Reality Can Be Escapist, Too
One of the best things about old movies is that they’re, well, old. Among other pleasures, they offer a unique form of time travel, immersing us in bygone styles of dress and speech, quaint habits and notions. Hollywood classics in particular provide glimpses of a very different America by showing us the culture and physical environments our grandparents and parents lived in, and by acquainting us with some of their fantasies and dreams.
But lately, when I’ve sought escape from the daily flood of cultural novelty (and the daily grind of economic bad news) by slipping an old favorite into the DVD player, I’ve been confronted with a disconcerting jolt of reality. Those silvery images don’t seem to belong to the past, but to the scary here and now. On my recent, more or less annual viewing of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” I was stopped in my tracks by the run on the building-and-loan company of the hero, George Bailey, as the panicked citizens of Bedford Falls try to rescue their nest eggs. George tries to explain that the money isn’t available because they’ve invested it in each other — one fella’s savings helped to finance another’s business or secure a neighbor’s house — but the scene, though meant as a tableau of solidarity, seems more eloquent today as an account of moral hazard. In any case, the townspeople don’t believe George, who is rescued when his fiancée empties their $2,000 honeymoon fund to provide an emergency bailout...
Read entire article at A.O. Scott in the NYT
But lately, when I’ve sought escape from the daily flood of cultural novelty (and the daily grind of economic bad news) by slipping an old favorite into the DVD player, I’ve been confronted with a disconcerting jolt of reality. Those silvery images don’t seem to belong to the past, but to the scary here and now. On my recent, more or less annual viewing of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” I was stopped in my tracks by the run on the building-and-loan company of the hero, George Bailey, as the panicked citizens of Bedford Falls try to rescue their nest eggs. George tries to explain that the money isn’t available because they’ve invested it in each other — one fella’s savings helped to finance another’s business or secure a neighbor’s house — but the scene, though meant as a tableau of solidarity, seems more eloquent today as an account of moral hazard. In any case, the townspeople don’t believe George, who is rescued when his fiancée empties their $2,000 honeymoon fund to provide an emergency bailout...