The World Needs to Know Podcast | Episode 1 | It’s A Wonderful Life
Mike – and his friend Travis – think you should know about possibly one of the best movies ever filmed: It's A Wonderful Life. Travis recently posted a short video essay on the movie and there was so much left on the cutting room floor that we just had to record a conversation about it. Join us as Mike starts a new podcast and as we head into the Christmas season discussing what we love about the 1946 Frank Capra film, It's A Wonderful Life.
Watch Travis' video on It's A Wonderful Life:
“Why you should watch It's A Wonderful Life” by Travis Barrett: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrW1ABsNiyA
Travis’ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TravisD.Barrett
Travis on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@travisdbarrett
Travis on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/travisd.barrett/
The World Needs to Know is a Value for Value podcast. You can go to https://anchordeepomaha.com/theworldneedstoknow or if you listen on one of the modern podcast apps like Podverse, fountain, or CurioCaster you can donate value through one of those apps!
TRANSCRIPT
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(upbeat music) - You're listening to the World That Needs to Know podcast and I'm your host, Mike Kresnik.
With this podcast, I look forward to introducing the world to my friends and their views on faith, art, media, and whatever the heck we decide to talk about.
This is episode number one, simply titled, It's a Wonderful Life.
And I'm joined by my coworker and friend, Travis Barrett, AKA Travis D.
Barrett on YouTube and TikTok and Instagram.
You're on Instagram, right? - I think I'm there, yeah. - Okay.
Travis, thanks for joining me on The World Needs to Know. - I'm glad to be here.
First ever episode. - First ever episode.
Dude, you do such a good job at analyzing philosophy and the Christian scriptures and theology and film and art and in a really beautiful way, you package it altogether.
So that's why you're on this podcast with me today because we share a love for movies and in particular, the 1946 film, It's a Wonderful Life.
We were chatting last week about the film and I was like, Travis, we have to do a podcast episode where we can just elaborate on this movie.
So it's December, we're heading into Christmas season.
And so we just watched the movie and we wanna share some thoughts with the world and this conversation.
Now, believe it or not, there are people who haven't seen this movie.
We know some of those people.
And even more grievously, we know people who might be indifferent towards this movie. - Which is almost worst. - Which is almost worst.
So you recently on your YouTube channel, put out a video about this movie.
And so without rehashing that, why should, meaning I don't want you just to redo your video, right?
But why should people watch It's a Wonderful Life?
Just off the cuff, we just watched it.
What are your thoughts? - It's not just good for a Christmas movie, it's just a good movie would be my quickest answer.
I think a lot of people, what somebody was talking to said, they're like, oh yeah, that's a nice little Christmas movie.
Isn't it?
I said, a nice Christmas movie?
Are you, no, no, no, no, this is just like a good movie, period.
The fact that it also is a Christmas movie, I think is just, makes it even better.
Makes it that much more rewatchable because it has to do with the Christmas season and then you can kind of pull it out and rewatch it.
But on its own terms, I think it's just a brilliant film. - Yeah, because you could take the Christmas things out of it and it would still be. - I mean, you don't even get to Christmas until like the last quarter, the last third.
Until you come to present day, it's not even Christmas time.
I saw one person said that they like saw this in school in February and they didn't even realize until years later that this is supposed to be a Christmas film.
They were like, oh, I just genuinely thought this was like a movie from the 40s.
So I think, yeah, I can absolutely just be enjoyed on its own terms.
Plus the fact that the themes are really resonant at Christmas time.
You just leave above every other Christmas movie, in my opinion. - Yeah, I mean, I just shared with you a bit out of a book.
I've got the Oxford Encyclopedia of Christmas.
I love Christmas so much that my wife bought me an encyclopedia about Christmas.
And it was talking about how in the 40s, leading up to that time, Christmas films in particular were very sentimental.
This is not, I mean, there's parts of it that can be sentimentalized.
And we might talk about that later.
But it does not ignore abuse, death, grief, isolation, the downside of comparing yourself to others and living with that weight, that burden.
So in that regard, it's not sentimental.
It's very real and deals with them heavy topics.
