Sorrow and Joy in Christmas Movies

The sorrow and pleasure that mark Advent and Christmastide, respectively, are current in each nice Christmas film.

I like Christmas motion pictures. I significantly like Christmas TV specials, particularly these made earlier than I used to be born—The Little Drummer Boy, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Year Without a Santa Claus, and the remainder of the Rankin-Bass claymation shorts make me nostalgic for a previous I’m too younger to have identified.

Most of the brand new Christmas specials are horrible. Some of that may be a product of the Bechdel check and the quota-minding spirit that evokes shallow and insipid plot traces. Much of the issue with the brand new flicks, nonetheless, is their soppy and saccharine character. The finest Christmas motion pictures—those we watch yearly—are centered across the truth of human struggling, even when they’re punctuated with moments of pleasure.

It’s a Wonderful Life is my favourite film and, objectively, the most effective full-length Christmas movie ever made. It’s usually known as a movie concerning the “triumph of the human spirit,” a testomony to the worth of human life, and a reminder that—as Clarence writes to George Bailey on the movie’s conclusion—”No man is a failure who has associates.” It is all of these issues, however, extra, it’s certainly one of American cinema’s most stinging and enduring portraits of despair.

It is unattainable to not root for George Bailey. Time and once more all through the movie he units apart consolation and ambition for what he perceives because the widespread good. As a boy, he dives right into a frozen pond to rescue his brother from drowning. He prevents his grieving boss from killing himself and is crushed for the hassle. George witnesses the miserly Mr. Potter harangue his father and barges in to defend his father’s honor. He forgoes his dream to construct cities and journey the world when his late father’s financial institution is threatened by Potter, staying residence to man the city that raised him. Years later, on his marriage ceremony day, George flees his impending honeymoon and dashes by way of the rain to climate a financial institution run, saving the working poor of Bedford Falls from Potter’s snares.

How is George Bailey repaid? His careless affiliate on the Bailey Building and Loan squanders $8,000, exposing George to monetary destroy, scandal, and jail time. The man who gave up all the pieces he needed and picked up his cross, fulfilling his duties to household and place, faces destroy and humiliation for the fault—in fact—of one other man.

He comes residence to his household, who’re stirring about in preparation for the approaching Christmas social gathering. Streamers are strewn concerning the banisters, tinsel draped throughout the tree. George’s daughter Janie performs a turgid rendition of “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” getting ready for a Christmas live performance. The cacophony of Janie’s piano-playing, scattered yelps from the boys, the hustle and bustle all through the home, and a ringing phone grow to be an excessive amount of for George to bear. He tears down the toy-train set, which thunders to the bottom beneath his ft. He tears and rips the decorations off the partitions with fury. The piano stops and the kids look on, crying as their father unravels. George stops, and turns round in silence. He faces his crying youngsters and his surprised spouse. His look of ache laced with remorse is certainly one of Twentieth-century movie’s best vignettes.

George considers suicide, however is saved by a guardian angel, Clarence, who exhibits him what life would have been like had he by no means been born. The ending is joyous—a refrain of townsfolk pay George’s debt and escape in tune. It is sufficient to make a person cry. But the enjoyment of the ending is barely made attainable by the despair that preceded it.

The finest animated Christmas particular—A Charlie Brown Christmas—is equally melancholic. When you watch the 30-minute particular, what stands out most is the gravity of the subject material relative to its juvenile, almost-goofy aesthetic. From the get-go, Charlie Brown is depressed, and feels Christmas has been corrupted, commercialized, and stripped of its important content material. He is aware of with certainty that one thing important to Christmas has been misplaced. “I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus. Christmas is coming, but I’m not happy. I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to feel.”

He sees his friend-cum-armchair-psychiatrist Lucy, and says he’s in “sad shape.” She offers him no treatment, save an invite to direct the Christmas play.

Everyone round Charlie Brown is joyous, consumed by the pomp and festivities of the season. They revel in lights competitions and aluminum Christmas bushes. They dance thoughtlessly to jazz music, request wads of money in their letters to Santa, and appear unencumbered by Charlie’s existential disaster, solely furthering his grief. Eventually, overcome with emotion, Charlie Brown instructions the stage of the Christmas play and asks, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?”

Linus takes the microphone and reads from the Gospel of Luke:

And there have been in the identical nation shepherds abiding in the sector, conserving watch over their flock by night time. And lo, the angel of the Lord came across them, and the glory of the Lord shone spherical about them: and they had been sore afraid. And the angel stated unto them, ‘Fear not: for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’ And instantly there was with the angel a mess of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.’”

Linus places the microphone down, and walks back. “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

The sorrow and pleasure that mark Advent and Christmastide, respectively, are current in each nice Christmas film. Both movies are trudging, sorrowful journeys, interrupted at their conclusions by moments of pleasure. Advent is a penitential interval, a time to mirror on our mortality and put together for the Parousia. Christmastide is celebratory—the long-awaited beginning of the Kyrios, the rending of historical past in two, the Divine entrance into area and time. A trudging, sorrowful journey, interrupted at its conclusion by a second of Joy.