Importance and Analysis of "It's a Wonderful Life"

What started out as a failure in the box office during its original release has grown into one of the famous movies mainly watched throughout the holiday season. The movie it’s A Wonderful Life, was written by Frank Capra, along with Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Jo Swerling, and Philip Van Doren Stern. The main actors include James Stewart, who played the role of George Bailey; Donna Reed played the role of Mary Hatch; Henry Travers played the role of guardian angel Clarence; Lionel Barrymore played the role of Mr. Potter; and Thomas Mitchell played the role of Uncle Billy.

James Stewart played the central character in It's A Wonderful Life. directed by Frank Capra. It almost seems as if he played real-life characters and made it a point to fight for the causes or issues that he genuinely believed in. In the movie It's A Wonderful Life, this was the case with Stewart's portrayal of George Bailey. George had pretty much dedicated his whole life to family, friends, and the community of Bedford Falls. George fought to help residents of Bedford Falls be able to get homes that would be suitable for their families and saved the lives of others in the process. Whether it was saving his brother Harry from drowning or taking on the family business so that his Harry could attend college, George was always putting others before himself. After his Uncle Billy loses an envelope full of money, George becomes stressed because now he was facing financial ruin and an arrest. As a result, he seems to take out his frustrations on his family and wishes that he had never been born.

In It's A Wonderful Life, Donna Reed played the role of Mary Hatch, a character who is deeply in love with George while in high school and has the dream of marrying him and starting a family. Along the way, George has married his childhood sweetheart Mary, who has stuck by him through thick and thin. But even the love of Mary and his children are insufficient when George, faced with an $8000 shortage in his books, becomes a likely candidate for prison thanks to the vengeful Potter.

Henry Travers played the role of Clarence Odd body, an eternally bumbling angel (who after 200 years has yet to earn his wings) is sent down to Bedford Falls to aid in Bailey's dilemma and help as much as possible. At first glance, Clarence is given a crash course on George's life, and the multitude of selfless acts he has performed. Clarence finds out about George rescuing his younger brother from drowning, losing the hearing in his left ear in the process; enduring a beating rather than allow a grieving druggist to deliver poison by mistake to an ailing child. The angel also gets more information about George foregoing college and a long-planned trip to Europe to keep the Bailey Building and Loan from letting its Depression-era customers down; and, most important, preventing town despot Mr. Potter from taking over Bedford Mills.

This movie has been judged by many people in the past as one of the best holiday movies in the history of film, and it is definitely one of my favorite movies for sure. Besides the number of intriguing characters and the fantastic storyline, there are various underlying themes throughout the feature film. Themes such as family, God, community, and love are present in almost every scene. Maybe the theme is the "golden rule," or to marry the right person. For the most part, each of the possible themes that I previously mentioned could tie into the major theme of the film, which is to appreciate life before it is too late. As with most drama or fantasy movies, there can be some things that may or cannot happen in real life, but there is usually a lesson learned or a moral that is passed to the viewer.

Chiaroscuro is definitely used in this film. Chiaroscuro, which originated from Renaissance painting/art, describes the total contrast in lighting. A few years after, chiaroscuro started to be used in movies. Chiaroscuro is mainly used in film noir, which could also give a further idea as to why this particular movie could be placed in the "film noir" genre.

This use of lighting is evident in the pool party scene that takes place within 30 minutes from the start of the movie.  George and Mary are at the high school dance party and while the camera focus zeroes in on them, it is announced that there will be a Charleston dance off. Next, the camera shows the couple dancing, and the rest of the students are dancing as well. About 30 seconds later, the floor opens into a swimming pool that is quickly spotted by a number of students and they promptly stop dancing except for George and Mary. The camera switches between the pool and back to the couple dancing, with the camera focusing more when they get closer to the edge. Seconds later the couple fell into the pool but then the rest of the students eventually jump in, prompting the principal to join as well. The lighting is somewhat dark at the beginning, but changes more once the students start dancing and the camera moves throughout the gym showing different views of the students as they are dancing. This scene was actually done at the Swim Gym at the historic Beverly Hills High School in California. This is somewhat different from the rest of the movie, mainly because most of the buildings that are used as props and places of business were not real buildings and made only for the making of the movie during that year. For the most part, this is supposed to bring a joyous mood to

the viewer, especially when this marked the first meeting between George and Mary since the earlier part of their childhood. The Charleston dance is usually longer but in this case, the editing was on the spot as a way of drawing more attention towards a interesting bond between George and Mary, and also marked a very special moment that neither of them would forget.