Even to the point where Amazon, where we just watched it, we just streamed it, points out that it's violent, they're smoking, they're sexuality, which is bizarre, and things like that.
So yeah, that's one thing I appreciate about the movie. - And the thing that you read, it compared it to, or I don't know how many years later, but "The Bishop's Wife" came out after this movie.
And I just watched that last year.
And I mean, immediately you can tell the similarities, but also the differences, like I would say that "Bishop's Wife," the reputation that "It's a Wonderful Life" has, I think is better applied to "The Bishop's Wife," which is, at least in my reading, I thought "The Bishop's Wife" was a sentimental, nice movie.
It's where an angel comes and kind of brings a family together, kind of.
It kind of has to do with the meaning of life a little bit, but it's pretty just sentimental Christmas movie.
And when you put that next to, it kind of does feel like a, "Ooh, "It's a Wonderful Life" worked really, really well.
People enjoyed this, let's redo that and just try and, I don't know, maybe I'm not being fair with "The Bishop's Wife," but I just, I love "It's a Wonderful Life" so much that I agree.
Yeah, it's so much more than just a sentimental Christmas piece, it actually has something far more to say.
And I mean, as somebody pointed out to me, and this is so true that at the end of the movie, Potter, the bad guy, he gets away, nothing bad happens to him, that's not a very, I don't know, there's not a cathartic- - There's no justice. - There's no justice, the guy that stole, the rich man, the supposedly richest man in town, stole $8,000 and he gets away with it, there's no justice.
I don't know, that's the fact that they even put that in the movie, that's not something you would, I think, do if you were just trying to design a movie that's gonna be really feel good and sentimental. - Yeah, I mean, we talked about comparison and maybe just like, let's ride this train for a moment, but if you're comparing Bailey and Potter, at the end of the movie, we realized that Bailey has all the, like he has friends, that's the line in that Clarence writes in the book, he says, "No man is a failure who has friends."
And throughout the whole movie, Bailey sees himself as a failure because he's never actually getting what he wants, Potter is seen as the man who's successful, he's rich in monetary terms, but at the end, he's got no friends, he's not celebrating Christmas with anybody, at least that we see.
So the story leaves us with like, oh, Bailey is the richest man in town because he has this community of people around him that he just wasn't seeing throughout most of the movie.
I mean, one of the funniest parts of the movie is where George Bailey goes and visits Mary at her house, he can't even see how much she loves him 'cause he's just so burdened by his own sorrow, his own discouragement, yeah, so, but he finally awakes to it at the end and he is the richest man in town. - The comparison, I wrote, I was taking notes while we were watching the movie and the comparison, I feel like at the beginning of the movie, you kind of see Potter and his father who I wrote down as Pop-up Bailey, but I think his name is Peter 'cause I was like, I don't know if they ever say the name of the dad, they do eventually, I think it's Peter Bailey, but I feel like both of those, obviously both kind of the older, the two oldest main characters in the movie and I feel like they're almost kind of positioned forward as like the two potential futures for Peter, or for George, of like, if you want to pursue your life for yourself and like invest in yourself, you could kind of be like Potter, that's what he's done, or you can be like your father and in the beginning, when his, after his dad dies, he says to Potter, in my book, my dad died a richer man than you'll ever be and then his, and then Potter says to him, I don't care about your book, I care about the building and loan and so it's like in the beginning of the movie, it seems like obviously over and over and over again, George is making the choice to, I want to be like my father, I'm going to continue to sacrifice and love others and then Potter compares George to, he says, you once called me a warped, frustrated old man, but what are you but a warped, frustrated young man? - Yeah. - And then George says to Clarence later that he says, he's, you know, Clarence says, we don't use, money doesn't come handy in heaven.
And George says, well, you know, it comes pretty handy down here and I found that out the hard way and it feels like George, the story has led us to we've been following George's choice to be like his father over and over and over again, to sacrifice, to not pursue wealth for his own selfish good, not to pursue his own fame and glory.
And it feels like we kind of get to the end of that rope and George is like, I don't think I made the right choice.
Like I feel like I made the wrong choice.
