Frank Capra

Frank Capra (Francesco Rosario Capra: Bisacquino, Sicily, May 18, 1897 – La Quinta, California, September 3, 1991) was a film director Italian-American winner of three Oscars. He is the author of some very popular films of the 1930s and 1940s, such as the classics How beautiful it is to live! and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, among others.

Early Years

Born Francesco Rosario Capra in Bisacquino, Sicily, Capra immigrated to the United States at the age of six (1903) with his father Salvatore, mother Rosaria Nicolosi, and siblings Giuseppa, Giuseppe and Antonia. In California they meet with Benedetto Capra, (the older brother) and settle in Los Angeles, where Frank Capra studied at the California Institute of Technology (known then as the Throop Institute) obtaining the degree of chemical engineer. On October 18, 1918, he enlisted, upon his graduation, in the US Army as a professor, being discharged on December 13, 1920 after contracting the 1918 flu. That year he obtained US citizenship.

Career

Like other directors of the 1930s and 1940s, Capra began his career in silent films, excelling as director and writer of comedies starring Harry Langdon and his boys. In 1930 Capra went to work for Mack Sennett and moved to Columbia Pictures where he collaborated closely with screenwriter Robert Riskin (Fay Wray's husband) and cameraman Joseph Walker. In 1940, Sidney Buchman replaced Riskin.

Golden Age

Following the Academy Awards (Oscar) for best director and best picture for It Happened One Night, in 1934, which also won awards for best actor and actress (Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert), Capra directed a series of spiritual and humanitarian films for Columbia. The best known is Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, the original Lost Horizon, You Can't Take It With You and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. He went for ten years without directing other comedies until the classic Arsenic and Old Lace. Among the actors who found their success thanks to Capra are Barbara Stanwyck, James Stewart, Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur.

Capra's films enjoyed significant success at the Academy Awards. It Happened One Night was the first film to win all five major Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay). In 1936, Capra won his second Oscar for Best Director for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and in 1938 he won the third for You Can't Take It With You with which he also won the Oscar for best film.

War documentary filmmaker

Between 1942 and 1948, he produced the film State of the Union, and directed or co-directed eight war documentaries including Prelude to War (1942), The Nazis Strike (1942), The Battle of Britain (1943), Divide and Conquer (1943), Know Your Enemy Japan (1945), Tunisian Victory (1945) and Two Down and One to Go (1945). His documentary series Why We Fight, which also won an Academy Award, is considered a masterpiece of war propaganda. Capra set himself the goal of convincing a country to go to war, motivating the troops and obtaining the alliance of the USSR, among other issues of crucial importance.

How beautiful it is to live!

How Beautiful It Is to Live! (1946) is perhaps Capra's best-known film. Despite not being highly regarded by some quarters, it was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Director and Best Cinematography.

The film has been reborn on television, where it has become a Christmas classic in many countries. When the film's copyright expired, it fell into the public domain and television stations believed they could air it without paying royalties. With this new means of communication, How beautiful it is to live! has remained as one more Christmas tradition.

Although the film's copyright had expired, it was still protected by virtue of having been made based on other material that was protected, such as the script, music, etc. a United States Supreme Court challenge prevented its rebroadcast, and it can now only be seen on a few networks, such as NBC.

The American Film Institute considers it one of the greatest films of all time, ranking eleventh on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies, a list of the best American films, and on the twentieth on the updated list 10 years later.

Last film

Capra's last film was Pocketful of Miracles, in 1961, with Glenn Ford and Bette Davis. Capra would have wanted to make a sci-fi movie later, but couldn't get it past pre-production. Some of the director's last works consisted of the production of scientific series for television.

In 1982 he was honored by the American Film Institute for his work.

Death

Frank Capra died in La Quinta, California of a heart attack in his sleep at the age of 94. He was buried in the Coachella (California) cemetery.

His son, Frank Capra, Jr.—one of three children from his second wife, Lou Capra—is president of Screen Gems, in Wilmington, North Carolina. Frank Capra's grandson is Frank Capra III.

Legacy

During the golden age of Hollywood, "goodwill fantasies" de Capra made him one of the two or three most famous and successful directors in the world.Film historian Ian Freer notes that at the time of his death in 1991, his legacy was still intact:

He had created entertainment to feel good before the phrase was invented, and his influence on culture—from Steven Spielberg to David Lynch, and from telenovelas to the feelings of greeting cards—is just too big to calculate it.

Director/actor John Cassavetes, contemplating Capra's contribution to filmmaking, quipped: "Maybe there wasn't really an America, there was only Frank Capra" Capra's films were his love letters to an America idealized, a cinematic landscape of his own invention. The actors' interpretations of him were invariable portraits of personalities made recognizable images of popular culture, "their portrayal of him has the bold simplicity of an icon..."

Like his contemporary, director John Ford, Capra defined and magnified the tropes of mythical America where individual courage invariably trumps collective evil. Film historian Richard Griffith speaks of the "...trust in sentimental talk and the ultimate benevolence of ordinary America to resolve all deep-seated conflicts.""Ordinary America" 3. 4; envisions as "...a tree-lined street, undistinguished frame houses surrounded by modest lawns, a few cars. For certain purposes, it is assumed that all real Americans live in towns like this, and so great is the power of myth, that even the born city dweller is likely to vaguely believe that he, too, lives. on this shady street, either he comes from it, or he's going to"."

