liberal or conservative?
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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.