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Comment by Guvante | Hacker News Reader

[It's a Wonderful Life](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Its_a_Wonderful_Life)

I have heard on several occasions that the reason it is currently so popular is because it went into the Public Domain and was shown on many channels due to this.

Whether that is actually the case no one knows for sure.

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It's also just a fantastic movie. It's kind of like "A Christmas Carol", but instead of Ebenezer Scrooge being saved, it's the guy who's standing up to him. It's warm, it's funny, and it asks a lot of big questions. And it doesn't appeal to a single viewer. And it's not too heavy, either - Citizen Kane might be better, but it's not really a film you can get a 6 year old to watch.

There's very few movies which are so critically acclaimed (top 100), which can appeal to adults and kids alike. It's subject is both completely commonplace, and the most important thing there is.

Also, how many good Christmas movies are there? It's got to be in the top 5 Christmas films, at least.

OT but i can't help commenting. Watching IAWLife is something I look forward to every Christmas. It's a rare Holiday movie that doesn't mention Santa or Religion (at least not directly). As I've gotten older, though, I have to say its a pretty dark movie. Only the final few scenes pull you back from the slow decent of man driven to suicide over money and regret over life's missed opportunities. The scene with the disgraced pharmacist (Mr. Gower!) haunts me; considering those moments in my own life that could have destroyed the "future" I know.

I honestly didn't appreciate "A Christmas Carol" until I was thirty.

The spirit of Christmas Present is Dionysus, and I think this is the Santa archetype either in prototype or metaphor. Portrayal of wealth is great social commentary. The entire play is almost entirely devoid of Christianity, the only mention of God in the whole play, is interesting. Time travel? The future represented as death? Awesome.

And yet it was unsuccessful on initial release, both critically and commercially.

(And while the same can be said of several films now considered classics, such films were generally unconventional (at least for their time) in a way that It's a Wonderful Life really isn't)

In my experience,

"A man who hates his life to the point of suicide is shown by a guardian angel how much the other people around him depend on him. As a result of seeing what the world would be like without him, he changes his mind about the suicide and ends up embracing the life he has, recognizing the simple yet wonderful things about it for what they are."

is not a conventional Hollywood story. Do you have any other examples? I'm mostly interested not because I want to prove you wrong, but because I actually want to be wrong and I want to watch these movies if they exist. Groundhog Day is the only other one that comes to mind.

There are plenty of non-conventional Hollywood stories in movies, you just need to look beyond the usual big studio crops.

I'm also not sure that what you describe is a non-conventional Hollywood story: "Person has hard life (or a good life that hits a serious problem), is about to give up, finds something to have faith in, warm fuzzy ending" is a pretty generic tale.

Your synopsis is more general than what I'm thinking of, so of course it's going to catch more things. It's really the specific story of: 1) protagonist's life sucks; 2) protagonist gains deeper understanding about how life works; 3) protagonist sees the same life he was living before in a new light. I guess A Christmas Carol is about like that.

I've seen quite a bit of film, but honestly, if it's really that generic, what are some other examples?

The Twilight Zone:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Changing_of_the_Guard_%28Th...

Hey cool, thanks! Incidentally I think the time loop mechanic from Groundhog Day is also from a TZ episode.

Mr. Destiny: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100201/

Thanks to you too!

Which only makes it more remarkable that its popularity continues to grow. That fact suggests there is a special timelessness to the film, since as you say most classics are either prototypical, unconventional, or artistically innovative (like, as was mentioned, Citizen Kane).

The closest analogy I can think of while remaining in the realm of the arts is Vermeer, who was a fairly typical Dutch genre painter unrecognized in his time and ignored for two centuries. Nowadays he is popular and beloved, but unlike Rembrandt who is held as a great master or van Gogh who is held as a quixotic genius, Vermeer himself is taken as wholly mundane; his works simply have some "je ne sais quoi" that resonates with the average person.

It appears that the copyright on the film was not renewed, leaving it in public domain, but the copyright on the story that the film was based on was renewed, which became a pivotal point after 1993, when that copyright holder was able to negotiate for licensing for more limited showings. This is covered in the URL you provide, and the details are corroborated by several other sources. It is complicated.

One of the effects of the film's popularity in the 1980s is on the popular perception of runs on banks and of bankers - I wonder how much American views of the recent financial crisis are colored by the grim visage of Mr. Potter?

I understand the situation but wanted to be brief. The important point that there was a time when the movie was in public domain and was shown quite a bit. Given the costs of licensing, assuming that is coincidence is suspect.

Since number of views affect popularity, it is possible that a classic is a classic because it became public domain. By extension, would more public domain improve things for everyone?

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