Page 69 - Writes of Passage
P. 69
from IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE
Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?
Frank Capra
Clarence Odbody, the character speaking this dialogue in Frank Capra’s 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life, echoes John Donne’s idea that no man is an island. Clarence is the guardian angel to the film’s main character, George Bailey, and rescues Bailey from a suicide attempt on Christmas Eve by showing him how he has touched the lives of others. The whole loveable film is about the ways we affect other people.
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