It's A Wonderful Life With Jim Jeffries and Fanny and Alexander

Fanny and Alexander 

On my recent list of favorite Christmas movies I did not include Fanny and Alexander (1982) Bergman even though I watch it in December. The first episode of the TV version (which is far, far preferable to the much shorter theatrical version) takes place entirely on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning and includes one helluva Christmas party. In any event, none of the rest of the film has a whiff of Christmas in it, so by my standards it doesn’t qualify as a Christmas film. 

My point — and I think I’ve got one somewhere around here — set out to be what a wonderful cinematic feast Fanny and Alexander is. At the heart of the story is young Alexander (Fanny plays a very small part in the film’s action though she is around a lot, maybe Bergman should have more accurately called the movie, Alexander). He represents a sort of everyboy. Alexander does not have a practically broad or expressive personality nor is he prone to hijinks or bad behavior. But we see much of the film through his young eyes. Alexander is a bright lad, curious, imaginative and stubborn. Much of the film centers around the boy’s conflict with his austere and authoritarian step father, the bishop Edvard Vergérus. It is an emotional tug of war and we root desperately for Alexander. 

There is magic in Fanny and Alexander, notably when the titular characters are spirited away from the cruel bishop’s house. But much of the magic is not of the supernatural variety but that of the family and the love and spirit and security it can provide, especially for the young. Very little feels better for tots than to be cocooned in a loving multi-generational family. What better protection against a still mysterious and seemingly unknowable world.

Fanny and Alexander is all about family. The wise and kind grandmother. The loving, self-sacrificing mother. The goofy, fun-loving uncle. The playful cousins. The Bishop represents coldness, oppression and rigidity. The family is love, warmth and sharing one’s bounty.

Saturday night I saw the comedian Jim Jeffries perform at the venerable Warfield Theater in San Francisco. Jeffries is one of those rare entertainers I feel a connection to. Something that cannot be easily explained. Part of this no doubt stems from his openness in sharing his life experiences some of which are relatable to my own (notably drugs and booze). Jeffries referenced the LBGTQ community and even directed a jibe or two there way but unlike Dave Chappelle managed not to say anything insulting or cruel. Jeffries was true to his profession and was all about engendering laughs, not hurting feelings.

I hadn’t been at a comedy show in (checks notes) eons and must say it was great to get out and have many many yucks courtesy of a great comedian.

Friday night the missus and I watched It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) Capra a film I never tire of. Director Frank Capra wonderfully cast the movie from the lead role (James Stewart) to the smaller parts. Having Beulah Bondi as ma, was an easy call (it was one of five times she played Stewart’s mother in a film) but from the children to the townspeople, to the bank manager, the perfect actor was cast — and delivered. 

It’s A Wonderful Life is beloved as an uplifting movie that teaches us to appreciate who we are and what we’ve meant to others, but it also, in parts, a very dark film. Principally from the point Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) loses the bank's $8,000 through the time George sees what the world would be like without him. Uncle Billy unknowingly handing the money to the odious Mr. Potter is a heart-breaking moment that leads to a gut-wrenching scene between him and George who calls him a “silly, stupid fool.” George goes on: “Do you realize what this means? It means bankruptcy and scandal, and prison! That’s what it means. One of us is going to jail! Well, it’s not gonna be me.” It’s brutal and a tough watch every time. From there George spirals, yelling at his wife and children, chewing out a teacher, getting punched in return and then almost committing suicide before being “rescued” by his guardian angel, Clarence (Henry Travers in another bit of perfect casting). But when given the gift of seeing the world as it would be had he never existed, George is horrified by the world as it would have been and cannot accept that no one knows him (an idea that is carried to almost ridiculous lengths — figure it out buddy, it’s like Clarence said, this is a world in which you never existed).  Of course this makes the return to “real life” and the discovery of the community’s largess and love all the more heart-warming and creates one of the great closing film scenes of all time.

The film’s antagonist, Potter, is a perfect symbol of the modern Republican Party ethos. He is greedy, uncaring and wishes to destroy what he cannot own and own what he cannot destroy. He is not unlike Ebenezer Scrooge, with the very big exception that Scrooge, courtesy of three ghostly visitors, ultimately sees the light. Perhaps there could have been a sequel to It’s A Wonderful Life in which Potter enjoys a similar redemption.