Gary Puckett appearing at the Osquake Casino, Pottersville

Yet another great analysis of It's A Wonderful Life in the New York Times yesterday. It seems as if the troubles we're currently experiencing is making Frank Capra's simple little Christmas movie into something prescient and instructive.

If you've ever paid any attention to art, you'll understand that poets, musicians, painters, novelists, playwrights and yes, filmmakers are at least as good as scientists in predicting what the future holds. The imaginative ability of artists to see the detail within the big picture, and to synthesize and create a new world, is what makes them so good at envisioning where a political movement will take us, or how an economic policy will fail us.

Anyway, Wendell Jamieson gives us his take on It's A Wonderful Life, and the way he sees it as an essentially dark, but redemptive tale.

His most amusing analysis is that Pottersville (the town Bedford Falls would become if George Bailey never lived), seems like more fun than Bedford Falls, and would have been, eventually, more prosperous as Pottersville.

In Jamieson's analysis of the movie, he points out the inconsistencies, and anachronisms. The one thing that always struck me as funny/weird/politically incorrect, is when George Bailey, running through Pottersville, is searching for the woman who would become his wife (Donna Reed as Mary Hatch), and Clarence the angel tells him, in horror, that he can find her at the library. Yes, she is unmarried, an "old maid," and, God help us, a librarian.

Escape from Pottersville

I make films for a living and teach a film course at Trinity College, and I'm often asked what my favorite film is.

Often I feel a prisoner of my own maudlin sentimentality when I tell a very hip student, or some cynical adult that my favorite film is Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life.

Most people are polite, but I'm sensitive about my choice, and I can pick up on even the slightest hint of a raised eyebrow, a dismissive clearing of the throat, or a bemused smile.

But, dammit, it really is my favorite movie, and a good one.

Dismissed frequently as "Capra-corn" it's a redemptive story which deals with the protagonist's slide from anger and depression (internal and external), and up to a thwarted suicide attempt. The reversal pivots on the appearance of an angel, a trip into the future (undoubtedly a lift from Dickens), and the ensuing transformation of perspective for our hero, George Bailey.

While thousands of DVD copies of this classic are sold every Christmas, and NBC hosts an annual broadcast (Saturday December 13, 9 pm EST) it's not, simply, a saccharine holiday movie. It has a complex structure which plays with the notion of time, a twisting plot, a legitimately great script (Capra with Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett), and wonderful acting. In fact, I still think it's the best, most complex role that Jimmy Stewart ever played.

Capra's archives are housed at Wesleyan University, where they were the first to be acquired by the legendary creator of the film studies program Jeannine Basinger, who wrote a devotional to the film called The It's a Wonderful Life Book. I'm sure it's been done, but I'd love to see Basinger present the film at the Goldsmith Family Cinema on Wesleyan's campus some December.

At this point in my life, I'm happy to admit that I find it impossible to remain dry-eyed as I'm sucked into the film's themes of family, community, generosity and caring. But I am just as happy to be legitimized by The New York Times film critic, A.O. Scott's recent reassessment of the film.

It's a wonderful filibuster

(update below)

This time of year the favorite Frank Capra film of many, who are not too cynical to enjoy Frank Capra films, is It's A Wonderful Life. Today, his Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, may be more appropriate as Chris Dodd stands to filibuster the FISA bill allowed on the floor by the spineless leader Harry Reid (whom BTW, after announcing he would allow the version of the bill with telecom immunity on the floor, relented, after his office was firestormed by constituent calls, and has now allowed both versions on the floor - typical of Reid, who doesn't have the backbone of an annelid). Dodd has some support, albeit little, from a brave pack of Senators, the usual suspects, who respect the Constitution.

Could this be Chris Dodd's finest hour?

Here in Connecticut, we know how our Senators will vote. One is leading the filibuster, the other is a Republican in Indydem clothing (that would be Creepy Joe Lieberman, who betrayed his party once again today by endorsing a Republican for President), who will undoubtably oppose the legislation because it doesn't support his obsession with annihilating Islamofascists.

Everyone else should be on the phone calling their senators to urge their support for the filibuster. Those phone calls do work. Look how it changed the mind of Ruf Tuf Harry Reid.

(update) Great debate going on in the Senate here.

When is a story not a story?

For those of you who don't know, the silos filled with Capra-corn, are just down the street from me in Middletown.

There in the Wesleyan film archives, you can find all of Frank Capra's papers and films, from a storied career. All thanks to Jeannine Basinger, head of the film archives, and who happens to have a brand new book on the shelves. It was Basinger who convinced Capra to donate is archives, to kick start the Wesleyan film archives. Of course, the film program which grew out of it, and created Hollywood's "Wesleyan mafia" is all due to Basinger's dogged persistence and love of film.

Why do I bring this up?

Well, Capra recognized a good story when he heard one (a man tries to commit suicide, then gets to see what the world would look like without him; an assertive female reporter convinces a down-and-outer to pretend he will commit suicide to protest social ills, creating a new political movement, and of course she falls in love with him; a boy scout leader is convinced to run for the Senate because the political bosses think they can control him, when in fact, they can't). He would have recognized the power in the Chris Dodd story ( a man making a quixotic run for president on principle, stands up to a corrupt President and an ineffectual Senate by putting his reputation on hold to block some horrifying legislation).

Dodd, a presidential candidate, is calling in his Senate chits by putting a hold on the FISA bill which he feels threatens the constitution and democratic liberties. What's at risk? His opponents will call him weak on terror. His allies won't have the courage to stand with him. The public might adore him.

Only problem - the press is ignoring the story.

Chris Dodd as Jimmy Stewart

Now, you're not gonna have a country that makes these kinds of rules work, if you haven't got men who've learned to tell human rights from a punch in the nose.

- Jefferson Smith's thoughts on the Constitution during his famous filibuster in Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

It appears that the Senate Intelligence Committee is about to bend to the wishes of the Bush Administration, and the fears of being labelled "soft of terror" by delivering a FISA bill with everything the power-hungry administration had hoped for, including immunity from lawsuits for telecom companies who spied on Americans, illegally.

But is there a hero in the wings?

Chris Dodd needs a springboard for his presidential run. He needs to do something brave, something controversial. As firedoglake points out, he's got the credibility, putting the Constitution at the center of his campaign, and as Senator, he has a power to put a "hold" on the bill.

We in Connecticut need to urge him to do so. Give him a call and ask him to live up to the spirit of his father portrayed in the book Chris just released.

U.S. Senator Chris Dodd
448 Russell Building | Washington D.C., 20510
Tel: (202) 224-2823 | Fax: (202) 224-1083