This was not worth it.
Until the end, the end is then being like, no, no, no, no, no, that actually, you did make the right choice.
You are the richest man, even if you don't have the most wealth, even if you don't, weren't able to do all the things you were wanting to do.
You were right to call your father a richer man than Potter and you were right to pursue that kind of life over and above what Potter offers. - Do you remember in the scene where he finds that his, the prescription is poison and he's conflicted.
He's like, my boss is upset, but I don't want this customer to be poisoned.
And he looks up and sees the sign.
What is it?
Do you remember what it says? - I think it says, ask dad, he knows. - Ask dad, he knows.
George trusts his dad and he respects his dad.
You see that throughout the movie.
He's sitting at the dinner table and he says, dad, you're a good man.
And you know, you're a great guy. - About time one of you lung cats said it. - Yeah, the maid is one of those side characters that's brilliant. - This movie has a lot of those. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, let's talk about faith for a minute.
In this film, ask dad is what the sign said in the part of the movie where he's having his existential crisis and he cries out to God.
He says, God, if you're there, show me the way.
So in our Christian faith, ask the father.
So the theme of prayer from beginning to end is in there. - It literally opens with prayer. - Opens with an instrumental hymn of, oh come all ye faithful, and people praying for George Bailey.
So that's another unique thing in this movie is, and I think unique for, I don't know, I wasn't alive in the 40s and 50s when this movie came out.
This movie was not popular from what I've read.
This movie was not like a box office hit.
You kind of missed that original audience.
It's become more of a classic in later years.
But this theme of faith in this movie stands out even in our current time because a lot of Christmas movies don't have, it has a Christmas sentimentalism, but not a Christmas Christian spirituality.
And this is very, very heavy in the film.
Yeah, what notes did you take as we were watching it or what thoughts do you have? - The way that the movie even frames the story.
So it starts off with the praying and then it goes up into the heavens and we see these galaxies.
Yeah, these cosmic beings talking to one another.
And it frames the whole movie as we're looking at George Bailey's life through the eyes of heaven.
And I think that's such an, like that's almost the point of the movie is like, when I did my video, I had some comments of people being like, "This is such a depressing movie.
This is such a terrible, it's the worst Christmas movie.
It's so depressing."
And I was kind of like, "What?
How is this movie depressing?"
And I just, I'm like, I guess if you seriously don't have, if you're watching this movie and you see that as kind of like just, a mythical flourish on the artistic in the same way with the ghosts, the same way if you're looking at the angels in this movie in the same way that you look at the ghosts in- - Dickens. - In Dickens's "Christmas Carol."
Then I can totally see how this would be really depressing because you're like, in what way is he really the richest man?
Like it really is a hopeless film trying to, maybe I can see how it's, that can be seen as sentimentalizing a really, really difficult situation where it's like, no, just smile up, cheer up.
You know what, life is fine.
Even though it's terrible.
Without the divine perspective, it really is pretty depressing.
And I think the fact that the movie literally frames like what we're watching, we are watching it as, there's the Clarence doesn't have his wings.
And so he can't see what is going on in the screen.
And they literally say like, okay- - Angel second class. - Yeah, he's an angel second class, doesn't have his wings.
And they say, concentrate.
And the kind of the screen opens up so we can actually see the movie.
And so it's almost like we are watching the movie as angels or like angelic beings, like, okay, from the divine perspective, you, we can tell like, wow, George is living an incredible life.
But if you lose that divine perspective, yeah, no, Potter is right.
He's absolutely a fool.
Like, why would he be sacrificing all these things?
He's completely living for other people, which is a complete waste.
Why would you do that if you're not gonna get anything from that or- - Well, so is what you're saying then that George Bailey was not seeing his life from a divine perspective? - I think towards the end is when he learns to.
Because he, obviously he's making all those decisions throughout the movie that are valuable.
He hates the house that he lives in, but he's choosing to do it because he loves Mary.
He hates the town that he lives in, but he's living there because he loves the community and he's trying to help better them.
He's constantly making these sacrifices for the people that he loves.
