I can't sleep. The year draws to a close.
Recently I bought a copy of Elliott Smith's Figure 8. I can't remember all the song titles, but there's one with the lyric, "I've got a long way to go/And getting further away". Actually, I think the song is called something like, Maybe I Should be Quiet Now. I certainly know the feeling – the feeling that anything I say now will only dig me further into my hole, so I should just shut up and hope that one day, one fine and distant day, I can live things down, pay off my debt, etcetera.
I have become a stranger to myself.
This evening I watched It's a Wonderful Life. It was on my Christmas list, but I was actually a little afraid to watch it. I thought that I might have misremembered it and find it, upon second (third?) viewing, unbearably sugary and sentimental. This fear reared its head as the film began, and some celestial coves up in the cosmos started talking to an apprentice angel called Clarence about his mission to save one George Bailey. One of the voices sounded a little bit too much like the patronising narrator of a fifties public information film. However, it really was not too long at all before I forgot my fears and simply got caught up once more in the film, which contains some fascinating details, into which I shall not go at this moment in time.
Now, if ever someone was going to commit suicide and turned to me for help, I think I'd say to them, "Well, why don't you sit down and watch It's a Wonderful Life with me?" It's true there's a lot of stuff about angels and praying and so on in it, which might be off-putting to some, but the heart of the story is more effectively life-affirming than any other single piece of art that I can think of right now. Besides which, I think I'm pretty useless at cheering people up myself, so it's always good to have something like this – ready made, so to speak – near at hand.
Now, as I said, I think you can ignore the fluff about angels without really losing the heart of this film, which is the idea of what a single person contributes to the lives of others, and the world in general, without even knowing. I won't give a long synopsis, but our hero, George Bailey, gets into financial trouble, an angel called Clarence saves him just as he's about to jump off a bridge, he then wishes he had never been born, and Clarence grants this wish. George gets to see the world as it would have been – or is, if you're into parallel universe theory – without him. He then realises just how rich and wonderful his life, which he had considered a failure, really is. This whole sequence, from the suicide attempt, through his horrified exploration of the world in which he'd never been born, to his ecstatic reinstatement in the world, is so skillfully done it has the power of some kind of mystical hallucination.
I really can't think of a better 'quick fix' for anyone who's feeling like opening their veins.
I only really have one significant problem with the film, and that is the problem of Evil. For there is conspicuous in this film the old Christian paradigm of Good and Evil.
George Bailey, our hero, is manifestly good.
He struggles to give the townsfolk good homes, and sacrifices his own desires many times in order to achieve this.
Mr Potter, the villain, is manifestly evil.
He hates people and they hate him. This tyrannical slum-landlord cares only about making money and increasing his own power.
What would have happened if the film had been made from the point of view of Mr Potter? Would he have been shown, after wishing he had never been born, a world in which everyone was happier for his not being there? Should the title of the film be, then, "It's a Wonderful Life, as Long as You're Not Like Mr Potter"? Because, as any student of religious philosophy will tell you in a trice, if Mr Potter is simply damned then his damnation creates a permanent blot upon creation itself, and life becomes, well, a little less wonderful.
And what if our viewer, hoping for life-affirmation, finds that he is closer to Mr Potter than George Bailey?
What if I look back on a life of weakness, selfishness and cowardice, rather than one of fortitude, selflessness and courage? What if, when I think of the effect my life has had upon others, I see the faces of those who shed tears – and not of joy – on my account? What if I see a sorrowful influence in all I said and did, which imparted sorrow to the lives of those around me?
What kind of things would I discover, I wonder, in the world in which I had never been born?
