Frank Russell Capra (bornFrancesco Rosario Capra; May 18, 1897 – September 3, 1991) was an Italian-American film director, producer, and screenwriter who was the creative force behindseveral major award-winning films of the 1930s and 1940s. Born in Italy and raised in Los Angeles from the age of five, hisrags-to-riches story has led film historians such asIan Freer to consider him the "American Dream personified".[5]
After World War II, Capra's career declined as his later films, such asIt's a Wonderful Life (1946), performed poorly when they were first released.[6] Beginning in 1950, his cinematic output slowed, and he retired from filmmaking in the mid-1960s. In the ensuing decades, however,It's a Wonderful Life and other Capra films were revisited favorably by critics. Outside of directing, Capra was active in thefilm industry, engaging in various political and social activities. He served as President of theAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, worked alongside theWriters Guild of America, and was head of theDirectors Guild of America.
Capra was born Francesco Rosario Capra inBisacquino, a village nearPalermo,Sicily,Italy. He was the youngest of seven children of Salvatore Capra, a fruit grower, and the former Rosaria "Sara" Nicolosi. Capra's family was Roman Catholic. Frank's siblings were Luigia, Ignazia, Benedetto, Antonino Giuseppe, Antonia, and Anne.[7] The name "Capra", notes Capra's biographer, Joseph McBride, represents his family's closeness to the land, and means "goat".[8] He notes that the English word "capricious" derives from it, "evoking the animal's skittish temperament", adding that "the name neatly expresses two aspects of Frank Capra's personality: emotionalism and obstinacy."[8]
In 1903, when he was five, Capra's family immigrated to the United States, traveling in asteerage compartment of the steamshipGermania—the least expensive way to make the passage. For Capra, the 13-day journey remained one of the worst experiences of his life:
You're all together—you have no privacy. You have a cot. Very few people have trunks or anything that takes up space. They have just what they can carry in their hands or in a bag. Nobody takes their clothes off. There's no ventilation, and it stinks like hell. They're all miserable. It's the most degrading place you could ever be.[9]
Capra remembers the ship's arrival in New York Harbor, where he saw "astatue of a great lady, taller than a churchsteeple, holding a torch above the land we were about to enter". He recalls his father's exclamation at the sight:
Cicco, look! Look at that! That's the greatest light since theStar of Bethlehem! That's the light of freedom! Remember that.Freedom.[10]
The family settled inLos Angeles's East Side (today Lincoln Heights) on Avenue 18, which Capra described in his autobiography as an Italian "ghetto".[11] Capra's father worked as a fruit picker and young Capra sold newspapers after school for ten years until he graduated from high school. He attended theManual Arts High School, withJimmy Doolittle andLawrence Tibbett as classmates.[12] Instead of working after graduating, as his parents wanted, he enrolled in college. He worked through college at theCalifornia Institute of Technology, playing banjo at nightclubs and taking odd jobs like working at the campus laundry, waiting tables, and cleaning engines at a local power plant. He studiedchemical engineering and graduated in the spring of 1918.[13] Capra later wrote that his college education had "changed his whole viewpoint on life from the viewpoint of an alley rat to the viewpoint of a cultured person".[14]
Soon after graduating from college, Capra was commissioned in the United States Army as asecond lieutenant, having completed campusROTC. In the Army, he taught mathematics to artillerymen atFort Point, San Francisco. His father died during the war in an accident (1916). In the Army, Capra contractedSpanish flu and was medically discharged to return home to live with his mother. He became anaturalized U.S. citizen in 1920, taking the name Frank Russell Capra.[14] Living at home with his siblings and mother, Capra was the only family member with a college education, yet he was the only one who remained chronically unemployed. After a year without work, seeing how his siblings had steady jobs, he felt he was a failure, which led to bouts of depression.[14]
Chronic abdominal pains were later discovered to have been an undiagnosed burstappendix.[14] After recovering at home, Capra moved out and spent the next few years living inflophouses in San Francisco and hopping freight trains, wandering the Western United States. To support himself, he took odd jobs on farms, as a movie extra, playing poker, and selling local oil well stocks.
During this time the 24-year-old Capra directed a 32-minute documentary film titledLa Visita Dell'Incrociatore Italiano Libya a San Francisco. Not only did it document the visit of the Italian naval vesselLibya to San Francisco, but also the reception given to the crew of the ship by San Francisco's L'Italia Virtus Club, now known as theSan Francisco Italian Athletic Club.
