Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

No Man is a Failure Who...

I can't sleep. The year draws to a close.

Recently I bought a copy of Elliott Smith's Figure 8. I can't remember all the song titles, but there's one with the lyric, "I've got a long way to go/And getting further away". Actually, I think the song is called something like, Maybe I Should be Quiet Now. I certainly know the feeling - the feeling that anything I say now will only dig me further into my hole, so I should just shut up and hope that one day, one fine and distant day, I can live things down, pay off my debt, etcetera.

I have become a stranger to myself.

This evening I watched It's a Wonderful Life. It was on my Christmas list, but I was actually a little afraid to watch it. I thought that I might have misremembered it and find it, upon second (third?) viewing, unbearably sugary and sentimental. This fear reared its head as the film began, and some celestial coves up in the cosmos started talking to an apprentice angel called Clarence about his mission to save one George Bailey. One of the voices sounded a little bit too much like the patronising narrator of a fifties public information film. However, it really was not too long at all before I forgot my fears and simply got caught up once more in the film, which contains some fascinating details, into which I shall not go at this moment in time.

Now, if ever someone was going to commit suicide and turned to me for help, I think I'd say to them, "Well, why don't you sit down and watch It's a Wonderful Life with me?" It's true there's a lot of stuff about angels and praying and so on in it, which might be off-putting to some, but the heart of the story is more effectively life-affirming than any other single piece of art that I can think of right now. Besides which, I think I'm pretty useless at cheering people up myself, so it's always good to have something like this - ready made, so to speak - near at hand.



Now, as I said, I think you can ignore the fluff about angels without really losing the heart of this film, which is the idea of what a single person contributes to the lives of others, and the world in general, without even knowing. I won't give a long synopsis, but our hero, George Bailey, gets into financial trouble, an angel called Clarence saves him just as he's about to jump off a bridge, he then wishes he had never been born, and Clarence grants this wish. George gets to see the world as it would have been - or is, if you're into parallel universe theory - without him. He then realises just how rich and wonderful his life, which he had considered a failure, really is. This whole sequence, from the suicide attempt, through his horrified exploration of the world in which he'd never been born, to his ecstatic reinstatement in the world, is so skillfully done it has the power of some kind of mystical hallucination.

I really can't think of a better 'quick fix' for anyone who's feeling like opening their veins.

I only really have one significant problem with the film, and that is the problem of Evil. For there is conspicuous in this film the old Christian paradigm of Good and Evil.

George Bailey, our hero, is manifestly good.

He struggles to give the townsfolk good homes, and sacrifices his own desires many times in order to achieve this.

Mr Potter, the villain, is manifestly evil.

He hates people and they hate him. This tyrannical slum-landlord cares only about making money and increasing his own power.

What would have happened if the film had been made from the point of view of Mr Potter? Would he have been shown, after wishing he had never been born, a world in which everyone was happier for his not being there? Should the title of the film be, then, "It's a Wonderful Life, as Long as You're Not Like Mr Potter"? Because, as any student of religious philosophy will tell you in a trice, if Mr Potter is simply damned then his damnation creates a permanent blot upon creation itself, and life becomes, well, a little less wonderful.



And what if our viewer, hoping for life-affirmation, finds that he is closer to Mr Potter than George Bailey?

What if I look back on a life of weakness, selfishness and cowardice, rather than one of fortitude, selflessness and courage? What if, when I think of the effect my life has had upon others, I see the faces of those who shed tears - and not of joy - on my account? What if I see a sorrowful influence in all I said and did, which imparted sorrow to the lives of those around me?

What kind of things would I discover, I wonder, in the world in which I had never been born?

Because, the truth be told, I do feel rather like George Bailey's description of Mr Potter. How did it go? In the great scheme of things you're nothing more than a scurvy spider spinning your webs. Something like that.