But at the same time, yeah, like he, at the beginning when he's kind of railing on Potter after his father dies, he mentions that he's like, "I don't know why my father ever started this building alone."
Which I thought was interesting that I'm like, "You don't, George?
Like, you've already made so many sacrifices."
And then he goes on to say how wonderful his father has been to this community and stuff.
But it just struck me that I'm like, at the beginning of the movie, he's making those sacrifices, but he says, "I don't understand why my father would have ever started this."
And I think by the end of the movie, kind of the lesson that he learns, I think he would say that, "Yeah, I do understand why he's come to terms with that."
I mean, that's why he's running through the city, saying, "I love you old building alone.
I love this crafty old house."
And he grabs the little piece of the stairway that rips off and he kisses it.
'Cause he's like, he's learned to embrace and see things through the defined perspective and seeing like, "Okay, yeah, no.
It's almost like I'm maturing and becoming his own father of like, "Yeah, I see why he did this and why this was actually worth it." - Yeah, yeah.
The part that always gets me, there's two, it's the beginning and the end.
The end that always gets me is Clarence's note, "No man is a failure who has friends."
The part that gets me at the beginning is when the angels or God and God, whoever the characters are in the cosmos and the heavens, the one angel asks, "Is he sick?"
And the other one says, "No, worse.
He's discouraged." (laughing) It's like this like, kind of just like in a not on the nose way saying like, "No, there's this sickness of the soul that's happening here within George Bailey."
And that's something I resonate with.
Like George Bailey's character in his most good and worst parts, I resonate with.
Like I see myself in that character so much because I want to do what's good and I'm willing to sacrifice a lot for the good of others like my wife and my kids and my community.
But if I have one bad day and I start comparing myself and growing discontent, I've said in some ways or another things that George Bailey says in this movie are acted in ways that he has.
And so I just think they did a really good job in his character showing that tension in life when you're discouraged or you're discontent and you're pulled in that tension of like, "I wanna do good and yet I also want to just live for myself.
I don't wanna get married to anyone ever.
I just wanna do my own thing."
Like he has these moments in the movies where you're just like, okay, that's his true self coming out.
When he walks into the house on Christmas Eve and starts yelling at his kids, like playing the piano and like, "Why did you get sick?"
And he blames the teacher.
Like you just see like these real human moments that have happened in my house and have happened in other people's family systems and their houses in high stress moments.
That character gets me every, and that's what keeps me coming back to this movie every single year is like, "Oh, it's real."
It feels real.
Like when his uncle loses the $8,000, it just gets like a gut punch every single time.
I know how the movie ends.
I know that Potter kind of nabbed it 'cause his uncle left it or handed it to him.
I can't remember the exchange, but you just feel it 'cause it feels real.
And you've been in that moment before where you're like, "Man, I really screwed it up and I don't know what the implications are gonna be." - I feel like that's why I know a lot of people, myself included, like watch this as a kid because their parents watched it and were kind of like, "This is too long.
It's black and white."
The time I was even- - Time's closed. - I was gonna say, I was even noticing like what was the joke that you were waiting for?
It was the, it's when you first meet Violet when they're adults.
And she's like, there's like a run of a few jokes where you see Violet.
She makes a little remark, "I'll only wear this when I don't care how I look." - The guys are just like, just they're smitten with her beauty and kind of her flirtiness.
And they don't know what to do.
They don't know what to do with their hands.
They're just kind of like standing there dumbfounded. - And she walks in the car honks.
And then the one guy makes the comment, like there's just a line of a few jokes.
And I just kind of was sitting here thinking like, "This is like, honestly, by today's standards, this is too slow.
The jokes are not coming fast enough.
If this is supposed to be a funny scene, I could imagine people already getting disinterested by the time, 'cause I mean, by the time, the cop. - The cop, yeah.
He's like, "I need to go home and see what my wife's doing." - Like honestly, by today's audiences, the joke almost wouldn't land because you've already forgotten what came before because we're just not our attention spans.
Point is, I think it takes kind of growing up in your twenties and thirties and forties to watch this, especially man, that when he goes home with his family and he's holding, I think it's the youngest kid and he's just bawling.