At 25, Capra took a job selling books written and published by American philosopherElbert Hubbard.[14] Capra recalled that he "hated being a peasant, being a scrounging new kid trapped in the Sicilian ghetto of Los Angeles. ... All I had was cockiness—and let me tell you that gets you a long way."[15]
During his book sales efforts—and nearly broke—Capra read a newspaper article about a new movie studio opening in San Francisco. Capra phoned them saying he had moved from Hollywood and falsely implied that he had experience in the budding film industry. Capra's only prior exposure in films was in 1915 while attending Manual Arts High School. The studio's founder, Walter Montague, was nonetheless impressed by Capra and offered him $75 to direct a one-reel silent film. Capra, with the help of a cameraman, made the film in two days and cast it with amateurs.[14]
After that first serious job in films, Capra began efforts to finding similar openings in the film industry. He took a position with another minor San Francisco studio and subsequently received an offer to work with producerHarry Cohn at his new studio in Los Angeles. During this time, he worked as a property man, film cutter, title writer, and assistant director.[16]
Capra later became a gag writer forHal Roach'sOur Gang series. He was twice hired as a writer for aslapstick comedy director,Mack Sennett, in 1918 and 1924.[17] Under him, Capra wrote scripts for comedianHarry Langdon and produced byMack Sennett, the first beingPlain Clothes in 1925. According to Capra, it was he who invented Langdon's character, the innocent fool living in a "naughty world"; however, Langdon was well into this character by 1925.[16]
When Langdon eventually left Sennett to make longer, feature-length movies withFirst National Studios, he took Capra along as his personal writer and director. They made three feature films together during 1926 and 1927, all of them successful with critics and the public. The films made Langdon a recognized comedian in the caliber ofCharlie Chaplin andBuster Keaton. Following the production ofLong Pants (1927), Capra argued with Langdon over the direction his next project would take. Langdon's other confidant was writer-directorArthur Ripley, a fellow Sennett alumnus, and Langdon followed Ripley's suggestions. Capra quit, and the split was disastrous for Langdon, who took matters into his own hands and directed his films himself, to poor reception.
After Capra split with Langdon, he directed a picture for First National,For the Love of Mike (1927). This was a silent comedy about three bickering godfathers—a German, a Jew, and an Irishman—starring a budding actress,Claudette Colbert. The movie was considered a failure and is alost film.[16]
Capra returned to Harry Cohn's studio, now namedColumbia Pictures, which was then producing short films and two-reel comedies for "fillers" to play between main features. Columbia was one of many start-up studios on "Poverty Row" in Los Angeles. Like the others, Columbia was unable to compete with larger studios, which often had their own production facilities, distribution, and theaters. Cohn rehired Capra in 1928 to help his studio produce new, full-length feature films, to compete with the major studios. Capra would eventually direct 20 films for Cohn's studio, including many of his classics.[16]
Because of Capra's engineering education, he adapted more easily to the new sound technology than most directors. He welcomed the transition to sound, recalling, "I wasn't at home in silent films."[16] Most studios were unwilling to invest in the new sound technology, assuming it was a passing fad. Many in Hollywood considered sound a threat to the industry and hoped it would pass quickly; McBride notes that "Capra was not one of them." When he sawAl Jolson singing inThe Jazz Singer in 1927, considered the first talkie, Capra recalled his reaction:
It was an absolute shock to hear this man open his mouth and a song come out of it. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences.[18]
Few of the studio heads or crew were aware of Capra's engineering background until he began directingThe Younger Generation in 1929. The chief cinematographer who worked with Capra on a number of films was likewise unaware. He describes this early period in sound for film:
It wasn't something that came up. You had to bluff to survive. When sound first came in, nobody knew much about it. We were all walking around in the dark. Even the sound man didn't know much about it. Frank lived through it. But he was quite intelligent. He was one of the few directors who knew what the hell they were doing. Most of your directors walked around in a fog—they didn't know where the door was.[19]
