It’s a Wonderful Life: Commerce, Community and Christmas

It’s a Wonderful Life: Commerce, Community and Christmas

Introduction by Mark Rose (English, UCSB)
Tuesday, November 29, 2011 / 4:00 PM
McCune Conference Room 6020 HSSB

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) with its dramatic opposition between the rapacious banker Old Man Potter (Lionel Barrymore) and the benevolent  George Bailey (James Stewart) remains an allegory for our own day of financial crisis and libertarian fundamentalism.  The movie incorporates themes and character types that reach back through Dickens’ A Christmas Carol at least as far as Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.

Sponsored by the IHC’s Public Goods series.