‘Frank Capra: Mr. America’ Review: Documentary Gives Penetrating Insight Into Filmmaker Who Made Classics But Also Named Names
deadline.comWho can forget the delightful hitchhiking scene in It Happened One Night, or Clarence the angel earning his wings in It’s a Wonderful Life, or Mr.
Smith collapsing in the midst of his epic filibuster in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington? Those black and white moments and the films they’re a part of are deeply embedded in our collective cultural memory, all crafted by an unlikely cinematic author: Frank Capra, a diminutive immigrant from Sicily, born to uneducated parents, who appeared destined not for a life in the dream factory of Hollywood, but a faceless working stiff’s existence.
Capra not only achieved great success as a director, winning three Academy Awards, but his films managed to capture a basic Americanness, bedrock qualities the mass of people wanted to believe about themselves in the 1930s and ‘40s – resilient, altruistic, and optimistic despite enormous hardships.
Frank Capra: Mr. America, premiering tonight at the Venice Film Festival, examines the director’s achievements and core elements of his biography.
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