All language subtitles for Frank.Capra.Mr.America.2023.1080p.BluRay.x264.AAC5.1-[YTS.MX].en

Films are always a window
into an era or a time or a place

or a man's mind.

And no one was ever really
a more dominant filmmaker

of his era.

He made
some of the greatest movies

in the history of cinema.

And they're foundational...

...in the craft of cinema,
the way they're made,

how they're made.

And they're fucking
great entertainment.

Want some fireworks?

In behalf of the Academy,
I present you with this award.

Capra's personal story
is a story about one man

who overcame a lot of opposition

to go from being
an Italian peasant

to a major
American movie director.

These films I were making
were my way of saying,

"Thanks, America",
if you can understand

that kind of a cliché.

Gee whiz, so many things
happening all at once.

The kid from Sicily

had developed a way
of showing America

that all Americans loved.

His career has
an extraordinary decline.

It's not that you
don't have darkness.

Real darkness comes forward
in these movies,

but when we look
into Frank's films

he says we can endure,
we can survive, we can suffer

and triumph and live through it.

It's not a perfect world,

but there's a place
for you in it.

That really makes him
America's filmmaker.

And that's why people watch
It's a Wonderful Life

every year at Christmas.

It's not because
they're sentimental.

It's because
it is a life-saving movie.

If you find something real
and true in the moment

in which you're living,

and you do it well
and entertainingly,

it will always remain
contemporary and universal.

I guess this is just another
lost cause, Mr Paine.

These stories are always
applicable to our lives.

But they're even more so
when we forget how to hope.

The world is going through
terrible, terrible turmoil.

We need to be reminded
that it can still work.

When you tell us about being
the son of immigrant parents

and we know about your birth
in Palermo, Italy,

your Sicilian background,
your arrival in America.

What propelled you,
what drive was in you?

It's difficult to look back
and wonder

and you can only
just conjecture,

but I did want an education.

I was ashamed of my parents

because they couldn't read
or write.

I wanted to get out
of that ghetto.

Speaking of the time
when you were 10 years old,

you said, "I hated being poor,

"hated the ghetto
and hated America".

-You were a Sicilian immigrant.
-Yes.

I came here
when I was six years old

just old enough to see
and not understand.

He told me the boat journey
was so traumatic and powerful...

...it wiped all the memories
of Sicily out of his mind.

He didn't understand,
he told me as a kid,

why his parents
would tear him away

from their comfortable
surroundings in Sicily.

Coming over in steerage,
there's no air,

there's crowded bodies,
there's people being seasick,

there's a minimum of food.
It's a long trip.

I would think, an overwhelming
and frightening experience

for a child.

When he sat down to write
the story of his life...

...all the things he had done,
the years he had lived,

the first words
he put to paper were,

"I hated being poor".

I saw the rich people in America

and I saw the poor people
that we were.

I saw
my father and mother suffering

and working
and I saw everybody else.

And I thought they were much
happier where they came from.

This was my feeling at the time.
I hated this country.

I hated how my family
was being treated.

It was a hard time.

I don't think his memories
of that time ever left him.

He found America to be
a dog-eat-dog, tough place.

He lived in a lower-middle-class
neighbourhood,

but education was his way out.

Most kids didn't go
to high school in those days.

The kids from his social class.

So he went to
Manual Arts High School,

he cleaned the blackboards,
you know,

and he was a janitor
at the school,

and kids looked down on him
for that.

And I interviewed
Esther Gleason Schlinger,

who was the class historian,

and she said she dated
Frank Capra in high school,

but her parents broke it up
because he was an immigrant.

And she said she liked him,
but she said he was a nice boy.

He was just a terrible wop.

I really felt anger
on his behalf.

"Terrible whop",
that's how they saw him.

That was his first shock
of trying to assimilate

into the mainstream
in American life.

Frank Capra did not merely
perceive himself as an outsider.

In many ways, he was.

Even at the height
of his fame...

...after all of the accolades
and awards

that he had earned,
Collier's magazine

could run a profile of him
and casually describe him

with ethnic slurs.

I said, "When did you stop being
ashamed of your parents?"

He said, "I haven't yet".

Capra was from an era
where you were supposed to

melt down your differences
and become an American,

which meant obliterating
your past.

And one of the manifestations
of that

was he kind of looked down
on his own family.

The young Capra made it happen.

He certainly hated
being on the outside,

being on the bottom,
which he was,

and that rage,
for better and for worse...

...is what's going to propel him
the rest of his life.

After Frank left college,

like a lot of people
who go to college,

he didn't know exactly
what he was going to do next

and he spent a lot of time doing
odd jobs, travelling around,

trying different things,
doing different things.

And this gave him experience
of America.

This is where my love
for Americans started.

When I was about 22, 23, 24,

when I didn't have a job,
I couldn't find job of any kind

and I did a lot of running
around in Utah and Oregon,

and California.

And met the farmers,
the barbers, the poker players,

and just fell in love
with Americans

because of their wonderful
independence.

He bungles his way
toward the film industry

and, you know,
everybody bungled their way.

You can't plan to be
in an industry

that doesn't exist.

There's almost a gold rush
atmosphere to early Hollywood.

It was still quite possible
to start at the bottom

and work your way up.

And I can see why Frank Capra
would come to a place like that

and say, "This is for me",

because that's what
he was looking for.

A place where he could break in
and remake himself.

I didn't know a piece of film
from a piece of toilet paper.

Really.

I was fascinated
by this thing called film.

And so I tried all these things.

And I... All by myself,
I'd stay in that cutting room.

There were newsreel men that
would come in with their stuff,

and I'd develop it for 'em.

People from the university
would come over

and there were films
about their dogs,

their children, everything else

that they wanted
to put together.

This is where I learnt
about film.

A lot of directors have
a creation myth,

which is a fabricated story
about their beginnings.

I spent years researching
his apprenticeship

in the motion pictures.

He claims in his book
that he walked off the street

in San Francisco into a building

because there was an ad
for a film director

for a short film and he got
a job as a director by bluffing.

He knew nothing
about film directing.

Just bullshit.

He had worked a whole series
of humble jobs

leading up to becoming
a director.

Capra worked as a janitor

at the Christie Brothers
Film Company.

I said, "What were you doing?"

He said,
"Cleaning up the horse shit".

That's the way he started,

cleaning up the horse shit,
the humble thing you could do.

And then he was
an assistant director

for companies in Hollywood.

He was an assistant cameraman.

He directed some of
the Screen Snapshot series,

which were documentary films
about Hollywood.

And to me,
it's much more inspirational

that you start at the bottom.

In these early days,
he learnt very quickly.

He learnt by watching
what others were doing,

and it turned out he had
a real gift for visual gags.

Not word gags, but visual gags.

So he could think in images.

And that was
the beginning, really.

I never had such fun in my life.

The fun of creating something,
it just grabs you.

Your heart beats fast
when you create something.

And then later on,
when one of my pictures

would happen to be playing
and I'd pass by

and I'd hear them laugh
like hell through the picture.

Oh, boy, I'll tell you,
that's the payoff of payoffs.

You're looking down

on the intersection
of Hollywood and Vine,

one of the most talked about
four corners on Earth.

If you were to take your stand
here and wait long enough,

you'd eventually see
every outstanding star

in show business.

