Today, I have mostly been listening to Christmas with the Rat Pack, inspired by the festivity of last night. Film Club opted for classic over controversial as we settled into David's lounge to laugh and cry (or pretended to have something in our eye) at It's a Wonderful Life.
I've watched it many times but I'm always struck afresh by elements I've previously overlooked...
I often think our reaction to a film (this one in particular) reveals more about us than the film itself. Discussion topics ranged from innocence to sacrifice, community to integrity; each person struck by something different. It's a wonderful life subtly handles many potentially cheesy subjects with dignity, humour and compassion. (I would summarise the film but I'm assuming most people have seen it. If you haven't then buy a copy, it's essential Christmas viewing, especially for the depressed.)
It was really moving when Dan said he was welling up watching George return home to his children. Now he's a Father himself, it meant something more to him. The scene I found stayed with me was between Clarence and George. George has been granted his wish to experience a world where he was never born and finds it a miserable place, Clarence turns to George and says...
"Strange isn't it? Each man's life touches another life. When he's not there he leaves an awful hole."
It reminded me of The Five People You Meet in Heaven that concludes by saying...
"Five people waiting in a line, waiting, in five chosen memories, for a little girl called Amy or Annie to grow and to love and to age and to die, and to finally have her questions answered - why she lived and what she lived for. And in that line was a whiskered old man, with a linen cap and a crooked nose, who waited in a place called the Stardust Bandshell to share his part of the secret of Heaven: that each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one." (Pg.208)
Maybe because I've been thinking about this already but I think the thing I've taken home is how we affect the people around us here and now. There is so much power in the present. How we interact, how we treat people, the decisions we make and the things we give our life to affect people around us. What is my story and how does it thread through the life of my community?