Later in the movie, George wished that he never was born because everyone would be better without him. The Angel Gabriel grants his wish. To prove that George should be appreciative of his life, the Angel Gabriel takes George throughout the city of Bedford Falls but with George not there, it turns into Potters ville, citing the name of the person.  From this point, the movie depicts people in possibly their worst state without George in their lives. Maybe the most influential moment that makes George think otherwise is when he encounters Mary. Growing up and throughout their earlier years, George knew Mary wanted to get married and also have children to start her own family. In this particular encounter, George had a chance to see what happened since he was not present. He was able to see that Mary was an old maid who happened to be a librarian, wearing glasses, and had just about given up on a love of any sort. To add, it makes things worse because his children did not exist since he was not there.

As we see in this current day and age, viewers can influence the films and the directors and actors who play a part in putting together these films. As evidenced from the movie It's A Wonderful Life, films can also influence and reflect the culture and morals of different people. This film centers on the time of the Great Depression, and also signaled a time in which the males were working while the women stayed at home and took care of the children and the house. The film may not have as much relevance or appeal to the audience of this generation, but yet it still resonates with the "baby boomers" and the audience of past generations dating back more than 40 or 50 years ago. This film served as a historic time when chivalry, family, and morals were paramount in the makeup of a person. Nonetheless, this film is memorable to many, and the film is especially being discussed during the holidays as one of the best holiday movies ever.

Poems written by Emily Dickinson and Petrarch

The poems written by Emily Dickinson and Petrarch are unique in similar and different ways. Both poems speak about feeling pain and mental death. Both poems also utilize more than one oxymoron. In Dickinson's poem, she used the phrase "quartz contentment," but quartz does not have a natural feeling or expression. Petrarch's poem mentioned that "without eyes Isee, without tongue I plan," and "I feed in sorrow, and laugh in my pain." No person is naturally able to see without having eyes.

There are also differences between both of these poems. Dickinson's poem has no speaker, but Petrarch's poem is written in first person. Dickinson's poem mentions time to possibly infer about how long she has endured the pain and suffering. Dickinson relates the poem to an event, but Petrarch relates it to war, symbolizing a relationship that may have been going on for years (lot of time invested). Petrarch feels that he has no control over whether he lives. For the most, Dickinson's poem can relate to any pain (in general), but Petrarch's poem relates pain in regards to a lover or significant other from a perspective of being in a committed relationship. A simile is used in Dickinson's poem when Dickinson said, "like a stone." Actual stones have no expression, indicating that the written has no feeling, expression, or emotion left at all. Petrarch's poem uses descriptors such as "burn," "freeze," and "fly" as metaphors to symbolize the emotions involved within the highs and lows of loving someone.

Music written by Beethoven and Scott Joplin

Beethoven and Scott Joplin's musical preferences differ a lot but the sounds within their music are based on their individual backgrounds. In Beethoven's Romance No. 2, he uses a piano, violin, flute, and a bassoon for the piece of music. The tempo of Beethoven's piece is rather slow, just progressing a small amount throughout the performance. It can be said that the tempo used was a reflection of Beethoven's personal life. Beethoven lived with experiences of personal despair, heartbreak, and abuse while on the mission to create genius works of music. While growing up in Bonne, Germany, Beethoven chose to not have many relationships with family and friends. He was eager to play the violin and piano, but his father was his musical teacher around the age of 6, and Beethoven had to endure physical abuse from his father. If Beethoven's alcoholic father found any sort of fault in his work on the piano or violin, then his would father would shove, slap, and punch Beethoven, especially aiming for Beethoven's head. Beethoven later said that these occurrences may have possibly been the cause for his loss of hearing later in life.