The Hollywood that we think of
in our imaginations

and basically the Hollywood

that existed up
until a few years ago

was this world of studios,
of sound stages

and giant teams of people
to run these movie cities.

Now, not every studio

had the financial muscle
to make movies

on the level of let's say,
an MGM...

...or a Fox.

Or a Paramount.

There were also a couple
of minor studios,

and informally,
they were known as Poverty Row.

They weren't poor.
They were poorer by comparison.

And at the top of this
second tier is Columbia.

Capra was on his way up

when he arrived
at Columbia in 1927.

So he's a baby director
beginning with a baby studio.

They're equally matched.

You put Frank Capra
into an atmosphere like this

and I think he said, "Okay,
I can do something with this".

Because Columbia also,
year by year,

would do at least a couple
of features with a real budget.

The history of Frank Capra
and Columbia

is completely intertwined.

It's definitional for both.

There would be
no Columbia today.

I wouldn't be sitting in the job
that I'm in without Frank Capra.

And I think there would be no
Frank Capra

in the way that there was
without Columbia.

Columbia didn't have
the resources

that these other studios had.

Because of it, there was
more freedom at Columbia.

And that may be surprising
to a lot of people

who know something
about Harry Cohn.

Harry Cohn ran the studio.
He basically ran it alone,

although he had
a few stalwart executives.

Cohn had his fingers
in everything,

and to that degree,

didn't have full control
of any one picture.

He would delegate,

and rather than delegating
to a producer,

he would delegate to a director.

Frank needed Cohn
and Cohn needed Frank.

The unimposing little fella
nearest to the camera

may not look
like a great director,

but don't let that fool you.

The name's Capra. Frank Capra.

Frank takes his fame
very seriously.

Very seriously.

Creativity doesn't want
to be managed,

and it doesn't want
to be restricted.

It wants to be free
and unbridled.

And that's the very delicate art
of managing creativity.

Now, it's ironic to use
the word "delicate"

in connection with a SOB
like Cohn,

who was a notorious,
absolute bastard.

But he had vision

and he actually understood
filmmaking and he knew talent,

and his early faith
and investment in Capra

was because Capra was talented
and he recognised it

and he backed him.

The big studios could afford
to have stars under contract.

At Columbia,
they don't really...

They have a couple
of stars under contract.

And they can't compete with MGM
on that level.

So how are they going to
find a star?

Well, they find a star director
in Frank Capra.

So, with the infrastructure
of Columbia,

Capra ascended.

And with the talent
of Capra's stardom,

Columbia ascended.

These are the early days
of his career.

He's doing everything.

And it was because of that
versatility that he pulls off

a series of movies that
we don't really associate

with Capra films.

A movie called Dirigible.

A movie called Flight.

A movie called Submarine.

These were action pictures

that probably would seem
more like, you know,

a Raoul Walsh movie
than a Frank Capra movie.

He didn't just make
one kind of film.

He has war films
or military films.

There's the north station,
over there.

How about
The Bitter Tea of General Yen

or how about The Miracle Woman?

I mean, he tries
different things. Forbidden.

One of the most beautiful
sort of woman's pictures

or as someone might say,
soap operas of its time.

But it's a beautiful film.
It's tender and human,

and really very beautiful.

Hello, Al.

"Sit right down, Mr Holland.

"I can't tell you how glad I am
to see you."

Where have you been
all this time?

Here and there, mostly there.

I've looked for you
in every jail in the state.

I got time off
for good behaviour.

Would it shock you
to know my heart's been broken?

It's been going "potato"
for the last couple of years.

-Who's your lady friend?
-Yeah, honey.

Go on. My head's bloody,
but unbowed.

-You're married?
-No.

Niece?

No.

You're a governess?

Yeah. And I think I better be
getting her home.

Now that evening is here,

suppose we go to
a world premiere

held at
Grauman's Chinese Theatre?

A first showing in Hollywood

is an event
of worldwide interest.

When I say that Cohn and I
had the same job,

I should have been
more specific.

It wasn't just to make
a slate of pictures,

it's to make hits.

Harry Cohn wasn't going to keep
the bankers from his door

if he didn't make hits,
and believe me,

the reason he loved Frank Capra
was because he made hits.

And Frank Capra didn't become
a rich man,

rich and successful man,

without enormous
commercial success.

A film director is lucky

when what occurs to him and her
as being a good film

also happens to occur
to enough of the audience

also as good.

Capra's great talent
was that what occurred to him

as a story he himself
wanted to see...

...and the way
in which he told it

happened to be extremely
appealing to others.

He just had the talent.

Discouragement, fear, failure.

Only a few years ago,
these dogged the nation.

Depression, haunted America.

It was a desperate,
desperate time,

the likes of which
we hadn't seen before

or since in this country.

Capra's movies came along,
and they connected very directly

to what people were
thinking and feeling.

And they do not deny
the Depression.

But they provide escape by
giving you laughter, victory...

...charm, glamour
and a great story to absorb you

so that you forget
your troubles.

My name is Smith.

That you seem to have been able
to stand for the last month.

I'm white, male and over 21.

I've never been in jail.

That is, not often.

And I prefer Scotch to bourbon.

I hate carrots, I hate peas,
I like black coffee

and I hate garters.

I make 75 bucks a week
and I got 847 bucks in the bank.

And I don't know yet whether
your eyes are blue or violet.

That's because
you're too far away, Stew.

I guess the picture, correct me
if I'm wrong, that really

many critics say started
the Frank Capra style

was Platinum Blonde.
Would you agree?

I think Platinum Blonde

and American Madness,
those two, yes.

I begin to go into
the social stuff.

I always said Union National
was a phoney bank.

Union National?

You have money
in that bank, too?

Yes. Something wrong?

-Run!
-You're telling me!

Give all the men in your plant

a couple hours off
to get their money out.

Tell Mrs Hardy to tell everyone
in the apartment house.

All right, I'll get it.
I'll bust a few noses.

Holy smoke. I'll get right
down there if I have to fly.

Run down there
and get your money at once.

Oh, my goodness.

Oh, my goodness.
Oh, my goodness.

Oh, my goodness.

The audiences see his films
as extraordinarily contemporary.

They see his films as depicting
a Depression-era America...

...that they either recognise
or aspire to.

That's what they want
America to look like,

people who help each other.

Matt, look! There's Mr Jones!

I'm putting my money
in this bank!

I know what I'm doing!

Open up.
I want to put some money here.

I don't want to take any out!

Certainly, Mr Jones. Teller...

They're starting
to come in already.

Yeah, yeah, well, listen.
Don't waste any time.

Get all the money
you can lay your hands on.

Who's this?

Come on out here, pawnbrokers.
Take a look.

We've been waiting 50 minutes.

Come on. Take a look at this.

See a demonstration of faith
that's worth more

than all the collateral.

Come on, boys.
It'll do your heart good.

Look at that. They're shoving
their hard-earned money

across the counter
with a 10-1 chance against them.

One thing we have to keep
in mind is that

the American studios
were always producing films

for a global audience.

His films that we think of
as so quintessentially American

were huge hits
wherever they played.

And that's interesting,
and they seem to have

the same meaning
for audiences in France,

audiences in the UK
that they had for

audiences here in the US.

And it was now this time
that you began your association

with Robert Riskin.

It was a very happy
and very long association.

We both vibrated
to the same tuning fork.

