Smith Goes to Washington?
This nuanced portrait offers a fresh perspective on one of the motion picture industrys seminal figures.
Theyre foundational in the craft of cinema… And theyre fucking great entertainment.
‘Frank Capra: Mr America’Columbia Pictures Industries
I didnt know a piece of film from a piece of toilet paper, he asserts.
He made silent pictures in the 1920s, often noted for their brilliant comedic imagery.
He also made action pictures Flightin 1929 andDirigiblein 1931.
Frank Capra in 1937Everett Collection
Deeds Goes to Townin 1936 andMr.
Smith Goes to Washingtonin 1939 films that depicted basic American goodness going up against corrupt forces.
Its about contributing to your community, to your country.
Its an honorable sense of being a good man.
Its a Wonderful Lifecame out in 1946, again expressing the importance of altruism over rapacious capitalism.
This is point at which the documentary pivots to explore the unsavory side of Capra.
It frankly accuses him of shamefully abandoning former colleagues to cleanse himself of any Communist taint.
What Capra did is probably certainly on that spectrum.
Smoodin also notes a blind spot in Capras cinematic oeuvre.
Capras films have an expansiveness to them.
They seem to speak to the desires of many people in the audience.
But they also have incredible limits to them, he says.
All of the experts in his film are white.
It might have been interesting to hear the perspective of a person of color on the Capra canon.
It also makes an important observation that Capras time may be coming around again.
