liberal or conservative?
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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. -
adamwarlock — 16 years ago(October 06, 2009 02:10 AM)
Y238ou really can't use the modern versions of "liberal" and "conservative" for people living in the 30s and 40s. Totally different times. The South was solidly Democrat as opposed to Republican now. The idea of "family values" wasn't around because they took that for granted. The supposed breakdown of the family didn't happen until the 60s. A Christian moralizer would as likely be a liberal as a conservative. Our current era of politics didn't start until say 1968, before that things were very different.
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nflfan05 — 16 years ago(December 23, 2009 12:27 AM)
This is directed toward the opening question; I didn't really read anyone else's answers.
Although I feel Capra may have been a liberal (by today's standards), it wouldn't surprise me if he were a conservative, though both sides have convincing arguments. In most of his films, he shows the corruption found in big government (Mr. Smith, Meet John Doe). Liberals like bigger government while conservatives dislike it. Then, to me, he shows the corruption in many corporations when they get too big (You Can't Take it With You and It's a Wonderful Life). This could mean that he is for capitalism (one company is too big = takes away from competition = takes away from capitalism) or he is for big government (big corporations need government interference).
If I knew nothing but Capra's films, I would say that he was a conservative. A man who disliked too much power in the big shots, but liked power to the people. -
raw5300 — 13 years ago(August 16, 2012 12:30 AM)
It's also well-known, as many of the postings here indicate, that the political parties have changed so much over the years that the terms Republican and Democrat are almost useless. To get a different view of Capra, read "Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success," a revisionist look at Capra's life that does much to dispel the myths that Capra himself spread about himself. (Personally, I love Capra and his films, but it's undeniable that he never let the facts get in the way of a good story.)
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raw5300 — 11 years ago(December 25, 2014 01:36 AM)
And ''HomerParrish' is wrong. Period.
If "Homer' had actually taken the trouble to read all the entries in this thread, he'd realize that Capra's politics were all over the map. Edward Bernds, who worked with Capra in many of his early films, had numerous political discussions with Capra during the FDR era and concluded that Capra was "voting his pocketbook." Coming from a poverty-stricken background, helike most Republicanshated paying high taxes, as was noted earlier in this thread. But the statement "Frank Capra campaigned AGAINST Franklin D. Roosevelt" is false. He never "campaigned" against anyone.It's true that Capra never voted for FDR (Capra: "I even voted against FDR right along, not because I didn't agree with all his ideas, but because I thought he was getting too big for the country's good.") However, he also wrote upon meeting FDR, that the president's charm "almost converted me into becoming a Democrat." When Capra's wife Lu was asked if she always agreed with her husband's politics, she responded, "How can I? I never know from one day to the next whether we're Republicans or Democrats." I would advise 'Homer' to read not just Capra's fascinating but not-too-truthful autobiography "The Name Above the Title," but also Joseph McBride's superbly researched book "Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success" to gain a fuller understanding of Capra's mixed, sometimes schizophrenic political philosophy.