We collaborated on everything

and we both kind of had
that same idea of comedy.

Human comedy, not gag comedy.

And that's a great thing,

when you can get two people
that agree.

Capra had an exceptional eye
for good writing,

and he knew the importance
of a good script.

So, in the early '30s,
when he starts landing

some really exceptionally
talented screenwriters,

he was ready to go.

Later in his life, Capra would,
sort of, take credit

for pretty much everything
in his films.

But early on,
he was smart enough

to put together the best crew
he possibly could.

The cameraman, Joseph Walker,
who was on so many of his films,

and Barbara Stanwyck
and other actors

who really helped to create
the world that he made.

So I think that the Capra film

stands for a wide crew
of people.

When It Happened One Night
was released into theatres,

believe it or not, initially,
it didn't do that well.

But then something happened.

People started coming back.

The ones who saw it
liked it enough to go back,

and they told their friends.

Capra liked to say years later
that "people made that movie"

because it was
the ticketholders...

...the punters
who just kept coming back.

Any time you're going back to,
you know, the production

of a Hollywood film
during the classic era...

...there can be a lot of myths
attached to it.

In this case,
it's safe to go with the stories

because they're
not really myths.

Nobody wanted
to make this movie.

Certainly, it's two stars
had to sort of be dragged

kicking and screaming.

Clark Gable was there because
he was being punished by MGM.

He had been asking
for more money

and MGM kind of told him
to go sit in a corner

and think about what he did.

And Claudette Colbert
only agreed to do it

when she was given
an exorbitant salary

for doing so.

Next time you drop in,
bring your folks.

At some point during the filming
of It Happened One Night,

it started to hit people

that their kind of
loosey-goosey attitude

towards making this movie

was actually producing something
rather special.

Claudette Colbert said
in later years

that when she read "The Man
on the Flying Trapeze" scene,

she thought it was
kind of ridiculous.

Couldn't understand
how everybody on the bus

would know the lyrics
to one song.

But then, when she actually
got in there and was filming it,

she happened to catch
the eye of her maid

who was standing somewhere
behind the cameraman,

and her maid was loving it.

And Claudette thought,
"Wow. Okay.

"We really may have
something here."

Movies of any type are often
about an idealised portrayal.

Life as you wish it were,

not necessarily
life as it really is.

So, when they get on the bus
and start singing

"The Man on the Flying Trapeze",
that's when you really know

that this is a movie
about people coming together.

There's not a lot
of the Depression

in It Happened One Night,
oddly enough.

A train goes by
as they wait at the crossroads

and on the train are some hobos.

The Depression is now passing
through the film.

"Hello, audience.

"Yes, we remember
there's a Depression",

but, you know, you're talking
about something else

in this movie.

A love story.

A love story where a woman
who has money

and a guy who doesn't
learn about each other,

and you learn
that not having money is okay.

In fact, it's noble.

It's better than being rich.

Where'd you learn to dunk?
In finishing school?

Now, don't you start telling me
I shouldn't dunk.

Of course you shouldn't.
You don't know how to do it.

Dunking's an art.

Don't let it soak so long.
A dip, and into your mouth.

You leave it in too long,
it'll get soft and fall off.

It's all a matter of timing.
I'll write a book about it.

-Thanks, Professor.
-Just goes to show you.

Plenty millions
and you don't know how to dunk.

These rich people
couldn't dunk doughnuts.

I mean, there's no future
in life if you can't dunk.

She doesn't even know
what piggybacking is.

Are the shower's in there?

They ain't out here.

She has to learn to be
an American,

and not a rich person.

That is really
what this is about.

She has to learn
to be like other Americans.

A person without money.

You want to shower around here,
you'll stand in line.

Money is not important.
It's not the thing.

It's a reassuring message
for American audiences.

Well, today, it's easy.
It's a rom-com, right?

There weren't a lot of 'em
back in the day.

It's a star-driven rom-com.
It's very simple.

It's When Harry Met Sally...
or any one of the movies

that Tom Hanks made
with Meg Ryan.

At the time,
it was way more than that.

It was genre-breaking. There
really weren't a lot of 'em.

It was class-based romance.
It was pretty racy.

It's scene after scene
after scene of perfectly staged

drama/comedy.

It's a movie where everything
came together.

The screenplay, the casting.
Not this one but that one.

We tried to get this one,
but he was unavailable.

Mr Meyer forced Gable
on Harry Cohn, whatever it was.

This looks like the best spot.

We're not going to sleep
out here, are we?

I don't know about you,

but I'm going to give
a fairly good imitation of it.

The famous scene where they go
to sleep under the haystacks.

Beautifully shot.

And the desire between them
is so palpable.

The other thing he controlled
masterfully was rhythm.

And so often,
his movies move fast,

but he also knows
when to slow down.

And in that film,
when they almost kiss

and then Gable stands up
and lights a cigarette instead

and goes to sleep
in the other haystack.

And you cut back to her
and she's looking at him,

"Oh, you dope,
why didn't you kiss me?

"Why didn't you kiss me?"

And it just quietly fades out
on a close-up of her.

It's so beautiful.

Just so beautiful.

It wasn't really anything
anybody thought

was going to be successful,

and there were a lot of problems
going along with it.

And Frank said, "You know,
maybe we should abandon this.

"I mean,
nobody seems to want this.

"Everybody says a bus story
is never going to work."

At that time, Columbia was still

making its way off
of Poverty Row,

and it became a giant hit
for Clark Gable.

It was transcendent
in the history

and the life of the studio,

and it's the first
of only three movies ever

in the history of Hollywood

to have won all five
of the major Academy Awards.

Picture, director,
writer, actor, and actress.

So it pulled Columbia up
into the big leagues.

Frank Capra rang the gong
of Hollywood

in a way it had never been
rung before.

It Happened One Night
won all five top prizes.

This was a singular thing

that this young man

at a low-budget,
Poverty Row studio

hit the top, hit the top.

Those five awards
nearly killed me.

I mean, you know,
you shake the Oscar tree

when you get
the five major awards.

What are you gonna do
for an encore?

This was my problem,

and I got it so early
in my life, you see?

Capra went to pieces kind of
after he became successful

with It Happened One Night.

He said suddenly people know
who you are in Asia,

you know, I mean,
it's a whole different feeling.

I read all kinds of things,
but everything seemed trivial

and puerile after that,
and I feigned sickness.

Not to make any more pictures.
I wanted to quit for a while.

I was afraid, actually afraid
to make another film.

He's a director who,
like many others at that time,

was working nonstop.

So It Happened One Night,
of course, sets him up to fail

as much as it sets him up
to succeed.

He almost died of peritonitis

and he was really ill,
seriously ill.

So I feigned sickness,
but in feigning sickness,

I became sick,
and I was really about to die

when a friend of mine

brought in a very faceless
old man who came in

and said to me,
"Mr Capra, you're a coward".

And I said, "Coward? I'm sick".

And he said,
"No, you're a coward.

"You were given certain gifts

"and you're not using them.

"You have been given a gift
to reach hundreds of millions

"and for two hours,
and in the dark.

"You're a coward.
You're an offence to God.

"You're an offence to humanity."

And he just got up and left.

Things do seem to change.

Capra himself told a clearly
apocryphal story

about while he was convalescing,

being visited by a little man
whose name we don't know.

We know nothing about him.