Although viewed as a loner, Beethoven's love for music overpowered anything that someone, even his father, could do to him. This also led Beethoven to believe that the world is a dangerous place and that he could not fully trust anyone. Beethoven's first music performance was at age 7, and he started to gain a lot of recognition as a musical talent early in his childhood years. From this, Beethoven decided to quit school at age 10 to devote all of his time to music. He played music for people at age of 14 to earn money for family, then a few years later Beethoven was invited to play in Vienna in 1787 (which was viewed as "music capital" at the time). Shortly after being in Vienna for close to two weeks, he received news about the death of his mother, thereby returning home. This crushed him emotionally and also played a part in the melody he wanted to create.

Overall, Beethoven was musically inspired by the cultural climate, as well as the works and artists from the Enlightenment period. Beethoven wanted to move away from the earlier views of classical music as "entertainment," and utilize new rhythms, melodies, and patterns in order for his music to transform people. Twenty-two-year-old Beethoven learned about his father 's death and refused to go back to Bonn for his father's funeral due to the pain and anguish he inflicted on young Beethoven as a child. A few years later in 1798, Beethoven wrote "Violin Romance No.2, Op. 50" but it was not published until 1805. There's parts in Violin Romance in which the violin is the main solo. The piece is very dramatic and uses flat key areas, but the intonation is perfect. The piece follows an ABACA structure, which resembles a rondo format. At this time of creating the Violin Romance, the enraged and moody Beethoven was in his late twenties, but he also began to constantly hear a ringing sound in his ear. From this, he tried various remedies, such as swimming in a river, but none of the remedies worked at all. He was extremely embarrassed and in despair about hearing loss, and did his best to hide this from friends and others. Around the age of thirty, his ability to hear sounds vastly decreased, shortly resulting in him going into a deep depression. Beethoven still had a creative spot, mainly shown in just a few of his later works. With each year, his hearing only decreased, which only made him feel that that his works and pieces of music should sound like things that he will never get to hear again.

Scott Joplin lived in Sedalia, Missouri with an intense music life as a child. Joplin picked up piano at age seven, and studied musical composition and harmony in school. Joplin was so dedicated to music that he chose to leave home at age fourteen to be a traveling pianist, mainly working in Southern and Midwestern states such as Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Ohio. Civil war songs, plantation melodies, ballads, and work songs all provided a sort of soul inspiration to Joplin. Through his music, Joplin wanted to express and tell the story/feelings of black people and attempt to make ragtime into a more popular form of music that would be similar to opera music.

As opposed to Beethoven's nine-minute piece, Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag is much shorter in terms of time, at approximately three minutes. Written in 1897, Maple Leaf Rag is viewed as one of the most-known songs during the ragtime era. The word "ragtime" is derived from the term "ragged time," relating to breaking apart a simple melody into short rhythms. Using European harmonies with African rhythms, blacks created ragtime as a style of music with a strong pulse. This style of music also created a peppy, upbeat attitude by listeners as it spread into other countries like Europe. Joplin's piece incorporates a much faster tempo than Beethoven's piece, only using a piano as the single instrument.

Joplin's piece follows a classic structure of AABBACCDD along with his use of high and low notes, but the piece is also a little complex in nature and provides an upbeat medium as well. Maple Leaf Rag contained a use of syncopation, which incorporated a treble lead over a very rhythmic steady bass. There are very slight changes between sections, which also helped Joplin make a smooth transition from the second section into the third section of his piece. African music was highly sophisticated in its use of poly-rhythms. Denied the use of drums in America, blacks kept up with the rhythm of African music and transitioned this style into work fields in the South region of the U.S. during slavery.