Because, the truth be told, I do feel rather like George Bailey's description of Mr Potter. How did it go? In the great scheme of things you're nothing more than a scurvy spider spinning your webs. Something like that.
what can i say… “What if I look back on a life of weakness, selfishness and cowardice, rather than one of fortitude, selflessness and courage? What if, when I think of the effect my life has had upon others, I see the faces of those who shed tears – and not of joy – on my account? What if I see a sorrowful influence in all I said and did, which imparted sorrow to the lives of those around me?”yes, it seems to be a time for reflecting upon our life…
these words above ring so true… yet, so many people are seriously hurt by such fantasies…
“these words above ring so true… yet, so many people are seriously hurt by such fantasies…”Yes, they ring true to me, too, and they seem like a possible key to something that I’ve been struggling with for a while, and which looks like being the subject matter of my next story, which deals with the pain of seeing those fantasies disintegrate. I don’t know if I can bring myself to write it, though, because, of all subjects on Earth, it seems to me the most painful. I think there are one or two songs that manage to capture that feeling – a really quite unbearable feeling it is. There’s I Know It’s Over by The Smiths, for instance, which is one of the most heart-rending things I’ve ever heard:”I know it’s overAnd it never really beganBut in my heart it was SO REAL.”Then there’s the repeated line at the end:”Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head.”Because the loss of such fantasies always connects us to death. It is absolutely as if someone has died.That song is composed of nothing but breath-taking lines, such as:”It’s so easy to laugh, it’s so easy to hateIt takes guts to be gentle and kind.”I’ve never heard a more poignant description of the tragedy of growing apart from the one person in the world you never wanted to grow apart from, desperately trying to put gentleness first, but finding the instinct to hate encroaching all the time to cover over what once was and take you out from the enchanted world of love back to sordid reality where everyone is laughing and hating.And for the very moment when you say goodbye to each other, wishing that you could prolong things just a minute more, a minute more, or reverse this decline entirely:”Love is Natural and RealBut not for such as you and I, my love.”Even love songs that are meant to celebrate love rather than mourn for it have that unbearable tremulous quality about them (if they’re well done) that fills me with fear. For instance:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9j4hYzY6ckNotice how, before the song, Elliott Smith asks the audience if they want a happy song or a sad song. Someone shouts back, “What’s the difference?” Someone else shouts, “You can’t have one without the other.”I think they get something appropriate.God help me.
Hello. I think I reflect too much. I’ve pretty much lost myself in a hall of mirrors by now. Still, not sure what else to do on a lonely afternoon/evening when I’ve exhausted myself writing and there’s nothing on television and I can’t phone anyone because they’re all out somewhere having fun, or having breakdowns or something.Anyway, here’s a quote I found recently, apparently from a book called The Dice Man or something. I want to reflect on it, so I thought I’d put it here for safekeeping:’Honesty and frankness?’ Dr Rhinehart said. ‘Jesus! They’re the worst possible things in normal human relations. “Do you really love me?”: this absurd question, so typical of our diseased minds, should always be answered, “My God, NO!” or “More than mere reality is my love; it is imaginary.” The more someone tries to be honest and authentic, the more he’s going to be blocked and inhibited. The question “How do you really feel about me?” ought always to be answered with a belt in the teeth. But if someone were asked: “Tell me fantastically and imaginatively how you feel about me,” he’d be free from that neurotic demand for unity and truth. He could express any of his conflicting selves – one at a time of course. He’d be able to play each role to the hilt. He’d be at one with his schizophrenia.”
Hi Quentin (forgive the length of this comment);I haven’t watched “It’s A Wonderful Life” in years, as I’ve watched it too often as a child. It’s right up there with “Miracle on 34th St.”, “A Christmas Carol” and “Bells of St. Mary’s” with having been watched too much, but I will agree with you, there’s a fundamental uplift in the story that occurs when George begins to see what his life has meant to everyone around him, usually in ways he hasn’t guessed. I have come to feel sorry for Mr. Potter (perhaps it’s just a soft spot I have for Lionel Barrymore) and, though I haven’t seen the movie in a while, I seem to remember a certain expression of grief on his face as his petty, selfish little soul is shown for what it is by George’s final dressing-down scene. Would it have been a better film–more Dickensian, perhaps–if Capra had a last scene where Potter comes to his senses, a la Scrooge, and makes what he can of what little time he has left to do good, to love other people, and to be kind? If it had shown we’re all of us