And the kid is throwing a little tinsel on his head.
It's just like- - Growling at him behind the Santa Claus mask. - One of my favorite little jokes. (imitates dog barking) It's got a mask on.
But like, I put in my notes, it feels like Ecclesiastes. - Oh, I'm so glad you said that.
Keep going. - It just, it like the fact that, again, what I mentioned before, like Potter gets away and like you could easily, without the divine perspective, you could easily turn this movie into like the wicked man flourishes, he lives.
Like man, even though, yeah, Potter never dies.
Justice never comes, nothing bad ever comes to Potter.
And in fact, he gets $8,000 richer at the end of the movie.
Nothing bad happens.
And- - Which we looked up, it's about $130,000 in 2023 money. - Which is insane.
And he steals that, gets away with it.
Whereas George's dad, Peter, dies at the beginning of the movie of a heart attack.
I mean, later, I think was the uncle, Billy says like, "You probably drove him to his grave."
Like it could be so easy.
And I think that is exactly that Ecclesiastes mindset is where like George is in, during that crisis that he needs to be kind of taken out of.
He's just like, "Man, I think I did make a mistake.
It does seem like the wicked are flourishing.
It seems like Potter would made the right choice.
I think all my friends made the right choice.
I think Sam and Harry, everybody who made choices for themselves made the right choice.
I made the wrong choice because clearly the righteous, I've made righteous decisions.
I've been living for other people.
I've been trying to care for other people.
I've been sacrificing over and over and over again.
And it clearly isn't worth it.
Like, what do I have to show for this? - Yeah, yeah.
It's like, he's like he's stuck in a midlife crisis of just like totally regretting every single decision he's made.
You know, we have the stupid house.
Why do we have these kids?
You know, he's asking those questions out loud.
It's a very, yeah, like ecclesiastical tone.
And I think that to a modern audience that just feels dark, unnecessarily dark.
I don't know.
Maybe it's 2023, three years removed from the pandemic.
We just don't want to have to wrestle with those hard things.
We're looking for an escape.
We're looking for relief.
And this kind of forces you into a dark place.
And then out of it, with a different perspective, a divine perspective, maybe, I love the part.
The old man, when they're singing Buffalo Gal, they're leaving the dance.
He's like, "Oh, love is wasted on the youth."
Or whatever he says. - Youth is wasted on the wrong people. - Youth is wasted on the wrong people.
You know, he's like, "Kiss her already.
And you want me to kiss her.
I'll show you some kissing that'll put hair in your chest." (laughing) - This is also just a very funny movie. - Yeah, I mean, we were talking about them, these throwaway lines.
They're not like punches of dialogue.
It's just like, they're just like sprinkled throughout and they're super funny.
Let's talk about romance in the film.
In your YouTube feature, Link in the show notes, you said the romance is cheesy.
How do you say that? - I think one of the lines that I have, especially in mind, is when he's talking to Mary on the date where they kind of fall in love.
And he-- - Walking home from the dance?
Is that what you're talking about? - Walking home from the dance.
And he, it's the moon line.
He talks about how he's gonna last with the moon for her. - What's the moon for you? - He'll last up for the moon for you, which is very sweet.
And she puts it on the card, but then the line afterwards, which always gets me where he's like, and then she's like, "And what'll we do next with the moon?"
And he's like, "I'll feed it to you."
And it'll, you know, the moon beams will shoot out.
It'll just, oh, he says, "I'll feed it to you."
And then it'll dissolve and it'll shoot out.
The moon beams will shoot out of your hair and your fingertips.
And it's just like, the heck are you talking about, man?
And it's just, I think that in my mind is what I mean by cheesy.
Not in a negative connotation, but more in a very like, that's a dumb thing to say.
But when you're in love, you say dumb things. - Well, I think it's, you see George in a moment not living by his ideals or by his reason, but he's talking to somebody that he's attracted to.
I don't know if he loves her yet in this part of the film, but he's definitely like smitten by her.
There was something there that goes back to their childhood that ties them together.
So I would say, I would say when you're not reasoning, but you're loving, you say things like that.
