Rush 4: The Pottersville Mob, and the Perambulators of Bedford Falls

As, "It's a Wonderful Life" is a film which is about the individual's impact on the community, it only makes sense that we would see said community represented onscreen. And indeed, "It's a Wonderful Life's" scene's are packed with extras. Except for a few private spaces in the film (George's home; George's few moments of introspection on the bridge; etc), the principal characters are always accompanied by secondary characters, or nameless extras. 

Were one to chart the blocking of these extras, one would see that they are blocked one of two ways in each scene: There are perambulators (extras who are milling about on warm summer evenings, or those who are going about their business in an orderly fashion, whether their business is getting a drink at Martinis, or filling out a deposit form at the bank); Then, there is the crowd extras. These extras push and undulate, leaving little to no room between each other and sometimes the principal characters. 

The contrast between these two blockings can be seen very clearly when contrasting the two bar scenes. At Martini's bar in Bedford falls, extras remain seated around tables, and there is clear and orderly floor space in the bar. At the parallel bar in Pottersville, "Nick's," the extras crowd and jostle for space. This same crowding can be seen elsewhere in Pottersville: In the neon-lit main drag we see crowd after crowd pushing to get into strip clubs and dance halls. 

To the extent that Bedford Falls stands for middle-class American values, and Pottersville stands for seedy economic corruption, we can extrapolate the film's value judgement onto these two blockings. The orderly walkers are good; the mobs are bad. Indeed, the Pottersville crowds have two antecedents: There is the run on the bank, then there is the Martini's family during their move, and the opening of their new house. The mob at the bank run represents a low point for the life of George, and an allusion to the possibility of the seedy mobs of Pottersville. George, however, tames the mob, and by the end of the scene they have begun a line to orderly collect a small sum of money. Martini's family, in what seems to be a xenophobic move on the part of the film makers, during their move allude to teeming masses outside the value system of the middle class Bedford Falls. Their crowded multitude is once again brought under control by George's establishment of the family as middle class home buyers. 

From these contrasts, we can see that the most of film, "It's a Wonderful Life" is saying in no uncertain terms that the mob is a threat, and order and individualism are good. However, the very last scene of the movie does trouble this thesis in a way which might redeem the film from simply being a polemic to American Individualism: In the end, George is saved by a mob of people who shower him with money. The mob in this case is not something to be contained or controlled, but rather a benevolent force greater than the will of the single individual.

Rush Three: Short Circuit

Mistaken identity has long been used to comedic effect. ("The Comedy Of Errors," "Twelfth Night," "The Parent Trap"). We can easily map this confusion of identities onto Freud's notion that wit occurs when two separate concepts are "short-circuited" or when two concepts are expressed as similar, as when a pun links different meanings via the sound of a word. In mistaken identity comedies we "short-circuit" all difference associated with an individual psyche to conflate two people on the basis of their appearance.

Freud goes on to differentiate between "good" witticisms made in this manner (those that evoke a similarity or contrast between the underlying concepts being evoked) and "bad" (witticism that do not grant us any insight other than a superficial similarity between the two concepts evoked). The ultimate scene of "The Great Dictator" by Charlie Chaplin clearly falls into the former category. In this scene, the Jewish barber is confused for the dictator of "Tomainia," entirely on the basis of his appearance. However, he exploits this confusion to give a speech espousing peace. The "short-circuit" here functions as a "good" one under Freud's taxonomy -- it highlights the absurdity of following the whims of one demagogue as the Tomainian (or German people had done), especially when said demagogue is fickle and can be replaced on the basis of appearance. Furthermore, the short circuit allows us to imagine that peace and war are equally viable possibilities depending on the whims of the man at the podium.

This rush sees itself on the street and feels afraid

According to many folk traditions, to see one's double, or doppelgänger is to see one's death. The unease felt by encountering a doppelgänger is captured especially poignantly in F. W. Murnau's "The Last Man."   Encountering one's uncanny double is lent a capitalist context, in the scene where the film's protagonist sees an unknown man wearing his same uniform -- the doorman's uniform -- in the revolving door at the entrance of the hotel.

Though the two men are drastically different, physically (the protagonist is old, fat, and bent, the new man is young, lean, and virile), the audience immediately understand the doubling owing to the simple fact that both characters are wearing the same hat and coat.  And indeed, encountering this double does portend a symbolic death for our protagonist. This man takes over his job, and thus his station in life.

The revolving door is important, also. Murnau's innovative camera techniques allows this moment to slow down; we are inside the door itself, and each pace is felt as we see the protagonist seeing himself. This exaggerated slowness of movement emphasizes what is otherwise (and elsewhere in the film) an everyday and rather quick action -- the passage of people inside a revolving door. And of course, capitalism depends on just such everyday revolutions: the old worker is replaced by the young, and the business survives unchanged. To the individual, however, this changing of the guard can mean death. Were it not for the author's unrealistic intervention at the end of the film, our protagonist would die a broken man.

In addition to the uncanny doubling, the film offers us a more optimistic form of recognizing oneself in others as well. At the end of the film, when the protagonist lucks in to inordinate wealth, he hands it out freely to the night watchmen, as well as tipping other porters outside the hotel. In the very last scene, he invites a previously unseen tramp to ride in his carriage with him, even though the doorman attempts to shove the tramp away. In this scene, the doorman represents the disdain the wealthy have for the poor. However, rather than internalize this disdain himself, the protagonist recognizes the tramp as another human being. In contrast to the moment of recognition inside the revolving door, this moment is a call for empathy. The prior, cold and separated by glass, the former, warm and whimsical.