| Show 153' IJrank Capra's v THE ARTS The Salt Lake Tribune Sunday September 8 1991 movies combined sermons and storytelling best-love- d By Jack Mathews and Michael Wilmington - V? TIMES LOS ANGELES his apparently futile filibuster in the Senate chambers is suddenly rescued when one of his opponents racked by guilt attempts suicide In "Meet John Doe" a drifter recruited for a newspaper publicity stunt and used by a corrupt politician is about to act out a threatened suicide when his converts go to him at the top of a skyscraper and talk him down Things were not as bleak in "It Happened One Night" the 1934 film that won five Oscars and elestavated Capra to tus but its improbable story line — a snooty rich girl (Claudette Colbert) falls in love with the wisecracking reporter (Clark Gable) with whom circumstances force her to spend time on the road — probably helped viewers bridge the economic gap between poverty and wealth (at least for two hours in the theater) Capra seemed to wrap all of his themes up in one movie with "It's a Wonderful Life" where the George Bailey is rescued from suicide by a guardian angel who shows him how important his life was by letting him see how bad things would have been should be a positive expression that there is hope love It is mercy justice and charity Movies (the filmmaker's) responsibility to emphasize the positive qualities of humanity by showing the triumph of the individual over adversities — Frank Capra in 1960 v HOLLYWOOD — Motion pictures would be about as varied as Sunday morning television if all filmmakers answered that evangelical call But there are limes and places for promoting the simple values of life and no one in the first century of film was better at picking those spots than fYank Capra VjYom the 1934 "It Happened One Night" in which romantic love transcends social class through his common-matrilogy fi'Mr Deeds Goes to Town" "Mr $mjth Goes to Washington" and ''Meet John Doe") in which the raw idealism of small-towe corwins out over ruption through the 1946 "It's a Wonderful Life" in which an shows a good man just how good he is Capra lifted the spirits of one generation and left a cinematic calling card for all those to ser-pio- - i s' sim-$elo- big-tim- an-g- Other major figures from the survive him: Katharine Hepburn his favorite actress and James Stewart from whom he got it "It's a Wonderful Life" one of the screen's greatest performances But Capra was the last of the star directors of the '30s and the man whose movies in many ways came to symbolize the era He was the most honored of '30s directors — the Oscar winner in 1934 1936 and 1938 — and it was Capra who more than anyone else shifted American film from a producer's to a director's medium It was Capra as much as Orson Welles John Ford or Alfred Hitchcock who influenced generations of succeeding filmmakers Frank Capra was also a mass of contradictions: conservative and radical traditionalist and rebel idealiconoclast and ist and cynic worshiper and It is that volatile blending of opposites that has kept his films alive and vital and has turned one of them — "It's a Wonderful Life" — into a cinematic national an- J 1930s er wise-crack- V' er pme When Capra died Tuesday at 94 in a certain sense he rang down t$C curtain on Hollywood's Gold-e?vAThat may sound like a — ocfiy remark — Capra-corn- y IJJjCit is not not really It is sentimental enough for him — no one d)Ji!d ever accuse Capra of lacking sMiment — but it does not have th other side: the raciness cynicism and air of knowing urbanity tfiat put the edge on his films gave tjiem their crisp dark counterpoint and elevated them to timeless classics myth-mak- ' er star-drive- o atheists" His was that curious mixture of show business and religion that were typified '30s Hollywood: a time when Cardinal Francis Spellman was both railing at the movies' im- morality and trying to float script ideas through the studios in an industry providing entertainment for the largely Protestant masses while run largely by Jewish executives according to a code devised by Roman Catholics Capra himself a Catholic intended his movies to function as parables: portraits of temptation and redemption and of exemplary moral behavior Yet at the same time he wanted bis parables to be movies — to be fast entertaining bursting with life and humor At his best he folded these moral themes into tall tales in ways that created some of the most lasting motion pictures ever made Capra vacillated through most of his career between wanting to cultivate his love affair with the public and his need for artistic validation Both "The Bitter Tea of General Yen" and "Meet John Doe" he admitted were deliberate if failed attempts to curry critical favor Similarly his most memorable scenes swing from one extreme to another A Capra movie can contain giddy hysterical laughing jags — the bus serenade of "It Happened One Night" the mass frenzy of the high school dance scene turned pool orgy in "It's a Wonderful Life" or moments of awful harrowing despair like the suicidal grief of Longellow Deeds John Doe and George Bailey the Capraesque or Capra-corterms express the unique tone of a Capra movie that mix of idealism and cynicism that both draw our affection and force us to keep a distance They are dreams they are impossibilities they are pure and unvarnished not the always though timing may be right for them their themes are certainly timeless without him Like Dickens' Scrooge George is given a second chance — lessons learned — and we are left with the notion that wealth is measured by love faith L trust and friendship not in yards of money stm James Stewart and Donna Reed starred in "It's a Wonderful