Cinematic Doctrine

It's a Wonderful Life - Enduring Against Discontentment

November 29, 2022 Stephen McFerron Season 1 Episode 133
Cinematic Doctrine
It's a Wonderful Life - Enduring Against Discontentment
Show Notes

PATREON MOVIE DISCUSSION:

This movie was selected by our Patreon Supporters over at the Cinematic Doctrine Patreon. Support as little as $3 a month and have your voice heard!  

Melvin and Stephen discuss not just one of Stephen's favorite movies but his absolute favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life!

Topics:

  • (PATREON EXCLUSIVE) 27-minutes celebrating the holiday season, from busy shopping to exciting gift giving, and everything in between (PATREON EXCLUSIVE)
  • Summarizing It's a Wonderful Life because most summaries just summarize the last 20-minutes of the movie.
  • Melvin, "[It's a Wonderful Life is] a very good depiction of a conflicted man."
  • It's a Wonderful Life is Stephen's favorite movie, period. When he first watched it, he felt it depicted God in a way that he yearned for in film.
  • Melvin ponders how we transform movies into something more when we recognize they're our favorites.
  • What Melvin enjoyed about the movie was how it depicted the unique positives to community cohesiveness, including how that social construct is developed often through one man's kindness.
  • A brief meditation on how It's a Wonderful Life has been misrepresentative of Christianity and God, including the cultural, spiritual belief that people have specific guardian angels.
  • Discussing what we think keeps this movie in the public conscience. Stephen thinks it's the film's benevolence. Melvin thinks it's the depiction of a conflicted everyman.
  • It's a Wonderful Life is very grounded, and the addition of the fantastical is almost a wish-fulfillment version of very realistic wants we often have in real life.
  • In It's a Wonderful Life there's an evil man who enjoys being evil and a conflicted man who sees it costs something to do good.

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