Who told him to get up
and get to work

and stop feeling sorry
for himself

and to start to make films
that meant things.

He had to renew himself.

He had to recharge himself,

and no one really knows
the why of this,

and although he alludes
to these things

and discusses them
in his autobiography,

talked about them in interviews,

you don't really understand

exactly what is
going on here with him.

He is a man who feels things
and fears things.

As I got to know Frank
over the years

and we spent a lot of time

talking on
the telephone together,

we talked about his illnesses
and his crises.

And I would just say
that he knew he was vulnerable.

There's always something in you
or in your life

that can bring you pain.

Some of it is simple health.

Other things are deeper
than that.

And I think that's probably all
I would want to say about that.

Capra realised how many people
he was speaking to,

and how successfully
he was coming across.

So he wanted to make sure
he was saying something

important about the way
that we lived.

And it's that spiritual rebirth
that fuels

the next run
of Capra's great movies.

I was doing it unconsciously.

But consciously,

the first film that I was going
to make

where I attempted
to say something

was Mr Deeds Goes to Town.

An individual that reached deep
within his resources

and come up with the wits
and the strength

and the knowledge
to defeat his environment.

Well, that's hope.

-Say something.
-Tell your story. Go ahead.

-Go ahead.
-Tell him.

Mr Deeds,

the boys here wanted me
to say a little something.

Just wanted me to say that...

Well, they want me to say
that we think you're swell.

And that's no baloney.

-Say something more.
-Give me a chance, fellas.

We're all down and out.
A fella like you comes along,

it kinda gives us a little hope.

From Mr Deeds on,
my films are pretty much alike.

I mean, the same things
kept cropping up in them.

-That's him.
-Are you Longfellow Deeds?

-Yes.
-Sheriff's Office.

We got a warrant
to take you into custody.

A what?

A warrant for your arrest.
You have to come along with us.

These were films like
Mr Deeds Goes to Town,

Mr Smith Goes to Washington,
Meet John Doe,

and other films that are clearly

making statements about life
as it's lived in America

at that time.

About politics, about industry,
about the law, about media.

Because I wanna give
money to people who need it,

they think I'm crazy.

That's marvellous.
That makes everything complete.

I guess what we learnt here

is a kind of Frank Capra movie,
isn't it?

What we learn is that wealth
is not the American Dream.

It's about contributing
to your community,

to your country.

It's an honourable sense
of being a good man.

Mr Deeds.

You haven't yet touched upon
the most important point.

It's all a fantastic idea
of yours

to want to give away
your entire fortune.

It is, to say the least,
most uncommon.

It's like the road
out in front of my house,

it's on a steep hill.

Every day
I watch the cars climbing up.

Some go lickety split up
that hill on high,

some have to shift into second
and some sputter and shake

and slip back
to the bottom again.

Same car, same gasoline,
yet some make it and some don't.

And I say the fellas
who can make the hill on high

should stop once in a while
and help those who can't.

That's all I'm trying to do
with this money.

Help the fellas who can't make
the hill on high.

And after careful deliberation,
the committee have voted

that the best direction
for a motion picture

during the year of 1936

is awarded to you, Frank Capra,

for your direction
of the picture

Mr Deeds Comes to Town.

Retake, boys. It's
"Goes to Town". Can't have that.

Capra had to wait about a year

to even get to make
Lost Horizon.

I really think he thought
this was going

to be a grand statement,
a real artistic achievement.

After Mr Deeds,
Capra was feeling

a greater sense
of responsibility.

He was dealing with big issues,
big subjects.

He was being seen
as a political force

in the United States,
a cultural force.

Welcome to Shangri-La.

You see, we are sheltered
by mountains on every side.

It's a strange phenomena
for which we are very grateful.

I simply like the fact
that Lost Horizon

is a utopian movie at all.

It's magic.

Those have kind of fallen
by the wayside.

Dystopia is what we get now.

The problem with that film
is it's a theme picture.

It's not as much
about the characters

as the characters are dwarfed

by the big themes
and the big sets.

It is our hope
that the brotherly love

of Shangri-La

will spread
throughout the world.

Capra went way over budget
and almost bankrupted Columbia.

Harry Cohn had to call
all the employees together

on a soundstage at one point
and say,

"We can't pay your cheques
for this week",

because they were
so short on cash.

-What's happened? Where's Bob?
-He's going, my child.

In those days,

there were bank lendings
involved

and it wouldn't have been hard
for a runaway picture

to sink a studio.

So I think
the production problems

on Lost Horizon

took a great toll on both sides.

And it fractured the trust.

And trust is hard won
and easily lost.

Harry Cohn took the picture
away from Capra

after a while because Capra
couldn't bring it down

to the length that Cohn wanted.

It was not the success
and winner of Oscars

that they thought it would be.

It was sort of the beginning
of the end

between them, probably.

Well, I don't start a film
unless I have something to say

and know what I'm gonna say.

He went down among the people.

And there he found

a nugget.

Capra movies
are about good people

up against overwhelming
opposition.

...to Senator Jefferson Smith.

It's generally one person
against the media,

the government,
popular awareness.

These insurmountable projects

that make them, in a way,

almost like fairy tales,
you know.

How is Saint George
going to slay the dragon?

There's no way, you know.
This is a hopeless situation.

I can't help feeling
that there's

been a big mistake somehow.

I don't think I'm gonna be
much help to you

down there
in Washington, Senator.

I used comedy and laughter
as a way of becoming

very friendly with the audience,

or making the audience
very friendly with the film,

and with the characters
in the film.

It's comedy directors
who typically are most adept

at drama and pathos.

That's his brilliance
with casting,

is that he's a comedy director.

That's his brilliance
with pacing, with rhythm,

is that he's a comedy director.

It's in comedy that you learn
the control of those things.

It's really hard
to calibrate things

to get those laughs
from the audience

and it takes time
and it takes talent,

experience and screening.

You've got to screen
your pictures a lot.

If you entertain them
with laughter,

then you have them at a point

where they might sit still
for a message.

Hello, Senator.
I was just passing through.

I thought I'd like to meet you.

Sit down.
You met all the boys here,

-I suppose.
-Yes, sir.

They tell me you've been
right on your toes

ever since you got here.

That's fine.

You know, some people told me
that you were dumb.

I think you're smart.

What fascinated you most
about the story of Mr Smith?

Well, the story of Mr Smith
is the story

of a young nobody that gets
put into a position of trust

and is an idealist.

And he doesn't like
what he finds.

And he doesn't like

this compromise and making do
and this rubbing one's back.

And particularly
doesn't like graft.

And he doesn't like power.
So he began to fight it,

and the machine just
steamrolled right over him

and flattened him right out.

And with the aid of a girl

who took an interest in him,
he got up on his feet

and fought back and won.

He found it deep within, inside,

he had the moral, the mental

and enough wit
and everything else

to win out over his
environmental difficulties.

You mean you tell these men
and Senator Paine what to do?

Why, yes.

Joe Paine has been taking
my advice for the past 20 years.

You're a liar.

Mr Smith Goes to Washington
was released

at the same time
that Hitler attacked Poland.

It was a time of great crisis,

and Americans really needed
to come together

to not only save the country
in the Depression,

but later join the Allies

to save the world
in World War II.

And those crises came
back to back.

How to join together
to be part of a worthy cause

that's bigger than yourself,

and at the same time,
how to do that

without losing hold of

what's important to you
personally?