Life" perhaps director them If it is not the greatest movie ever made a title that Capra himself claimed for it it has probably produced more tears more repeat viewings and more good feelings than any other Whether you regard the unabashed sentimentality of it as Capraesque or Capra-corwhether that final scene in the Bailey living room makes you weep or cringe its simple moral — that goodness matters that individuals matter and that good individuals matter most — cuts to the core of social behavior Capra did not invent the themes of his movies though his mythology came to accommodate them — if so Charles Dickens occasionally wrote Capraesque stories Jesus gave Capraesque sermons ar&the ancient Greeks invented Capraesque myths Nor was Capra the only filmmaker to weave personal philosophy into his movies There have been scores of Capra emulators — including at times Steven Spielberg Robert Zemeckis Jonathan Demme Norman Jewison John Avildsen and Sylvester Stallone ("Rocky") Joe Dante and Chris Columbus ("Gremlins") — n Unfortunately for Capra the movie The 1946 movie has become a Christmas classic Frank Capra's and hundreds of Golden Rule movies made since he retired in 1961 including half a dozen this summer (To name two: "Regarding Henry" and "The Doctor") So what is it about Frank Capra's movies that sets them apart? What is his legacy? You can look at the movies Capra directed before the 1932 "American Madness" in which he and frequent Robert Riskin introduced the theme of the idealist bucking the corrupt system and you can look at those after his 1948 "State of the Union" about a presidential candidate's attempt to maintain his integrity during a tough campaign but the Capra legend really hangs on just 10 movies made over that period Whether he would have risen at another time or have made the same kinds of films we will never know but Capra hit his philosophical stride during the Great Depression when Americans were desperate for both escape from the harshness of their lives and a reaffirmation of the values that had seemingly abandoned them Almost every film Capra made writer-collaborat- 16-ye- ar best-know- n mood of America had swung dra- during the '30s put identifiable protagonists in desperate situations took good people and threw them in with evil brought them to the brink of ruin despair even suicide then rescued them In "Lady for a Day" an alcoholic apple vendor (May Robson) is made over by a local mobster to appear to be the wealthy widow her visiting daughter expects to meet and is saved from exposure at the last minute when Manhattan's real social elite show up and participate in the ruse In "Mr Deeds Goes to Town" the protagonist seems about to be declared insane and stripped of his fortune and freedom when he suddenly turns the tables wins over the court and brings the crowd to a standing ovation In "Mr Smith Goes to Wash theVOICE matically between the start of World War II and the end of it and although it won over some critics and received several Oscar nominations "It's a Wonderful Life" was not a success It was Capra's masterpiece but it was outdated the day it was finished Its fantasy elements its maudlin sentiments its philosophy marked it as a film from the '30s its style was the style of the past The future was in realism in real emotions like those expressed in William Wyler's "The Best Years of Our Lives" which was released the same year as "It's a Wonderful Life" and pushed it aside at both the box office and the subsequent Academy Awards Most of Capra's films — at least those made after "Mr Deeds" which he marked as the beginning of his message movies — are dra tceSOUL ACT MI n mid-'60- major-direct- I) n n matized sermons They are more effective than sermons because they preach enterthemes and are tainments but Capra was a genuinely religious director He was not intensely pure and austere but he was at times dogmatic res when it fusing in the might have revived his career to direct Gore Vidal's "The Best Man" because "all the characters ington" Stewart's discredited and frazzled senator near the end of " n wish-fulfillme- nt thePASSION PnifTffW ITALIAN RESTAURANT Veal ManlcotU PannlgiaoA $375 $395 $395 1374 West Indiana Ac l&SO Sou lh 4 YkJ house ® S3 RICHARD THOMPSON J- KINGSBURY HALL 7:30 $15 vuhrsk Daily Bus Tours to the State Line & Silver Smith Casinos ' Tour New Pick-u- p Points In Mil OVALE SANDY MURRAY SLC Wc $12 W Cat boct Mon M Coth bock Sot i tun EM Ovemlghf 28 Ocf 12 Sept $2300 OA $7 fiwy 7t wo !tm TIME LOVE & TENDERNESS TOUR Is) tn Overnight Sent 1124 V $3200 I VfT " X ro poet SPECIAL GUEST ) i ALAN JdClcSOfl f RAVANW Marcia Dangerfield's REAL ACTING WORKSHOPS for beginning and intermediate actors who are Interested in working professionally in the SLC market $20 week call: 566-430- 8 SATURDAY OCT Salt Palace Arena October 8th 7:30 PM 5 8:00 RM THE SALT PALACE ALL SEATS RESERVED $1850 Tickets available at: Box Office and all Smith's Tix The Salt Palace Outlets or charge or by phone by calling Brouqht to you by your Intermountain GMC Truck Dealers Center Farm Service Inc Heber City Davis Crofts Motor Co y Price Motor Co Tremonton Dearden Motor Co Fillmore Ron Greene GMC Ephraim Hansen GMC Brigham City Morris Motors Provo Murray Motor & Investment Corp Roosevelt Middlekauff GMC American Fork Palmers Inc Logan Palmer Motor Co Preston ID Perry Motor Co Vernal Petersen Motors Ogden Prestige GMC Layton Salt Lake Valley GMC Salt Lake City Jerry Seiner GMC N Salt Lake Jerry Seiner GMC Midvale Western GMC Tooele Whiting Motor Co Richfield 467-599- 6 1 Reserved seats: $2000 ( serv dig) Crump-Wheatle- All Smiths Tix outlets Salt Palace 6 Charge by phone 467-599- Produced By United Concerts |