And it doesn't feel cheesy in the moment. - Yes, and I think that is what I meant is, I was kind of saying cheesy romance, a little tongue in cheek, because I actually do love that line because it demonstrates, like if I was just to write a line for a character to say that's in love, that I wanted the audience to be like, oh, that's so, like it kind of has both because it has the last of the moon and that's like something you put on, I mean, she literally puts on a card.
That's a thing that you put on a Valentine card and it's like, oh, that's so nice.
And then they also add just kind of this very human.
That's what I think that's maybe, it feels very human that almost similar to, I think of, there's so many human moments in the movie, like what we said before, the kid with the Santa mask going, rar, rar, like that just, it just feels real.
It feels human and it feels like it wasn't, that's why I push against the whole sentimental picture of the movie is 'cause I'm like, sentimental makes me feel like it's unrealistic or inhuman, like almost like a veneer over the whole thing.
And I'm like, this movie does not have a veneer.
It has like some awkward moments and it has like just moments that you can, one of my other favorite ones is the very beginning when they're in the ice cream shop and Violet says, help me down.
And George says, help you down.
Help you down. (laughing) Just walks away.
Yeah, exactly.
It's just like, I feel like I'm watching real life.
It's real and it's human.
Yeah, I hope and long for every man to find a woman that looks at them like Mary looks at George.
The director does something interesting in this movie with eyes.
There's a number of shots where he's just locked in on her eyes and Donna Reed has captivating eyes.
And she just, the way she looks at George is she's just absolutely in love with him, even in his flaws.
And I think that's a beautiful thing.
Can we spend some time on Mary?
Mary?
Mary is like the just the glow.
She's at the library. (laughing) Mary is like the guiding light of this movie.
Like she is an amazing, like just a beacon of goodness.
She's grace.
And love.
Say more about that.
I'm as a Christian and as a consumer of books and movies and music, I'm always kind of like, I'm not necessarily trying to find a Christian message, but because I believe humans are always pulled between the in the tension of law and grace.
What I must do or what is somebody telling me to do versus what do I have freedom to do?
Where is their forgiveness?
When I do mess up and I don't meet the standard.
So just always looking for those things.
And she is embodied grace for George.
She's the one that, we don't see it, but George goes off and jumps off the bridge to save Clarence.
Mary is running around gathering people because she knows her husband's in trouble.
She tells her kids, yes, pray, pray, pray hard.
Something's wrong with dad.
Even when he comes after Harry's party and he's angry, but he's at Mary's house and Mary's like so excited to see him 'cause she's back from school.
He's a total jerk to her, but she continues to like draw him in.
And at the end of that scene right before they're married, she's looking at him with that smile, with those eyes and they're embracing and kissing.
He's making violent love to me. (laughing) Which is another one of those hilarious lines. - There's some passionate necking. - Yeah.
But anyways, yeah, you asked me to say more and I feel like I'm rambling now, but yeah, embodied grace is what I would say. - I feel like Mary is pretty much from the beginning of the movie where George needs to get to.
Like she has on her head this love of, 'cause George loves the people.
I think that's pretty evident throughout the movie is that George loves the people, he's selfless.
I mean, the first scene that we see him, he's sacrificing himself to jump into the lake to save his brother. - Oh yeah. - He loves people.
That's not really the issue. - I didn't think about that.
Him jumping in the lake to save his brother and then jumping into the river to save Clarence.
I've never made that connection just now. - I have wondered if, I mean, I think that's why Clarence knew, that's why he says, "I knew that if I jumped in the water, you would come and save me."
I have also, I haven't got anything on this yet, but I'm wondering if there's, maybe it's just repetition of the image, but the fact that on the night where they spend time with each other, they jump into the pool. - Yeah. - And I don't know if that's, I mean, I'm sure that one level is kind of coincidental.
I would be really curious to see if there's any, I don't know, thematic resonance there, because there's kind of just jumping into the water throughout the movies, throughout the movie.
But like George from the beginning is, I think demonstrating that he cares for other people and he's loving other people, but he doesn't, what is also established at the very beginning is, he wants to get out of here.