Americans had to answer
these questions

at the moment
Capra was making a movie.

They were urgent questions.

They were not
theoretical questions.

I mean, even whether
they were consciously addressed

or unconsciously addressed
by Americans,

they were living with them
day to day.

How big is this thing?
Where's it going to be?

How many boys
will it accommodate?

You've got to have
all that in it, you know.

Yeah, and something else,
Ms Saunders.

The spirit of it, the idea...

How do you say it?

-That's what's got to be in it.
-What?

The Capitol Dome.

On paper?

I want to make that come to life
for every boy in this land.

Yes, and I'll light it up
like that, too.

You see, boys forget
what their country means

by reading "the land
of the free" in history books.

When they get to be men,
they forget even more.

Liberty is too precious a thing
to be buried in books.

Unlike other filmmakers
at the time,

people saw in his films

a model of what they hoped
their lives would be.

They saw his films
as aspirational in some ways.

They saw his films as comments

on what it's like to live
in modern America.

Men should hold it up
in front of them

every single day of their lives
and say, "I'm free".

They see the problems
that they're experiencing.

The government wasn't responding
to their needs.

The law certainly
didn't do that.

Capitalism seemed
to have run amok.

It wasn't helping anyone.

Capra was always, always
in touch with the audience,

not just in terms of what
they wanted in entertainment

but who they were emotionally
as Americans.

Were you
some kind of a populist,

or was there something
in the fact

that you had been
a poor kid yourself

and somewhere in the American,

you'd found your way upward?

The kind of pictures I made
from It Happened One Night on

were my way of saying,
"Thanks, America,

"for giving me the opportunity",
because only in America,

it can happen that a son
of illiterate parent peasants

could get this kind
of an education that I'd had.

And then be allowed to use
whatever talents he had.

You can't quit now.

Not you. They aren't all Taylors
and Paines in Washington.

That kind just throw
big shadows, that's all.

You didn't just
have faith in Paine

or any other living man.

You had faith in something
bigger than that.

You had plain, decent,
everyday common rightness,

and this country could use
some of that.

He had a love for people.

You see it in the faces
of Capra's people.

If you look at a Capra movie,

it is cast down
to the smallest part.

The faces speak so clearly
of character.

It was very important to me
who played the smaller parts.

I treated all the small parts
as star parts.

I use people. I love people.

Capra's 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, too.

And we can see that

in the overarching
whiteness of his films

and his unwillingness to talk

about anything
other than whiteness

for the most part.

The expansiveness,
the broadness of Capra's films,

we always have to keep in mind

that there are
those limits, too,

that certainly
weren't unique to him,

but that perhaps he could have
done a much better job at.

This John Doe meeting's gonna be

one of the biggest things
that ever happened.

And why they're coming
from all over.

Trains, boxcars, wagons.

Frank Capra movies
will frequently show

people being kind and wonderful

and even noble
on an individual basis.

But large groups of people
are frequently sinister

by contrast.

One of your critics has argued

that implicit
in all of your films

is a distrust of the majority.

I'm not against a crowd
of individuals.

I'm against the mass.

I'm against the mass conforming.

I'm not against a crowd
of individuals.

And I think that the majority
does tend to be the herd.

They can be conformed
and channelised

and allow themselves
to be channelised.

And it's only those guys
that stick their heads up, say,

"I don't want to go this way.
I want to go this way".

And that I'm interested in,

and I think the world
is interested in

and I think that the humanity
is interested in.

I think this reflects
Frank Capra's

peculiar, if not
political outlook,

than his kind of
intellectual outlook.

He, you know, loved humanity
on a one-by-one basis.

Not so much in vast numbers.

Heroes in the film
are very individualistic

and very self-sufficient,

and that was his experience
in life.

He was an immigrant,
he was an outsider

and I think he's therefore
very inherently sympathetic

with the individual
versus the system.

The political dimensions
of the films

are kind of all over the place.

Robert Riskin, who wrote so many
of those first great films

was very much an FDR Democrat
at this time.

Capra was a Republican.

But he was a Republican

at a time when there was a
progressive wing of that party

that was marked by
a sort of critique

of the excess of capitalism.

So that made it possible
for him to make films

with New Deal Democrats.

And together they could
kind of produce an America

that seemed both apolitical
and political at the same time.

Both left and right, I suppose,

can all see some value in
standing up for the individual,

being oppressed by society
and fighting corruption.

-Order, gentlemen.
-Mr President!

I stand guilty as framed,

because Section 40 is graft.

And I was ready to say so.
I was ready to tell you

that a certain man
in my state, a Mr James Taylor,

wanted to put through this dam
for his own profit.

A man who controls
a political machine

and controls everything else
worth controlling in my state.

Yes, a man even powerful enough
to control Congressmen.

And I saw three of them
in his room

the day I went up to see him.

-Will the Senator yield?
-No, sir, I will not yield!

My films were more to uplift

the people
from their everyday miseries,

than to sort of change things.

I was aiming at

the general folds of humanity,

and sort of trying to glorify
the compassionate,

the forgiving,
the merciful, and so forth.

The interesting thing about

a man like Frank Capra,
with his success...

Everybody's always
going to define him.

He hated that.

I was a Capra fan,

a great admirer of his films.

So, I called up Capra

and I said,
"I'd like to interview you".

Went down to Palm Springs.
He lived in La Quinta nearby.

And I went to his home.

He had
a sprawling white ranch house

with a gigantic American flag.

And we were talking
and he was giving me

his whole Frank Capra rap about

the little guy
against the system.

He was telling me how he
hated bankers and rich people.

And then,
a man came to the table.

He had this envelope
full of pictures of Capra

playing golf with
President Gerald Ford.

And he spread them on the table,

and Capra said, "Oh, God.
Look at Gerry Ford.

"He's such a great guy."

There was a picture
in particular that struck me,

that Capra was putting,

and Gerald Ford
was holding the pin for him,

and I thought this was amazing.
What a symbolic picture,

the immigrant with the president
holding the pen for you.

That's kind of
the ultimate American dream.

The guy said, "I'll make
copies of the pictures for you",

and Capra said,
"Thank you very much",

And then, he turned to me
and he said, "Where was I?

"Oh, yeah, I was telling you how
I hate bankers and rich people."

And he launched back
into his rap without a pause,

and I thought, "This guy
is not what he seems to be".

People, for a long time,

assumed that the movies
that they had seen,

which were ultimately
loving about America,

embraced a certain type
of liberal politics.

And then, people started
to look more closely at him,

and they discovered that there
was another side to Frank Capra.

There was a side that thought
people should be out there,

pulling themselves up
by their bootstraps like he did.

So, he was a complex person,

and I think, at some point,

people started
seeing that as a flaw,

that this the kind of
rock-ribbed conservative

was existing alongside
the movies that they had loved.

Penny,

why don't you write
a play about ism-mania.

-Ism-mania.
-Yeah, sure.

You know, communism,
fascism, voodooism.

Everybody's got
an ism these says.

I thought it was
an itch or something.

Well, it's just as catching.

When things go
a little bad nowadays,

you go out
and get yourself an ism,

and you're in business.

I've got it.
It might help Cynthia

to have an ism in the monastery.

And why is that?

For the best-directed picture
of the year,

You Can't Take It with You,

on behalf of the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

we present to you,
Frank Capra, this award.

