liberal or conservative?
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SpaceCowboyGangstaOfLove — 17 years ago(June 05, 2008 01:00 AM)
What fantasy world do you live in, sir?
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raw5300 — 16 years ago(August 30, 2009 04:42 AM)
Malarkey! (1) Capra's films always celebrated the "little guys" scorned by the rich, pompous and powerful conservative millionaires in his movies. If he were around today, he would DEFINITELY be supporting gay and lesbian rights, especially from crazed bigots like jjman1. (2) Capra was an ardent naturalist (I personally visited his cabin in the pines of the High Sierras) and loved nature, a motif that runs through all his films (Jefferson Smith is a scout leader who opposes a dam project proposed for his beloved Willard Creek, George Bailey wants to climb up to Mount Bedford in the middle of the night and then go swimming in 238the lake with Violet Bick, young Tony Kirby in YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU is determined to find out how plants extract power from sunlight (solar power)all these are environmental preoccupations loathed by jjman1 and his ilk. (3) Capra's love of country included sharp criticism of it when it was in the wrong (see especially SMITH and JOHN DOE) and thought that military spending was way out of controla sentiment vividly expressed by Lionel Barrymore in YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, whom jjman1 would no doubt consider a traitorous liberal. (4) Rap did not exist b68in Capra's daya fact which jjman1 seems blissfully ignorant of. (5) Capra's films consistently come down on corporate crime and corruption (especially in SMITH), which year after year costs Americans much, much much more than so-called blue-collar crimeof course, white-collar crime is largely committed by wealthy, white conservatives, at whose shrine jjman1 worships. Too bad he so misunderstands Capra's films and has none of the celebrated "common sense" he supposedly values.
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MisterGumby — 15 years ago(January 11, 2011 07:10 PM)
Let's not jump to conclusions or make several red herrings. Those screenplays were written by people other than Capra, and it may have been those people who held the leftist philosophies (liberal writers in 1930's America? Hmmmmmmmmmm.) Evidence straight from the source is better than simply affixing someone's films to their actual philosophy. One woul assume that John Ford was a conservative, given the company he5b4 kept and the stories he told (John Wayne, The Searchers, etc.) The opposite is true.
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flowwalker — 9 years ago(November 29, 2016 10:21 AM)
Raw5300 I don't know if you're still following this thread after so many years (it's now 2016), but I wanted to make one small comment. I read several of your posts on this thread, and thought they were great. They sounded right on to me. But there's one contention in your post of Aug 30, 2009 that didn't ring true to me. Just to confirm my memory, I looked up rap music on Wikipedia, and as I had thought, rap music rose up quite some time ago (the 1970s in America). That was long after the height of Mr. Capra's wonderful work in the film world, but he was still very much alive.
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Nomad184 — 17 years ago(December 06, 2008 07:59 PM)
i think its funny how many liberals label themselves as hating violence, bigotry, and rampant greed. Just hating violence, being accepting of all races/religions/etc., and not being greedy does not make a person a liberal.
Are any other conservatives here tired of being sterotyped into corrupt Mr. Potter-like characters? -
shawnvanbriesen — 15 years ago(October 05, 2010 08:59 AM)
I just finished Capra's autobiography Name Above the Title. Your description of his politics and just his general approach to his fellows sounds spot on.
He described the political climate after WW II as being when the parties really split into their current lines.
Thanks for sharing this. -
Gus-69 — 11 years ago(November 21, 2014 05:36 AM)
Nice post, very informative. Thanks!
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CPK778 — 18 years ago(September 26, 2007 07:20 PM)
Capra was very conservative; more of a libertarian to be precise.
He hated government and taxes. In "You Can't Take it with You," he argues against the income tax. In "Meet John Doe," the movement that is inspired is a libertarian movement where the government is not involved. In "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," he criticizes the way congress works. The only5b4 way to have an effective government is if we have 535 Mr. Smiths, which we don't. He HATES government.
Even though his politcal beliefs were very libertarian, but his philisophical beliefs were very Christian. He criticizes the greedy men and hails the men who have friends and help others. This is not a liberal idea! Being liberal does not mean believing people should help others. Being liberal means believing a big government is needed to force people to help others. Capra believes people should help others on their own. it is in their own self-interest to do so.
The richest men are the ones with the most friends. -
kkuch — 18 years ago(November 12, 2007 03:11 PM)
I'll be the first to admit that I'm a right wing conservative and as far as I can tell, none of his films are really propaganda for either wing. Like CPK778 says above, most of his beliefs are out of christian tradition like "Love thy neighbor." Who cares, whether he was liberal or conservative as long as his messages are pure? As said in almost all of his movies, people should help their neighbor out of their own virtue, not because they are made to. I'm a fair believer in that, sometimes people just get bad luck and they simply need a little help. Overall, Capra is just trying to promote good moral messages to others. And yes, it is absolutely true, that the richest men are those that have true friends.
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dale999 — 18 years ago(December 10, 2007 07:14 AM)
This is a most interesting thread. To get more insight into Frank Capra, please read his autobiography "The Name Above the Title".
He was a Republican, as I have been most of my life. But the political system has changed so much, that as it has been said, a Republican today is not like the Republicans of earlier years. I would consider myself an unconventional conservative, because I look at all the issues and the people who are running for office and don't vote a straight party line anymore.
Incidentally, I was in the film "Why We Fight" as a very young child. Frank was a wonderful director and very kind and thoughtful to all of us. This documentary was made in seven parts. He won many awards for this. But he was asked to make this and he made it as authentic as possible. It may have been called propaganda later, but it was meant to inspire and explain to the young newly drafted military personnel the reasons why they were fighting. It was originally made only for the military to see, but once President Franklin Delano Roosevelt saw the film he requested that it be shown in publ2000ic as well. Only one of the films was shown in American theaters, while it was shown in its entirety in Britain, all 7 films; with Stalin providing many copies of the "The Battle of Russia" throughout all the Russian theaters.
Times were quite different then. Even 'democracy' was different than it is today. -
dgz78 — 18 years ago(February 13, 2008 07:22 PM)
dale:
You're right about the GOP changing. Prior to Reagan, the Republicans were so much more to the left and the Democrats were more to the right. JFK wouldn't recognize the Dems today and even Nixon was a raging liberal by today's standards. Remember price controls and the EPA?
Capra was a Republican more in the mold of Teddy Roosevelt than Ronald Reagan, obviously more populist than what we call conservative. Interestingly, John McCain models himself as a TR Republican which explains some of the troubles he has with conservatives.
I can't think of another director that consistently illustrated his politics in his best movies. It Happened One Night, John Doe, Mr. Smith, Deeds, Pocketful of Miracles are all combinations of politics and art for the people that no one else has been able to do. -
jzappa — 18 years ago(March 07, 2008 02:43 PM)
It's interesting how different the people's sociopolitical outlook was in Capra's day. It really comes through in his films, and what are now considered very radical views subject to eye-rolling by the opposite side, liberal AND conservative, both converge in his feature movies (not counting his documentaries, because I haven't seen them and they were of course propaganda).
But maybe, even though it's harder for this generation to be as absorbed by or interested in movies from the 1930s and 40s, it may be refreshing and healthy in a sense because the world wasn't so polarized in those days, and hopefully it can influence them somehow.
I'm a hardcore liberal. I don't see how anyone could vote against gay rights, national health care, and their jobs being shipped overseas just because they want their taxes to go down and they don't like abortion (the grayest issue of all). But I do think that a convergence of everyone's sensibilities was prevalent in the days of It's a Wonderful Life, Meet John Doe, and Arsenic & Old Lace, and today's America could learn a lot from them.