During his first year with Columbia, Capra directed nine films, some of which were successful. After the first few, Harry Cohn said: "it was the beginning of Columbia making a better quality of pictures."[20] According to Barson, "Capra became ensconced as Harry Cohn's most trusted director."[21] His films soon established Capra as a "bankable" director known throughout the industry, and Cohn raised Capra's initial salary of $1,000 per film to $25,000 per year.[16] Capra directed a film for MGM during this period, but soon realized he "had much more freedom under Harry Cohn's benevolent dictatorship", where Cohn also put Capra's "name above the title" of his films, a first for the movie industry.[22] Capra wrote of this period and recalled the confidence that Cohn placed in Capra's vision and directing:
I owed Cohn a lot—I owed him my whole career. So I had respect for him, and a certain amount of love. Despite his crudeness and everything else, he gave me my chance. He took a gamble on me.[23]
Capra directed his first "real" sound picture,The Younger Generation, in 1929. It was a rags-to-riches romantic comedy about a Jewish family's upward mobility in New York City, with their son later trying to deny his Jewish roots to keep his rich, gentile girlfriend.[24] According to Capra biographerJoseph McBride, Capra "obviously felt a strong identification with the story of a Jewish immigrant who grows up in the ghetto of New York ... and feels he has to deny his ethnic origins to rise to success in America." Capra, however, denied any connection of the story with his own life.[25]
Nonetheless, McBride insists thatThe Younger Generation abounds with parallels to Capra's own life. McBride notes the "devastatingly painful climactic scene", where the young social-climbing son, embarrassed when his wealthy new friends first meet his parents, passes his mother and father off as house servants. That scene, notes McBride, "echoes the shame Capra admitted feeling toward his own family as he rose in social status".[26]
During his years at Columbia, Capra worked often with screenwriterRobert Riskin (husband ofFay Wray), and cameramanJoseph Walker. In many of Capra's films, the wise-cracking and sharp dialogue was often written by Riskin, and he and Capra went on to become Hollywood's "most admired writer-director team".[27]
He followed the film withBroadway Bill (1934), a screwball comedy about horse racing. The film was a turning point for Capra, however, as he began to conceive an additional dimension to his movies. He started using his films to convey messages to the public. Capra explains his new thinking:
My films must let every man, woman, and child know that God loves them, that I love them, and that peace and salvation will become a reality only when they all learn to love each other.[28]
This added goal was inspired after meeting with aChristian Scientist friend who told him to view his talents in a different way:
The talents you have, Mr. Capra, are not your own, not self-acquired. God gave you those talents; they are his gifts to you, to use for his purpose.[28]
Capra began to embody messages in subsequent films, many of which conveyed "fantasies of goodwill". The first of those wasMr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), for which Capra won his second Best Director Oscar. CriticAlistair Cooke observed that Capra was "starting to make movies about themes instead of people".[29]
AlthoughIt's a Wonderful Life is his best-known film, Friedman notes that it wasMr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), which most represented the "Capra myth". That film expressed Capra's patriotism more than any others, and "presented the individual working within the democratic system to overcome rampant political corruption".[30]
The film, however, became Capra's most controversial. In his research before filming, he was able to stand close to PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt during a press conference after the recent acts of war by Germany in Europe. Capra recalls his fears:
And panic hit me. Japan was slicing up the colossus of China piece by piece. Nazi Panzers had rolled into Austria and Czechoslovakia; their thunder echoed over Europe. England and France shuddered. The Russian bear growled ominously in the Kremlin. The black cloud of war hung over the chancelleries of the world. Official Washington from the President down, was in the process of making hard, torturing decisions. "And here was I, in the process of making a satire about government officials; ... Wasn't this the most untimely time for me to make a film about Washington?[31]
When the filming was completed, the studio sent preview copies to Washington.Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., U.S. ambassador to the UK, wrote to Columbia head Harry Cohn, "Please do not play this picture in Europe."[30] Politicians were concerned about the potential negative effect the film might have on the morale of the United States' allies, asWorld War II had begun. Kennedy wrote to President Roosevelt that, "In foreign countries this film must inevitably strengthen the mistaken impression that the United States is full ofgraft, corruption and lawlessness."[32] Many studio heads agreed, nor did they want negative feelings about Hollywood instilled in political leaders.[33]