As you know, this is
the third time you have won

this highest of our awards,

and in all sincerity
from my heart,

I thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr Niblo.

I'm very happy
to have this again.

Thank you.

He, quite conceivably,
by 1935 or so,

was the most famous filmmaker
in the world,

or certainly,
one of two or three.

Frank Capra really turned
this aspect of self-promotion

into something of an art,

and he used that as a tool

to create, horrid word,
a "brand", if you will.

In the late 1930s, he's on
the cover of Time magazine,

and I think
he's the first director

on the cover of Time.

And the tagline
for that cover is,

"His stories can't top
his story".

And inside, they told the story

of a little boy
who comes from Palermo,

who has a terrible life,
makes it big.

So, I think his life, as it was
understood in the press,

by the people
who went to see his films,

was really an important part
of why his films

were so appealing
to so many at that time.

They saw in him a person
who they could relate to,

understand, and who
they felt understood things

the way that they did.

Hollywood reaches far,
carrying its cargo of dreams

to almost every city
and village in America.

It seemed to me,
there was some kind...

Film offered some kind

of a social cement,
if you will, for people.

Yes, I think films offered hope.

And they go out of theatres

feeling much better
than they went in.

They were lifted.

Movie-going in the Depression
and through World War II

was different
than the way it is now.

Then, everyone saw virtually
the same movies,

and that creates the sense
of movies being a myth,

that we can all

have the same
frame of reference in our minds,

we've all been through
the same thing together,

not just as citizens
of a country, but as filmgoers.

That alone gives filmmakers
in Capra's generation

more power than you can imagine
a filmmaker having today.

I mean,
you have to think of Capra,

in a way, as another FDR
in that sense.

That is going to create
a lot of suspicion

as soon as people begin
to interrogate

what it's like
for someone in the media

to have that much power.

And Capra knew
he had that power,

and so, too,
did the American government

when they brought Capra in

to make what would become
the Why We Fight series.

Causes and events leading up
to our entry into the war.

Well, what are the causes?

Why are we, Americans
on the march?

Is it because of...

Pearl Harbor?

Is that why we are fighting?

Or is it because of...

Britain?

Who was the genius
behind all this?

Who made the films that moved
presidents, prime ministers

and millions of citizens
and soldiers around the world?

To answer the Nazis,

the American government
turned to Hollywood, California,

and to a cocky
little immigrant from Sicily

named Frank Capra.

The United States of America,

when the war broke out,
found itself the only country

that didn't have
a big propaganda machine.

So, we had to get organised
and get propaganda.

As soon as the war starts,
Capra wants to join up.

He wants to get involved.

He wants to make films.

American soldiers
mobilised for war,

and with them,
Major Frank Capra.

Forty-five years old,

salary, $250 a month.

Capra reports directly
to Chief of Staff,

General George C. Marshall.

When you first called on General
Marshall at the Pentagon,

what did he tell you
he wanted you to do?

He called me in, and then,

he said, "We have
an enormous problem".

He said, "We know that
if you shoot an American,

"he'll shoot back".

But can he take this
being away from home?

Can he take this discipline?

And his answer?

"In my opinion,

"he can if we tell him
what he's fighting about."

So, General Marshall
was asking you in effect

to give the boys
a reason to fight.

Give the boys
a reason to fight and don't lie.

But your films
were comedies in Hollywood.

He wanted somebody
to reach the people.

Was able to reach the people,

and I had been able
to reach the people in my films,

and make them laugh and cry,
make them like things.

Here, I got the greatest heroes,
the greatest villains

on the world stage.

Real. Not actors. Real.

In Italy, they had
a shorter word. "Fascism."

In Japan,
they had lots of names for it.

A new era of enlightenment.

Capra says he's
starting the war in Hollywood.

The Why We Fight films
are just extraordinary.

They're films that involve
collage, animation,

multiple voices telling
the stories, found footage.

They almost seem like
avant-garde films to us now.

They say trouble
always comes in threes.

Take a good close look
at this trio.

Remember these faces.

Remember them well.

If you ever meet them,
don't hesitate.

The films
are simplistic in some ways.

The way they develop
ideas of good and bad.

But they're also sophisticated,
not just aesthetically,

but in how
they have to talk about

the realities of the world.

Here was the Italy that
Mussolini took over in 1922.

And almost his first act
was to tell the Italians

they were
the rightful owners of Corsica,

Nice, Savoie,

Albania, Tunisia,

Ethiopia, and a land corridor
linking it with Libya.

He's making myths about the war
in these war films.

There's no question about that.

And he creates a history
that goes back to Buddha,

Muhammad, which is
extraordinary to think about,

Christ, Jefferson.

Moses.

Muhammad.

Confucius.

Christ.

All believe that
in the sight of God,

all men were created equal.

And from that, there developed
a spirit among men and nations

which is best expressed in our
own Declaration of Freedom.

So, he creates
a kind of global myth

that is, we ourselves
come from a world history

that leads to
a particular form of democracy

that now is at risk.

It's certainly true
that his films before that

had engaged
in a kind of mythic practice.

That government of the people,

by the people, for the people

shall not perish from the Earth.

Not until we showed him
some of the stuff

that we got at Dachau, that
George Stevens photographed,

did it actually impinge itself
on the mind,

the horror of this whole thing.

It left me just speechless,

colourless, bloodless.

I couldn't possibly believe
that there was

that kind of a savagery
in the world, you see?

Between men.

Men, the highest
of all the animals.

Man... It's man who created God

and man who created
all kinds of things.

To end up here
in a pile of bones, burned.

So, that was a terrible shock.

The question
of the goodness of people,

the question of,
"What is humanity?

"What can we hold on to
and believe in?" was a challenge

after he did the job he did
in World War II.

He handled a great many
atrocity photos.

The atrocity photos were
part of what he was doing,

and he saw them,
he had to look at them,

handle them every day,
and it upset him,

it changed him, and it damaged
his faith in human beings.

I think, in fact,
he was one of those veterans,

even though
he didn't see battle,

who came back and perhaps

had a great deal
of trouble adjusting.

I was away
almost six years from camera.

We came back to Hollywood
and we didn't know anybody.

People introduced me
to somebody and they'd say,

"Frank who?"

Capra comes back after the war,
ready to make films.

He certainly wants to work.

He understands that
the future of film production

might not be at the studios
but might be more independent.

These were
the three absolute titans,

titans of mid-century cinema,

George Stevens,
William Wyler and Frank Capra,

to form "Liberty Films".

That name
is not chosen by accident.

That's what
they thought they had

was their liberty, and they had
chafed under the studio system.

It's a very big deal, and there
are tonnes of articles about it

in Time magazine, and Newsweek,
and all the newspapers.

But, of course, Capra was
the only one who was able

to make films for Liberty,
the production company.

Wyler and Stevens were both
committed to other studios,

and couldn't make any films
for the company they had formed.

This is a brilliant move.

This is a really smart
business move.

Three of the biggest

and best directors
of America get together.

They're going to make
some movies they want to make

the way they want to make them,

and distribute them
through Paramount.

What could go wrong?

What could go wrong?
Everything, obviously.

Why is It's a Wonderful Life
your favourite film?

I keep reading that.

Why do you like that the best?

Because I think it expresses

what I've been trying to say
in the other films

better than the other films.