He says, "I'm gonna be a National Geographic Society member and I'm gonna have a couple harems and a few wives." - Maybe even a couple wives.
He wants to get out of here and that's established from the very beginning.
And I think Mary is a clear example of like, she both loves him, but also you see it in the wishes that they do when they throw the rocks at the house.
He wishes, "I wanna get out of here.
I wanna make skyscrapers and bridges and all these different things."
And she wishes-- - That his dad dies. - It was a very morbid wish.
She was like, "Exactly all the things that have happened.
This is what I wished for." - No, I'm kidding. - But she wishes to live in that house with him and have a family with him.
And obviously one of those two comes true, her wish comes true.
And it's like, I think it's just really interesting that from the beginning, she had the right priorities.
If the movie is kind of like trying to convince you to, yeah, have your priorities straight on what are you pursuing in life.
I don't think at any point Mary has the wrong priorities.
And then even at the bank rush scene, while I don't wanna take anything away from George, he's absolutely right on board with using their honeymoon money to save the town.
It's Mary's idea.
He's kind of scrambling, trying to figure out, trying to convince people not to run away from the building and loan.
And then she's the one that pulls out the cash from the purse and says, "We've got money, let's give it."
And I don't know, just all, and like what you said, where when he's off trying to maybe potentially suicide 'cause he doesn't know what to do, she's the one that's like, "All right, let's get this done.
Let's go and gather around the people."
And yeah, I know that not one person has $8,000, but surely we can get around the community together and help out.
When she, on their honeymoon, builds out the whole house to be where they were going.
And their friends are outside singing in the rain.
And it's not what George dreamed of, but it was what they had.
And so she, yeah, she's just always working to give George what he, I don't know, longs for.
But the tension in the movie is it's not what necessarily he's always wanting, you know, until the end. - I also, one of the things I caught, that again, I was just kind of like, "Oh man, they're really, this is what I'm talking about where this movie is just so well made.
They just know what the movie is about.
And they just weave it throughout the whole thing.
Where even in that scene where there's on the wedding night, the honeymoon, and she's prepared all the food and everything, they're putting up outside.
This is less about Mary, but just on the, what they're filling the, what do you call it, the window curtains or whatever, the window panes with our posters of, they say, it's places that George wants to be.
And I just, I don't know, I struck me this time that I'm like, it's so interesting that they even added that detail in the movie of like in his honeymoon at potentially like this time when he has quite literally given up all that stuff that he wanted.
Now he's living in the house with a wife that he had said that he didn't want.
And when he's looking out the windows, he sees this life that he said that he wanted.
And then he still does kind of want his longing for.
I don't know, I just, it's stuff like that, that makes me think that this movie is a step above your average Christmas movie.
I'm like, man, they are just, every chance they get, they're weaving these themes into the story to just constantly be hammering home.
I mean, I was taking notes on just in that first, I don't know, hour or so, how much, how often George is in the act of serving somebody is then getting hurt. - Yeah. - Like I wrote down, I mean, like I said, the very first scene, he loses his hearing because he went and saved Harry. - Yep. - And then the next scene, he gets beaten by the pharmacist because he refused to go deliver the pills.
And then his dad dies and he can't go to college. - Hmm. - No, his dad dies and he stays for, he misses his like international trip. - Right. - To kind of organize what happens to the building alone afterwards. - While his brother goes to college. - While his brother does.
And then he also then agrees, yep, I will also not go to college to stay with the building alone, so it doesn't get dissolved.
And then later he misses his honeymoon because he uses all the money for saving the town.
And then even later at the very end, he gives money to Violet and that gets turned on him as like rumors that he's sleeping with her. - Right. - Like over and over and over and over again, from the very beginning of this movie, it's establishing this is a guy who is willing to sacrifice and his life is I'm sacrificing and giving to others.
And that is consistently like coming back on me.
It's constantly like, I'm not gaining anything from this. - Yeah, and that I would say if there's anything with the movie that I've struggled with is the idea.
Because I think that what you just said is true.
When you sacrifice, you lose something.
