Jimmy Stewart (harvey etc.)

I am a major sucker for Jimmy Stewart movies, heck everyone is, but seriously - this guy gets me. There is a long list of 'great' films starring Stewart, ranging from The Philadelphia Story to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, yet there were a few that are great simply because he is in them. Vertigo, for example, would crumble from the weight of melodrama without Jimmy there to give it some sincerity. If Jimmy Stewart believes in this picture then brother, so do I.

Harvey is somewhere in between. It is a very good movie with a funny cast and a great script, but without Stewart I think the tension of existential weight and ambivalent levity would be lost. See, that was what Stewart really did well, particularly after World War II. He played a man whose internal penchant for optimism had been crushed somewhere along the line, from work and rush hour and disappointment and failure (for Stewart personally it may have been the war). Rarely in a post WWII performance do you not see evidence of this in Stewart's characters. But he was also (almost) always a man who had been able to rise up from it again. Sometimes it made him stronger, sometimes it beat him down - but it was never going to stop him. The majesty of his performances lies in the ability to keep the duality of personas on screen at the same time. Post-war disillusionment wasn't something he could outright escape from, but its presence wasn't stopping him from giving it the finger. The character of Elwood P. Dowd in particular let Jimmy play this to its fullest. Jimmy never pretended that a character as whimsical as Elwood was a simpleton. Instead he was a man who had fought and won. The wisdom of his monologue near the end of the film didn't come without some hard knocks along the way.

Much is made of Jimmy's eternal optimism and aw-shucks personality, but I think that is selling him short. To simply say 'nice guy' or 'American idealist' is to ignore the last two-thirds of his career. A less genuine actor would play a man who has overcome evil or has been overcome by it. Jimmy Stewart wrestled with it, not in some angsty Brando-ish way, but in a way that was familiar to real life. For me that is why there is so much resonance to the person of Jimmy Stewart. Jimmy was charming to be sure, even in his crustiest roles, but his charm was simply a function of his resilience against the existential pull, it gave us the comfort of associating ourselves with him, even while we watched him struggle. This implicit permission to relate to him, to commune with his characters, is something I think is wholly unique to Stewart.

I try to see It's a Wonderful Life annually on the big screen, not because it is a holiday favorite, but because it is such a gripping portrayal of internal struggle. That a man as charming and strong as George Bailey could be brought to the brink of suicide chills me to the bone. It says something about the weight of a broken world. Even more powerful is that a man brought to the brink of suicide by the world can also be inspired by the wonder of it. But that was Stewart's gift. He proved to us that it is possible to live in a world that we are not destined to remain in forever.