Nonetheless, Capra's vision of the film's significance was clear:
The more uncertain are the people of the world, the more their hard-won freedoms are scattered and lost in the winds of chance, the more they need a ringing statement of America's democratic ideals. The soul of our film would be anchored inLincoln. Our Jefferson Smith would be a young Abe Lincoln, tailored to the rail-splitter's simplicity, compassion, ideals, humor, and unswerving moral courage under pressure.[34]
Capra pleaded with Cohn to allow the film to go into distribution and remembers the intensity of their decision making:
Harry Cohn paced the floor, as stunned asAbraham must have been when the Lord asked him to sacrifice his beloved sonIsaac.[35]
Cohn and Capra chose to ignore the negative publicity and demands and released the film as planned. It was later nominated for 11 Academy Awards, only winning one (for Best Original Story) partly because the number of major pictures that werenominated that year was 10, includingThe Wizard of Oz andGone with the Wind.[21] Hollywood columnistLouella Parsons called it a "smash patriotic hit" and most critics agreed, seeing that audiences left the theaters with "an enthusiasm for democracy" and "in a glow of patriotism."[32]
The significance of the film's message was established further in France, shortly after World War II began. When the French public was asked to select which film they wanted to see most, having been told by theVichy government that soon no more American films would be allowed in France, the overwhelming majority chose it over all others. To a France soon to be invaded and occupied by Nazi forces, the film most expressed the "perseverance of democracy and theAmerican way."[30]
Capra became enchanted with a German-made film biography of composerFrédéric Chopin. He purchased the film himself as a basis for his new production, and recruited one of Columbia's leading writers,Sidney Buchman, to fashion a screenplay. Capra spent a full year working on the Chopin project, and the film was ready to go into production. Capra wanted to make the film in the costlyTechnicolor process—a first for Columbia—but Columbia's New York office balked at the expense. As Cohn's biographer Bob Thomas recounted, "They were aghast at the prospect of trying to sell an expensive costume film about a piano player and a woman novelist who wore pants and smoked cigars. The opposition was strong enough to veto the project."[36] The enraged Capra quit Columbia. Harry Cohn tried to lure him back with an unprecedented profit-sharing split of 50/50, but Capra accepted a million-dollar cash offer fromWarner Bros. Columbia ultimately went ahead with the Chopin biography, in Technicolor, under the direction ofCharles Vidor:A Song to Remember (1945).
Capra's first Warner project wasMeet John Doe (1941). So important was the Capra name that Warner Bros. took its own name off the main title. Instead of the usual "Warner Bros. Pictures presents",Meet John Doe begins with "Presenting".
Some considerMeet John Doe to be Capra's most controversial movie. The film's hero, played byGary Cooper, is a former baseball player now bumming around, lacking goals. He is selected by a news reporter to represent the "common man," to capture the imagination of ordinary Americans. The film was released shortly before America became involved in World War II, and citizens were still in anisolationist mood. According to some historians, the film was made to convey a "deliberate reaffirmation of American values," though ones that seemed uncertain with respect to the future.
Film author Richard Glazer speculates that the film may have been autobiographical, "reflecting Capra's own uncertainties". Glazer describes how, "John's accidental transformation fromdrifter to national figure parallels Capra's own early drifting experience and subsequent involvement in movie making ...Meet John Doe, then, was an attempt to work out his own fears and questions."[37]
Within four days of the JapaneseAttack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Capra quit his successful directing career in Hollywood and received a commission as amajor in theUnited States Army. He also gave up his presidency of theScreen Directors Guild. Being 44 years of age, he was not asked to enlist, but, notes Friedman, "Capra had an intense desire to prove his patriotism to his adopted land."[30]
Capra recalls some personal reasons for enlisting:
I had a guilty conscience. In my films I championed the cause of the gentle, the poor, the downtrodden. Yet I had begun to live like theAga Khan. The curse of Hollywood is big money. It comes so fast it breeds and imposes its own mores, not of wealth, but of ostentation and phony status.[38]
During the next four years ofWorld War II, Capra's job was to head a special section on morale to explain to soldiers "why the hell they're in uniform", writes Capra, and were not "propaganda" films like those created by the Nazis and Japan. Capra directed or co-directed seven documentary war information films.