NYU professor Leonard Quart writes:

There would be no lasting conflicts: harmony, however artificent and specious it was, would end up triumphing in the last frame. In the purest Hollywood style, no Capra movie would suggest that social change is a complex and painful act. For Capra, there would be pain and loss, but the sense of tragedy would not be allowed to endure in his fabulous world.

Although Capra's stature as a director had declined in the 1950s, his films experienced a resurgence in the 1960s:

Ten years later, it was clear that this trend had been reversed. The post-auteurist critics reacclaimed Capra as a film master and, more surprisingly, the youth filled Capra's festivals and repositions throughout the United States.

French film historian John Raeburn, editor of Cahiers du cinéma, noted that Capra's films were unknown in France, but there, too, his films were rediscovered by the public. He believes that the reason for his renewed popularity had to do with his themes, which made credible "an ideal conception of an American national character":

There is a strong libertarian vein in Capra's films, a mistrust of power wherever it occurs and whoever invests. His heroes are not interested in wealth and are characterized by a vigorous... individualism, an enthusiasm 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.

In 1982, the American Film Institute honored Capra with its AFI Life Achievement Award. The event was used to create the television movie The American Film Institute Salute to Frank Capra, hosted by James Stewart. In 1986, Capra received the National Medal of Arts. During his AFI award acceptance speech, Capra highlighted his most important values:

Frank Capra's art is very, very simple: it's the love of people. Add two simple ideals to this love for people: the freedom of each individual and the equal importance of each individual, and will have the principle on which I based all my films.

Capra expanded on his views in his 1971 autobiography, The Name Above the Title:

Forgetting among the screams and screams were the workers who came home too tired to shout or manifest themselves in the streets... and prayed to have enough to keep their children in college, despite knowing that some were marijuana smokers, parasites who hate parents.

Who would make movies about and for these wheels who wouldn't complain or squeal what would go wrong?, I wouldn't. My Hollywood of "a man, a movie" had ceased to exist. The actors had turned him 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, friends or enemies, is the most noble of all virtues. It is necessary to make films to say these things, to counter violence and pettyness, to gain time to demobilize hatred.

The written biography of Capra

In 1971, Capra published his autobiography, The Name Above the Title. Without going into details, it offers a self-portrait that must be read to understand this figure of cinema.

Capra was also the subject of a 1991 biography by Joseph McBride titled Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success. McBride corrects many of the impressions left by Capra in his autobiography.

Filmography

• 1922: Fultah Fisher's Boarding House (Cortometraje) (Fultah Fischer's pension).
• 1926: The Strong Man (The gunman).
• 1927: Long Pants (His first pants).
• 1927: For the Love of Mike (All three dads.).
• 1928: That Certain Thing (How the ham is cut).
• 1928: So This Is Love (Abandoned).
• 1928: The Matinee Idol (The Minnie Theatre).
• 1928: The Way of the Strong.
• 1928: Say It with Sables.
• 1928: The Power of the Press (The power of a tear).
• 1928: Submarine (Submarine).
• 1928: The Burglar.
• 1929: The Younger Generation (The new generation).
• 1929: The Donovan Affair (The ring that kills).
• 1929: Flight (Eagles).
• 1930: Ladies of Leisure (Women).
• 1930: Rain or Shine (Pass the sky).
• 1931: Directible.
• 1931: The Miracle Woman (The miraculous woman).
• 1931: Platinum Blonde (The gold cage).
• 1932: Forbidden (Unlawful love).
• 1932: American Madness (The madness of the dollar).
• 1933: The Bitter Tea of General Yen (The bitterness of General Yen).
• 1933: Lady for a Day (Lady for a day).
• 1934: Broadway Bill (Strictly confidential).
• 1934: It Happened One Night (What happened that night, It happened one night.)
• 1935: Opera Hat.
• 1936: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (The secret of living).
• 1937: Lost Horizon (Lost horizons).
• 1938: You Can't Take It With You (Live as you like, Take it or leave it).
• 1939: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Knight without sword, Mr. Smith goes to the Senate.).
• 1941: Meet John Doe (Juan, And the horse pass).
• 1942: Why we fight Prelude to war
• 1944: Arsenic and Old Lace (Arsenic and old lace, Arsenic for compassion).
• 1944: Tunisian Victory.
• 1945: Know Your Enemy: Japan.
• 1945: Your Job In Germany.
• 1945: Two Down And One To Go.
• 1946: How beautiful it is to live.
• 1948: The State of the Union (State of the Union).
• 1950: Riding High (That's what luck wanted.).
• 1951: Here Comes the Groom (Here comes the groom.).
• 1959: A Hole in the Head (Millionaire of illusions, A man without luck).
• 1961: Pocketful of Miracles (Miracle for one day, A gangster for a miracle).

“Why We Fight” Documentary Series

1. 1943: Prelude to War.
2. 1943: The Nazis Strike.
3. 1943: Divide And Conquer.
4. 1943: The Battle Of Britain.
5. 1943: The Battle Of Russia.
6. 1944: The Battle Of China.
7. 1945: War Comes To America.

Awards and distinctions

Oscar Awards

Venice International Film Festival