a lot of real questions.”

While the film’s core values and themes have been debated for years, Basinger believes that each person takes away something personal from the film. “For some people Wonderful Life is going to be about friendship,” she says. “For some, it’s going to be about love and marriage and enduring and helping you through it. For some people it’s going to be about failure. For others—and these are the Potters of the world that you have to watch out for—it’s about false sentimentality. That’s the great thing—the film is about a whole life. Good things happen and bad things happen and a bank run happens and someone nearly drowns. The great thing about Wonderful Life is that it’s ambivalent. Failure is in the eye of the beholder. It depends on your expectations, your goals, and what your value system is.”

The film’s eventual status as a cultural icon was satisfying to both Capra and Stewart and up until their deaths they were frequently asked about the film they so passionately believed in. When looking back at his favorite ‘child,’ Capra summed it up best: “There’s more to the picture than I put in it…. There’s more to it than we thought we had. It’s the picture I waited all my life to make.”

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