Capra was assigned to work directly under Chief of StaffGeorge C. Marshall, the most senior officer in command of the Army, who later created theMarshall Plan and was awarded aNobel Peace Prize. Marshall chose to bypass the usual documentary film-making department,Signal Corps, because he felt they were not capable of producing "sensitive and objective troop information films". One colonel explained the importance of these future films to Capra:
You were the answer to the General's prayer ... You see, Frank, this idea about films to explain "why" the boys are in uniform is General Marshall's own baby, and he wants the nursery right next to his Chief of Staff's office.[39]
During his first meeting with General Marshall, Capra was told his mission:
Now, Capra, I want to nail down with you a plan to make a series of documented, factual-information films—the first in our history—that will explain to our boys in the Armywhy we are fighting, and theprinciples for which we are fighting ... You have an opportunity to contribute enormously to your country and the cause of freedom. Are you aware of that, sir?[40]
After he completed the first few documentaries, government officials and U.S. Army staff felt they were powerful messages and excellent presentations of why it was necessary for the United States to fight in the war. All footage came from military and government sources, whereas during earlier years, many newsreels secretly used footage from enemy sources. Animated charts were created byWalt Disney and his animators. A number of Hollywood composers wrote the background music, includingAlfred Newman and Russian-born composerDimitri Tiomkin. After the first complete film was viewed by General Marshall along with U.S. Army staff—and Franklin Roosevelt—Marshall approached Capra: "Colonel Capra, how did you do it? That is a most wonderful thing."[44]
FDR was effusive: "I want every American to see this motion picture. General—please make all necessary arrangements".Prelude To War was distributed by 20th Century-Fox, and was nationally acclaimed. Fox also released Capra'sWhy We Fight opus,The Battle Of Russia. Released to service audiences in two-parts to accommodate hour-long periods during induction training, the nine-reel (nearly 90 minutes) epic detailed Russian history using excerpts of the films ofSergei Eisenstein, then proceeded to recent history through captured Nazi newsreels and those supplied reluctantly by Stalin. When he was shown the film in Moscow, Stalin was effusive and ordered one thousand 35mm prints. He was so anxious that his people should see the film that he did not bother creating a Russian soundtrack. Capra laughed in amazement years later when re-counting the tale: "Stalin had interpreters at the side of the stage in all the theatres. They simply translated the film on the fly, yelling like hell to be heard over the music and sound effects". The series was seen in theaters throughout the U.S. They were also translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese for screening in other countries, under the aegis of Robert Riskin.Winston Churchill ordered that all of them be shown to the British public in theaters.[45]
Following a shifting of alliances at the end of World War II, some of theWhy We Fight films were effectively banned.The Battle Of Russia, due to its positivity toward theSoviet Union, was essentially banned until the 1980s.[citation needed] Conversely, some of the other films, which spoke negatively of the Germans and Japanese, were taken out of print, as these countries were now allies.Know Your Enemy: Japan, which barely saw a release because its release date came just days before the Japanese surrender, was kept under wraps afterwards as well: Capra noted that the U.S. "suddenly needed friendly relations with the Japs and the film, along with several others, was locked up".[30]
After the war ended, Capra and directorsWilliam Wyler andGeorge Stevens foundedLiberty Films, which became the first independent company of directors since United Artists in 1919 whose goal was to make films without interference by studio bosses.
ForState of the Union (1948), Capra changed studios: it would be the only time he ever worked forMGM. Although the project had an excellent pedigree with starsSpencer Tracy andKatharine Hepburn, the film was not a success, and Capra's statement, "I thinkState of the Union was my most perfect film in handling people and ideas" has few adherents today.[46]
In 1998, theAmerican Film Institute (AFI) named it one of the best films ever made, putting it at 11th onAFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list of the top American films of all time. In 2006, the AFI put the film at the top of itsAFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers list, ranking what AFI considers the most inspirational American movies of all time.
It would become Capra's last film to win major acclaim—his successful years were now behind him, although he directed five more films over the next 14 years.[15]
In January 1952, the U.S. Ambassador to India asked Capra to represent the U.S. film industry at an International Film Festival to be held in India. A State Department friend of Capra asked him and explained why his trip would be important:
[Ambassador] Bowles thinks the Festival is a Communist shenanigan of some kind, but he doesn't know what ... Bowles has asked foryou. "I want a free-wheeling guy to take care of our interest on his own. I want Capra. His name is big here, and I've heard he's quick on his feet in an alley fight.[47]
After two weeks in India, Capra discovered that Bowles' fears were warranted, as many film sessions were used by Russian and Chinese representatives to give long political speeches. At a lunch with 15 Indian directors and producers, he stressed that "they must preserve freedom as artists, and that any government control would hinder that freedom. A totalitarian system—and they would become nothing but publicity men for the party in power." Capra had a difficult time communicating this, however, as he noted in his diary:
They all think some super-government or super-collection of individuals dictates all American pictures. Free enterprise is mystery to them. Somebodymust control, either visible or invisible ... Even intellectuals have no great understanding of liberty and freedom ... Democracy is only a theory to them. They have no idea of service to others, of service to the poor. The poor are despised, in a sense.[48]
When he returned to Washington to give his report, Secretary of StateDean Acheson gave Capra his commendation for "virtually single-handedly forestalling a possible Communist take-over of Indian films". Ambassador Bowles also conveyed gratitude to Capra for "one helluva job".[49]
FollowingIt's a Wonderful Life andState of the Union, which were done soon after the war ended, Capra's themes were becoming out of step with changes in the film industry and the public mood. Friedman finds that while Capra's ideas were popular with depression-era and prewar audiences, they became less relevant to a prospering postwar America. Capra didn't help his own cause when he consulted old 1930s scripts for his latest productions. Capra had become "disconnected from an American culture that had changed" during the previous decade.[30] BiographerJoseph McBride argues that Capra's disillusionment was more related to the negative effect that theHouse Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) had on the film industry in general. The HUAC interrogations in the early 1950s ended many Hollywood careers. Capra himself was not called to testify, although he was a prime target of the committee due to his past associations with manyHollywood blacklisted screenwriters.[30]
Capra blamed his early retirement from films on the rising power of stars, which forced him to continually compromise his artistic vision. He also claimed that increasing budgetary and scheduling demands had constrained his creative abilities.[30] Film historianMichael Medved agreed with Capra, noting that he walked away from the movie business because "he refused to adjust to the cynicism of the new order."[50] In his autobiography, written in 1971, Capra expressed his feelings about the shifting film industry:[51]
The winds of change blew through the dream factories of make-believe, tore at its crinoline tatters ... The hedonists, the homosexuals, the hemophiliac bleeding hearts, the God-haters, the quick-buck artists who substituted shock for talent, all cried: "Shake 'em! Rattle 'em! God is dead. Long live pleasure! Nudity? Yea! Wife-swapping? Yea! Liberate the world from prudery. Emancipate our films from morality!" ... Kill for thrill—shock! Shock! To hell with the good in man, Dredge up his evil—shock! Shock![50]
Capra added that in his opinion, "practically all the Hollywood film-making of today is stooping to cheap salacious pornography in a crazy bastardization of a great art to compete for the 'patronage' of deviates and masturbators."[52][Note 1]
Capra remained employable in Hollywood during and after the HUAC hearings but chose nonetheless to demonstrate his loyalty by attempting to re-enlist in the Army at the outbreak of theKorean War, in 1950. He was rejected due to his age.[53] He was later invited to join the Defense Department's newly formed Think Tank project, VISTA, but was denied the necessary clearance. According to Friedman, "these two rejections were devastating to the man who had made a career of demonstrating American ideals in film", along with his directing award-winning documentary films for the Army.
Capra directed two films atParamount Pictures starringBing Crosby,Riding High (1950, a remake of 1934'sBroadway Bill) andHere Comes the Groom (1951). By 1952, at the age of 55, Capra effectively retired from Hollywood filmmaking; he shifted to working with the California Institute of Technology, his alma mater, to produce educational films on science topics.[30]
His final theatrical film was withGlenn Ford andBette Davis, namedPocketful of Miracles (1961), a remake of his 1933 filmLady for a Day. In the mid-1960s he worked on pre-production for an adaptation of Martin Caidin's novelMarooned, but he felt he could not make the movie on the $3 million budget he was given, and abandoned the project.[55] (Afilm adaptation was finally made in 1969, directed byJohn Sturges with an $8 million budget.)
Capra's directing style relied on improvisation to a great extent. He was noted for going on the set with no more than the master scenes written. He explained his reasoning:
What you need is what the scene is about, who does what to whom, and who cares about whom ... All I want is a master scene and I'll take care of the rest—how to shoot it, how to keep the machinery out of the way, and how to focus attention on the actors at all times.[56]
According to some experts, Capra used great, unobtrusive craftsmanship when directing, and felt it was bad directing to distract the audience with fancy technical gimmicks. Film historian and author William S. Pechter described Capra's style as one "of almost classical purity". He adds that his style relied on editing to help his films sustain a "sequence of rhythmic motion". Pechter describes its effect:
Capra's [editing] has the effect of imposing order on images constantly in motion, imposing order on chaos. The end of all this is indeed a kind of beauty, a beauty of controlled motion, more like dancing than painting ... His films move at a breathtaking clip: dynamic, driving, taut, at their extreme even hysterical; the unrelenting, frantic acceleration of pace seems to spring from the release of some tremendous accumulation of pressure.[56]
