“It’s a Wonderful Life”: Occupy Bedford Falls!

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 00:30:00 +0000

I must have been 9 or 10 years old. It was Christmas or only a few days before. My parents had taken me along on a final whirlwind of holiday grocery shopping and last-minute gift buying. I was left alone at Tower Records and happened upon a VHS copy of Frank Capra’s holiday classic — and my mother’s favorite film — "It’s a Wonderful Life." In the spirit of the season, I bought the tape.

At home that night, I presented the movie without wrapping or bow to my mother, and we watched it immediately.

But when the tape began to roll and the wood-post sign declaring “You Are Now in Bedford Falls” appeared on the screen, it was clear something was wrong. Gone were the familiar white sky, the gray snowdrift on the median, the almost black oak and its ashen limbs reaching out from the background. Instead there was a pink sky, illuminated as if from behind like a paper lantern, a display of pastels highlighting the snow drift, a landscape washed in peach and ochre.

Salon.com > Jimmy Stewart

“It’s a Wonderful Life”: Occupy Bedford Falls!