capable of redemption, perhaps?It is in the treatment of Mr. Potter that the movie fails, as you have said. It is successful in showing us how wonderful our lives can be (and probably are, if we just step back and shut off that nasty little voice in our heads telling us how rotten and worthless we are). There’s an incredibly sappy song by Jackson Browne that nevertheless moves me to silence, if not tears, every time I hear it. It’s called “For a Dancer”:Keep a fire for the human raceLet your prayers go drifting into spaceYou never know what will be coming downPerhaps a better world is drawing nearAnd just as easily it could all disappearAlong with whatever meaning you might have foundDont let the uncertainty turn you around(the world keeps turning around and around)Go on and make a joyful soundInto a dancer you have grownFrom a seed somebody else has thrownGo on ahead and throw some seeds of your ownAnd somewhere between the time you arriveAnd the time you goMay lie a reason you were aliveBut you’ll never knowIt’s that last line that usually gets me. I’ve spent much time myself wondering why I’m here, if I’m any use at all, and if the world would miss me if I weren’t here. Over time I received an answer, but I had to hit bottom to do it–and I’m not at all sure that it was truly ‘bottom’, that there aren’t any lower depths to plumb. The answer wasn’t really comforting or Capra-esque; of course the world wouldn’t miss me much, one way or the other. At best, I’d rate an obituary and a few shed tears, but life would go on as it always does. The only person who would be really missing out would be me. The thought occurred to me: if it doesn’t matter all that much in the long run of things, then why not stick around and see what happens?This somehow fits in with your wonderful post on hypocrisy, though I haven’t quite figured out the connection yet. There’s an irony here–though a painful one; the joke’s on us, and I haven’t quite puzzled out the punchline. I’m not saying we ought make the best of things while were here–though there’s worse things–or perhaps I’m affected by a certain obstinance. Somewere along the line I realized a pitiful truism; life’s short, and indeed we’re all going to die, and if that’s the case, I’m not rushing things. It’s not always easy, but I’d rather thumb my nose at darkness–I’m talking the true dark, not just gothic trappings or artifice, which are the amethyst shadow of beauty. I’d rather go down laughing. Gather ye roses while ye may, and all that nonsense. If it’s true that life is short, bloody and brutal, it’s also true that life is beautiful–though it’s a dangerous beauty–and I choose both truths, to be aware of the dark void off my left hand and the vicious garden on my right, and show Despair only my contempt. If I can.Sorry to natter on. Happy New Year and all. Looking at the above I fear I’m not so good at cheering up people, either–or being very clear. Bother.M
Happy New Year! Quentin! :hat:
Hello Melissa.Thank you very much for your comment. I’m glad you’ve found so much to comment on. I suppose my basic position is that I want to be life-affirming (maybe I’m fooling myself here, since most of what I write seems to come out rather downbeat), but I have a regard for what the existentialists called ‘good faith’. In other words, you should be true to yourself. I believe Thomas Hardy expressed the idea that, in literature you should paint things neither worse nor better than they appear to you, and, I think that’s pretty much what I do, although there’s always a certain amount of imprecision involved in these things. Life, it seems to me, is composed of nothing but ambiguities.I have an urge, for instance, to present the world with the kind of uplifting message expressed so well by William Blake. However, if I am allowed to present myself in a rather grandiose way, I think, for whatever reason, I am more like the (rather unlikely) lovechild of some grotesque hypothetical coupling of William Blake and H.P. Lovecraft. I can’t say the words, for instance, “He who mocks the infant’s faith/Is mocked himself in age and death” and really mean them, though I can admire them as written by William Blake. So, for better or worse, I have to say the words that I can really mean, or as close as I can get, and, in this connection, my own version of ‘good faith’ includes an acknowledgment of the fact that I am not – like most existentialists and so on – an atheist. I’m just not. It would be bad faith to suggest that I am. Whatever my existence is, it seems to include an irreducible mystical something that revolves around the idea of a kind of ‘magical’ meaning to life. That, though I can question it, and do, I cannot deny.I hope this is not an altogether irrelvant response to your comments.And Happy New Year.
“I am more like the (rather unlikely) lovechild of some grotesque hypothetical coupling of William Blake and H.P. Lovecraft.”I vote this the best sentence of the year :)I think I know what you mean, though.
“Happy New Year! Quentin!”Thank you. And Happy New Year to you!”I vote this the best sentence of the year”Ha ha (I know that’s typed but it’s genuine not ironic laughter). Thanks. Actually, I looked at myself in the mirror just now and began to wonder, I think I really could be. Could it have actually happened like that? Hmmm.
😀