Film critic John Raeburn discusses an early Capra film,American Madness (1932), as an example of how he had mastered the movie medium and expressed a unique style:
The tempo of the film, for example, is perfectly synchronized with the action ... as the intensity of the panic increases, Capra reduces the duration of each shot and uses more and more crosscutting and jump shots to emphasize the "madness" of what is happening ... Capra added to the naturalistic quality of the dialogue by having speakers overlap one another, as they often do in ordinary life; this was an innovation that helped to move the talkies away from the example of the legitimate stage.[27]
As for Capra's subject matter, film author Richard Griffith tries to summarize Capra's common theme:
[A] messianic innocent ... pits himself against the forces of entrenched greed. His inexperience defeats him strategically, but his gallant integrity in the face of temptation calls for the goodwill of the "little people", and through their combined protest, he triumphs.[56]
Capra's personality when directing gave him a reputation for "fierce independence" when dealing with studio bosses. On the set he was said to be gentle and considerate, "a director who displays absolutely no exhibitionism."[57] As Capra's films often carry a message about basic goodness in human nature, and show the value of unselfishness and hard work, his wholesome, feel-good themes have led some cynics to term his style "Capra-corn". However, those who hold his vision in higher regard prefer the term "Capraesque".[30]
Capra married actress Helen Howell in 1923. They divorced in 1928. He married Lucille Warner in 1932, with whom he had a daughter and three sons, one of whom, Johnny, died at age 3 following a tonsillectomy.[65]
Capra was four times president of theAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and three times president of theDirectors Guild of America, which he helped found. Under his presidency, he worked to give directors more artistic control of their films. During his career as a director, he retained an early ambition to teach science, and after his career declined in the 1950s, he made educational television films related to science subjects.[57]
Physically, Capra was short, stocky, and vigorous, and enjoyed outdoor activities, such as hunting, fishing, and mountain climbing. In his later years, he spent time writing short stories and songs, along with playing guitar.[57] He collected fine and rare books during the 1930s and 1940s. Six hundred forty items from his "distinguished library" were sold by Parke-Bernet Galleries at auction in New York in April 1949, realizing $68,000 ($898,600 today).[66]
His son,Frank Capra Jr., was the president ofEUE Screen Gems Studios inWilmington, North Carolina, until his death on December 19, 2007. His grandsons, brothers Frank Capra III and Jonathan Capra, have both worked as assistant directors; Frank III worked on the 1995 filmThe American President, which referred to Frank Capra in the film's dialogue.[67] Another son Tom was producer of the Today Show.
Capra's political views coalesced in some of his movies, which promoted and celebrated the spirit of American individualism. AconservativeRepublican, Capra railed againstFranklin D. Roosevelt during his tenure as governor of New York and opposed his presidency during the years of the Depression. Capra stood against government intervention during the national economic crisis.[1] Nevertheless, the Los Angeles FBI chapter in May 1947 regarded Capra's filmIt's a Wonderful Life as glorifying "values or institutions judged to be particularly anti-American or pro-Communist."[68] Despite Capra personally being a conservative Republican,Robert Riskin, who was Capra's frequent screenplay writer and vital to the plots of many of his films, was aNew Deal Democrat.[69]
In his later years, Capra became a self-described pacifist and was very critical of theVietnam War.[70][65]
Capra wrote in his early adulthood that he was a "Christmas Catholic". In his later years, Capra returned to theCatholic Church and described himself as "a Catholic in spirit; one who firmly believes that the anti-moral, the intellectual bigots, and the Mafias of ill will may destroy religion, but they will never conquer the cross".[71]
He left part of his 1,100 acre ranch inFallbrook, California, to the California Institute of Technology, to be used as a retreat center.[77] Capra's personal papers and some film-related materials are contained in theWesleyan University Cinema Archives, which allows scholars and media experts full access.[78]
During the golden age of Hollywood, Capra's "fantasies of goodwill" made him one of the two or three most famous and successful directors in the world.[57] Film historianIan Freer notes that at the time of his death in 1991, his legacy remained intact:
He had created feelgood entertainments before the phrase was invented, and his influence on culture—from Steven Spielberg to David Lynch, and from television soap operas to greeting-card sentiments—is simply too huge to calculate.[5]
Director/actorJohn Cassavetes contemplating Capra's contribution to film quipped: "Maybe there really wasn't an America, it was only Frank Capra."[79] Capra's films were his love letters to an idealized America—a cinematic landscape of his own invention. The performances his actors gave were invariable portrayals of personalities developed into recognizable images of popular culture, "their acting has the bold simplicity of an icon ..."[80]