So when you sacrifice something for a relationship or for whatever the reason, whatever the scenario, that's why it's called a sacrifice.
You're laying it on the altar and you're losing something.
At the end of the movie, he gets everything and maybe questionably even more.
He has the people, but he gets a basket of money and deliver it to him.
The idea that if you do something good, it will come back to you. - Oh, almost like karma or something. - Yeah, that's always kind of bothered me because life isn't that way.
I would say from our Christian worldview perspective, from theology and from what we know in the scriptures, yes, there are blessings and promises for the righteous, for those that place their faith and trust in Christ.
But in this life, just because you do good things for your neighbor doesn't necessarily mean your neighbors are gonna show up on Christmas Eve and do a bunch of good things for you.
I think living with that expectation even draws you into deeper discouragement and despair if you're kind of embittered at the fact that you've sacrificed a lot for other people. - Yeah, well, but I do think that while at the end they do shower him with money, I don't think that's when the catharsis starts.
I think it starts, he's already had a change perspective before he got something back from all that he gave because he runs into the house and he says, you know, the one, I think it's a cop or whatever, the sheriff says, "I've got a paper for you."
And he's like, "I bet it's a warrant for my arrest.
I'm going to prison, isn't it wonderful?"
He is perfectly capable.
He has accepted the fact that like, even if I go to jail, it is better to live. - There could be consequences here for me losing the $8,000. - Yes, yes.
It kind of feels like Job, to use another book of the Bible, of like, in the end, I don't think you're supposed to take, the book of Job is a righteous man who then, Satan kind of takes all the good things of his life away and then he suffers and it's kind of this test to see how is he going to respond.
But then in the end, God blesses him and kind of Job receives, you know, all the wealth and all the kids and everything kind of come back.
And I don't think in that, in like the book of Job, the point is, see like, look, Job got more than what he had before, therefore it's good to be righteous 'cause that this is the promise, is you're going to get something good at the end.
Like that's actually pretty, like that's the antithesis of what all of Job is about.
Like if you're going into, if you're leaving Job and you're thinking, yeah, the point of the book is, I should be good to get good.
Like what book did you read?
That's the entire book is against that.
But it adds like at the end, he gets those things.
And I think both in Job and it's a wonderful life, it feels like that's almost more to give you catharsis as the viewer of like, I do feel good about how this ending was.
'Cause you know, admit it, if it's a wonderful life ended with him going to prison, that would be pretty depressing.
That'd be, I don't think I would watch it every year.
Like it would still be like, the message would still be powerful, but just, I don't want to turn that off and then go to sleep for on Christmas Eve night.
You know, like I think there is a way that they're getting you to feel how he feels by making this situation.
And also I mean, what it's saying about community and the way that, yeah, it kind of can turn into a little bit of a karma.
Well, I've poured into these people, so now they got to pay me back.
But that I think could also be a very cynical way of looking at it. - And I'm a cynical person.
And that's what happens in my mind sometimes.
So let's end on this note.
When did you realize that Frank Capra wasn't Francis Coppola who directed "Godfather"? - Really, really late.
I found out that this movie was directed by Frank Capra.
And I thought Frank, that's probably short for Francis.
Capra, that kind of sounds Italian.
And I thought this was directed by the same person that made "Godfather" and "Apocalypse Now."
And I thought this movie must be a masterpiece.
And then I analyzed it like it was a masterpiece.
And then only after I analyzed it did I find out, wait a second, this is just a normal guy.
This is just Frank Capra. - Two different dudes. - And you know what?
And I'm totally fine with that because it allowed me to go in with a really, not even critical, but like an eye to look at like, well, man, if the greatest filmmaker ever made this movie, then it must be amazing.
And I still think it is.
I still think this is an amazing movie. - Well, I encourage you to watch Travis's video.
Like I said, the link will be in the show notes.
And if you haven't watched "It's a Wonderful Life," do it.
The world needs to know that "It's a Wonderful Life" is a movie worth watching year after year after year, and even in February, when maybe it's not Christmas time.
Travis, thanks for joining me today. - Thanks for having me. - Yeah, of course.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
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