I don't know
how many of you here

have seen It's a Wonderful Life.

How many of you have seen it?

Thank you very much.

But it is one
of those films that...

I break down
every time I see it,

and I made the goddamn thing.

It's just
one of those things that

that gets you inside,
and shows you what you can be,

what we can do,

and how precious life is,

and how wonderful life is.

Hello, Bedford Falls!

Merry Christmas!

-Merry Christmas!
-Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, George!

Merry Christmas, movie house!

Merry Christmas, Emporium!

Merry Christmas, you
wonderful old Building & Loan!

Merry Christmas, Mr Potter!

Happy New Year to you, in jail!

Go on home.
They're waiting for you.

When people
talk about Capra's films,

they always remember
the optimistic side,

the happy endings,
the guy getting the girl,

that kind of thing.

But they forget, or tend not
to think about, the darker side.

The comedy is born
from pain and anguish.

That's where it comes from.

And I think that's one of
the strongest qualities

of It's a Wonderful Life.

A lot of his films, below
the surface of the films,

have anger, resentment
and violence,

and we see this, too, in
Mr Smith goes to Washington,

when he beats up the reporters

who have written these
terrible things about him.

There's always
an undertone of violence.

There's always an undertone that
things might get out of control.

There's an undertone that
things can be scary really fast.

Get over there.

See how you're gonna
like it this time.

See what good your money will do

when you're six feet under.
Never thought of that, did you?

No. All you ever thought of
was pinching pennies,

you money-grabbing hick!

Virtually every character
is driven to madness

or every main character
is driven to madness,

or to the brink of suicide.

And there's real rage there
in those moments.

I love
the roller-coaster feeling

of his films, emotionally.

The highs and the lows.
One critic said

it's like the feeling of life
being lived.

Every day, there's a mixture
of comedy and drama,

and highs and lows.

-Let go!
-What's the matter with you?

I'm not fit to be a Senator!
I'm not fit to live!

Expel me!

With a film like
It's a Wonderful Life,

you wonder how much
of Capra's own experience

is in the bitterness
we see in George,

the depression we see in George,

the general tiredness
that we see in George.

There's the pharmacist
who beats up the young boy.

There are the people
who try to destroy the bank.

There are all kinds of scary
things going on in that film

that kind of strike us as...

That's not what we think of
as going on in a Capra film.

There is a lot
of suicide in Capra,

or near-suicide, attempted
suicide, planned suicide,

more than
you might think at first.

So, that particular theme in
It's a Wonderful Life

is perhaps not surprising.

But Capra said later that what
appealed to him about this theme

was that
it was saying to people,

"No, you are not a failure".

Help!

Help! Help!

So, here is Capra,
the grand success,

kind of reaching back
toward Americans

who maybe hadn't done so hot
in the past 15 or 20 years,

and telling them,
"You're still in this country.

"I'm going to show you

"the things that are still
wonderful about this country

"and about your life here."

I sincerely believe that is what
Capra was after with this film.

We tend to mythologise the film
as something of a bomb.

It certainly wasn't.

It's a Wonderful Life does well.

The problem is it cost
so much to make.

It's something of a disaster
for the company.

Now, clearly, what's
really worse for the company

is that two-thirds
of the people who formed it

can't make films for it

because they're contractually
committed to other studios.

So, Liberty Films
crashes and burns.

And the men who formed it,

Capra, Wyler and Stevens,
sell it

and all the men go
their separate ways,

and Capra signs on
with Paramount,

which really is a death knell.

Be careful what you wish for.

It's been tried many times.

United Artists,
Directors Company,

Liberty Films.

It almost never works.
That's telling you something.

Great directors have
a tremendous amount of freedom,

all the freedom they want
in the world, right?

What they want is to have
financial support,

and marketing support,
and structural support.

Nobody in my job
who's any good at my job

is gonna tell a great director
where to place the camera.

So, they may have
to lift budgets

and deal
with economic realities.

But that's the reality
that keeps things going.

I think, in terms of
the emotional investment

that Frank Capra
had made in this film,

really nothing but a big hit
would have satisfied him anyway.

It was his comeback.

So, this movie, I think,

was in no small measure
about saying to Hollywood,

"Hey, I've still got it.
I've still got that touch

"that brings in audiences
and moves people."

And when
It's a Wonderful Life did that,

but not to
a great world-shaking extent,

I think that was
very hard on Frank Capra.

I have to confess that

the pattern
of Frank Capra's career

after It's a Wonderful Life
is a little mysterious to me.

This was an older Frank Capra.

And somehow,

he couldn't really
get back up off the mat.

Isn't that nice?

I must say, it's right
neighbourly of you people

who have seen the preview
of Here Comes the Groom

to write a wireless
and apprise us

of your reactions to this film.

If I may be immodest
for a moment,

I must tell you in all candour
the reactions have been good,

which is easy to understand
because Paramount went out

and got the down-to-earth,
homey type of story

that they've been searching
so long for me.

They got a bang-up cast and
a great director, Frank Capra,

at the helm,
to direct the picture.

When Capra makes films
for Paramount,

he makes them with big stars.

He makes a couple of films
with Bing Crosby.

And there is a campaign
to push those films.

They're a big deal and there's
a lot of PR about the films.

But no one thinks of them
once they come out

as anything but minor films.

These films, Riding High,
Here Comes the Groom,

are Bing Crosby films
that Capra happened to make.

As America recovered
from the war,

the Capra-esque story
of the individual

lost its urgency

in the sort of
postwar complacency.

The feeling that America
could take a breath

didn't really serve Capra
as an artist.

He needed a fight. There
were still fights to be fought.

He just didn't find one
in the '50s.

During the McCarthy years,

the years of
the Hollywood blacklist,

paranoia was rampant,
and the whole question arose

of what it meant
to be a patriot.

It's a 10-year period or more

when your politics can
prevent you from having a job.

The films that were
hailed in the '30s

were seen in
a different light after the war.

And so, films like
Mr Deeds and Mr Smith

were potentially risky things
to look back on.

Frank Capra
was never blacklisted.

What happened
to Frank Capra was,

during the Korean War,
he wanted to serve,

but he was too old
to serve in any capacity.

But there was
a committee made,

Vista, I believe it was called.

It was
a military service committee,

and he was denied clearance
by that committee.

It was
the biggest shock of his life

that he was basically accused of
being disloyal to his country.

Some of the charges
were ridiculous.

But the one charge that really
was a problem for him was,

they said, "You worked with
a lot of left-wing writers",

and that was true.

He did, of course, immediately
mount his response to them,

and sent it to them.

He goes through each
of the men accused

of being a leftist,
of being a communist,

and he says,
"I didn't know this",

or, "If I had known, I wouldn't
have worked with them".

He wants to distance himself
from them

as a means
of protecting himself.

Different people reacted
in different ways,

and he named names of people

and recklessly
threw them around,

and this all added to the stigma

that was attached
to those people.

I think this is
a very difficult issue,

and this is a time
when it's hard to know

who the good guys are at all

because there are
these inflections.

We can name the bad guys.

We know the bad guys,
the guys who name names,

the Elia Kazans and others
who were happy to name names.

Clifford Odets
and others like him.

What Capra did is probably
certainly on that spectrum.

He was very hurt by this,
and very upset.

He didn't
talk about it, generally.