Like his contemporary, directorJohn Ford, Capra defined and aggrandized the tropes of mythic America where individual courage invariably triumphs over collective evil. Film historian Richard Griffith speaks of Capra's "... reliance on sentimental conversation and the ultimate benevolence of ordinary America to resolve all deep conflicts."[81] "Average America" is visualized as "... a tree-lined street, undistinguished frame houses surrounded by modest areas of grass, a few automobiles. For certain purposes, it assumed that allrealAmericans live in towns like this, and so great is the power of myth, even the born city-dweller is likely to believe vaguely that he too lives on this shady street, or comes from it, or is going to."[82]
NYU professor Leonard Quart writes:
There would be no enduring conflicts—harmony, no matter how contrived and specious, would ultimately triumph in the last frame ... In true Hollywood fashion, no Capra film would ever suggest that social change was a complex, painful act. For Capra, there would be pain and loss, but no enduring sense of tragedy would be allowed to intrude on his fabulist world.[81]
Although Capra's stature as a director had declined in the 1950s, his films underwent a revival in the 1960s:
Ten years later, it was clear that this trend had reversed itself. Post-auteurist critics once more acclaimed Capra as a cinematic master, and perhaps more surprisingly, young people packed Capra festivals and revivals all over the United States.[57]
French film historian John Raeburn, editor ofCahiers du cinéma, noted that Capra's films were unknown in France, but there too his films underwent a fresh discovery by the public. He believes the reason for his renewed popularity had to do with his themes, which he made credible "an ideal conception of an American national character":
There is a strong libertarian streak in Capra's films, a distrust of power wherever it occurs and in whomever it is invested. Young people are won over by the fact that his heroes are uninterested in wealth and are characterized by vigorous ... individualism, a zest for experience, and a keen sense of political and social justice. ... Capra's heroes, in short, are ideal types, created in the image of a powerful national myth.[57]
In 1982, theAmerican Film Institute honored Capra by giving him theirAFI Life Achievement Award. The event was used to create the television film,The American Film Institute Salute to Frank Capra, hosted byJames Stewart. In 1986, Capra received theNational Medal of Arts. During his acceptance speech for the AFI award, Capra stressed his most important values:
The art of Frank Capra is very, very simple: It's the love of people. Add two simple ideals to this love of people: the freedom of each individual, and the equal importance of each individual, and you have the principle upon which I based all my films.
Capra expanded on his visions in his 1971 autobiography,The Name Above the Title:
Forgotten among the hue-and criers were the hard-working stiffs that came home too tired to shout or demonstrate in streets ... and prayed they'd have enough left over to keep their kids in college, despite their knowing that some were pot-smoking, parasitic parent-haters.
Who would make films about, and for, these uncomplaining, unsqueaky wheels that greased the squeaky? Not me. My "one man, one film" Hollywood had ceased to exist. Actors had sliced it up into capital gains. And yet—mankind needed dramatizations of the truth that man is essentially good, a living atom of divinity; that compassion for others, friend or foe, is the noblest of all virtues. Films must be made to say these things, to counteract the violence and the meanness, to buy time to demobilize the hatreds.[83]
TheWhy We Fight series earned Capra the Legion of Merit in 1943 and the Distinguished Service Medal in 1945.[84][85]
In 1957, Capra was awarded the George Eastman Award, given byGeorge Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film.[86]
Los Angeles MayorSam Yorty, by a vote of the city council, declared May 12, 1962 as "Frank Capra Day".George Sidney, President of the Directors Guild stated that "This is the first time in the history of Hollywood, that the city of Los Angeles has officially recognized a creative talent." At the event ceremony, directorJohn Ford announced that Capra had also received an honoraryOrder of the British Empire (OBE) on the recommendation ofWinston Churchill.[87] Ford suggested publicly to Capra:
Make those human comedy-dramas, the kind only you can make—the kind of films America is proud to show here, behind theIron Curtain, theBamboo Curtain—and behind thelace curtain.[87]
In 1966, Capra was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award from his alma mater Caltech.[88] (see section "Early Life", supra)
In 1975, Capra was awarded the Golden Anchor Award by the U.S. Naval Reserve's Combat Camera Group for his contribution to World War II Naval photography and production of the "Why We Fight" series. The award ceremony included a video salute by President Ford. Attending were many of Capra's favorite actors including Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed, Pat O'Brien, Jean Arthur, and others.[91]
An annualIt's a Wonderful Life celebration that Capra attended in 1981, during which he said, "This is one of the proudest moments of my life," was recounted inThe New Yorker.[92]
He was nominated six times for Best Director and seven times for Outstanding Production/Best Picture. Out of six nominations for Best Director, Capra received the award three times. He briefly held the record for winning the most Best Director Oscars when he won for the third time in 1938, until this record was matched byJohn Ford in 1941, and then later surpassed by Ford in 1952.William Wyler also matched this record upon winning his third Oscar in 1959.[93]
^ Medved points out the irony in Capra's expression of disillusionment: Capra's filmIt Happened One Night (1934) was the first film to win all five top Oscars, and in 1991, a few months after Capra's death,The Silence of the Lambs also won all five top Oscars.[50]
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