The country he had
devoted so much to,

he'd served loyally
in World War II

and sacrificed a lot for,

and here he was,
accused of being disloyal.

It was
the worst shock of his life,

and it's like being
kicked in the teeth

by somebody you love.

So, he wound up being

very disappointed
by the United States,

I guess, to put it mildly.

His career dwindled and died.

He becomes something of
a gentleman farmer at this time,

raising his avocados
in California.

He becomes
a collector of rare books.

He owns the rights
to films that he then sells.

He owned Roman Holiday,

which becomes
a huge hit for William Wyler.

He does that kind of thing.

You know,
if we want to understand

why Capra hoarded

so much praise
and attention late in his life,

it's because there really
was a long limbo period

of maybe even two decades

where this person barely existed

at the level that he had before.

He certainly did not exist
at the level that he had before.

He was almost himself forgotten,

and he's part
to blame for that, too,

because he didn't find out
why he was relevant any more.

He didn't discover that.

One of your last movies,
Pocketful of Miracles,

had tremendous trade reviews,

and yet, was
a box office failure.

How hard did this hit you?

Surprisingly badly.

It was almost like
another Lost Horizon,

only I found no way to cure it.

I can't...

That one eludes me completely.

His career has
an extraordinary decline.

Later in his life, certainly,
he has reason to be bitter.

And his career didn't go the way

he had hoped it would
after the war.

But I think what really
struck me and took me aback was,

at the beginning
of McBride's book,

he quotes Capra
as railing against the Jews

who had ruined his career.

You'd ask him about
any ethnic group,

he would malign
in stereotypical terms,

even his own people,
the Italian-Americans.

And he unfortunately
made antisemitic remarks

and anti-Black remarks, and
anti-Mexican-American remarks,

anti-Native-American remarks,
you name it.

And to see Capra, an immigrant,

talk about that is just
really kind of heartbreaking.

I'm Jewish.
I've heard this before.

You hear it all the time,

and it's very hard to see
Capra doing the same thing.

In the late '60s,

not only is Capra
looked on as quaint,

but he's also looked on
as a status quo.

He represents
the sort of Hollywood...

...classical, glamorous
studio filmmaking,

that this new generation
of filmmakers,

Dennis Hopper, Friedkin, Altman,

the '70s era of filmmakers,

regarded with
a little bit of cynicism.

It's funny.
It becomes a Capra movie again.

He's at this low point,
"I'm forgotten".

"No one remembers my movies."

"They're looked on as corny."

So, what does Capra do?

He writes a book.

And the autobiography
is a phenomenal success.

And he was back.

Frank Capra hasn't made
a feature film since 1961.

But when he appears before
a group of students,

many of whom weren't born

when his greatest films
were being made,

he is greeted with applause.

He went on 125 college campuses,

and he went around the world

for the US government again.

Ironically, they asked him

to promote Americanism
around the world,

and for the State Department.
He was very happy to do that.

As I found out, the book
is like a novel about Hollywood.

It's a rather beguiling novel,
somewhat disturbing,

but often very charming.

But it's almost
completely fictitious.

The memoir Capra writes
is wonderful.

But when you read the book now,

it's upsetting in some ways
because the way he takes credit

for everything he ever did,
every script he ever wrote,

every film he ever made,
it all comes from him.

It all springs from his brow.

Now, I think we'd take this
with a grain of salt.

We know it's not
how films are made.

He was a storyteller
and a mythmaker.

And if you're a mythmaker,

what better subject to make
a myth about than yourself?

It's kind of
an American story, that is,

the immigrant
who starts with nothing,

comes from nowhere,
and makes it big.

But for him, it really does
resurrect his career.

It gives him a second act.

He had been, not forgotten,
but dismissed,

and the book,
which is a bestseller,

really does make him
a figure in public life.

America's a melting pot.

Well, he's part of the melt,

and he comes in and he learns
what it is to be an American,

or at least what we think it is.

And then, he contributes
to that definition.

He narratises it,
makes it a great story

for us to go and enjoy,

convinces us it's true.

Also, that's propaganda,
I guess.

But he has a huge legacy

about what it is
to be an American,

which is to come
from another place

and contribute
to the definition of it.

Based on what you
thought it was going to be,

or everybody
believed it was going to be,

mixed in with what it really is,

all put in there
with a little bit of ugly,

a little bit of sad,
a little bit of tragic,

a little bit of corrupt,
a little bit of whatever,

but ultimately
coming out and saying,

"It's a victory,
we're going to keep going".

The American value is,
"You can do it".

That's the American value.

If you want something,
you can go for it,

and it's not going to be easy.

That is what America should be.

I guess he is an embodiment
of the American Dream,

if we believe that exists
in the first place.

Certainly, he would have it
that was the case,

that anyone could come here
and make it big.

I think that's the mark of
his conservatism in some ways.

He does believe
you should do it on your own.

So, in that sense,
the American Dream

is perverse, reactionary,

and impossible for most people
to ever attain,

and probably was
not even true in Capra's case.

Even though
his drive was unusual,

he had to have
an awful lot of help,

a lot of luck, and worked
with all the right people.

So, it embodies
the American Dream.

The person who made
Frank Capra who he was...

We wouldn't be sitting here
talking about Frank Capra

if it weren't for
a woman named Jean McDaniel,

who was
an Irish-American schoolteacher.

She was Frank Capra's champion.

The parents wanted to take Frank
out of school in fifth grade

and make him
go to work in a brickyard

like his brother, Tony.

And she said she raised
the money from the PTA

to pay his parents what Frank
would've earned in the brickyard

if he would stay in school.

So, if it hadn't been
for Jean McDaniel,

we never would have
heard of Frank Capra.

There's so much complexity
here in a man's life.

There's so much complexity
in the films he makes.

So, it is very hard

to make a simple idea
about Frank.

Some people only want
to think of them as politics.

Some only want to think of them

as optimistic, sentimental pap.

Or they want to think of it
as an American immigrant story,

or definition
of American history.

And all of these
things are in there.

I think Frank Capra was always

much more than his reputation,
say, in the 1930s.

He's more than the maker
of It's a Wonderful Life.

And he's also more
than some of the beatings

that his reputation has taken.

What's going to remain essential
forever is the movies.

It does not surprise me

that there is a resurgence
of interest in Capra right now

because this country
is going through

terrible, terrible turmoil.

And like any great myth,

Capra's movies,
on the spiritual-communal level,

give us a framework
to maintain that kind of faith

in a way that isn't ludicrous,

and, in fact, is life-saving.

They're reminders
that humanity can be good.

We all have to hope.

These movies are so delightful,
you just have to watch them.

Why do we watch movies?
Because they're delightful.

And his movies are delightful.

Forget the messages
and all that kind of stuff.

They're so fun to watch,

you just have to
watch these movies.

I don't want to live in a world
where there's no hope,

where there's no sense
that there could be a victory,

and if that's a silly idea
and I'm crazy,

that's okay with me. I'm not...

The main thing is laughing.

If you want
to ask me that question

all over again
about Frank's legacy,

I'll just say,
"Give me a laugh".

And he gave me a laugh.

If we don't do
anything else but laugh, good.

That's all I'm here for, really,

to try and just tell you that

there's good in the world, and that it's wonderful.

Hey, I know
the second verse there.

Yeah.

Do you mind
if I take the third one?