Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

I saw this a very long time ago, so it's HIGH TIME that I write about it!

First of all, I have to say that Frank Capra is one of my all time favorite directors. I mean, he directed one of my all time favorite movies: It Happened One Night! My junior year, I wrote a paper about comedy films in the Great Depression, but really I chose that topic as an excuse to write about that classic film that inspired Bugs Bunny's character. During the research for this paper, I fell in love with Frank Capra. I was reading one particular interview with him in Conversations with the Great Moviemakers of Hollywood's Golden Age: At the American Film Institute that absolutely fascinated me, has stuck with me ever since and has been monumentally influential to me and the types of films I want to make. I liked the interview so much that I photocopied the entire 32 pages of Frank Capra's interview so that I could keep it forever and not have to spend the money to buy the whole book. Clever, huh? 

I photocopied all those pages, but the most important part to me is only about a sentence or so long. I would quote it directly, but I just went looking for the pages and I can't find it in the mess that I call my room. It was Frank Capra discussing his directing style and how he would have actors rehearse twice as fast and then pull back just the slightest bit so all the dialogue would go at about a speed 1.5 times as fast as normal dialogue. He said he did this to keep ahead of the audience because when he went to other movies he noticed the audience laughing at jokes before they were even done being said. He wanted to fix this by having the dialogue faster. BRILLIANCE! When watching his movies, it's a little more subtle than you would guess from the way he talks about it in his interview, but you can tell and it does keep your attention. Although I do love the slow pace and awkwardness of the modern indie film, I think a lot of comedies today could be improved by picking up the pace and I have decided (semi-based on Frank Capra) that I want to direct my comedy films in a much more caffeinated, farcical and stylized way.

But I shall write about all my hopes and dreams of directing in another post. I have digressed from my discussion of Frank Capra's awesomeness...

Another memorable chunk of this interview talked about Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and how because one side of the lead actress, Jean Arthur's face looked like an "angel" and the other looked like a "horse" they  only shot her from one side (her good side of course) the entire movie. This was a fascinating thing to observe while watching the film. The sets were built and the camera set up so that she only had to enter on her good side and it was staged so she only had to occasionally cross and reveal the "horse" side of her face (and only for a brief moment if at all). She was also usually put in extravagant hats that sloped down one side of her face, brilliantly hiding that unfortunate side of her face. You can even see in the poster above that her right "bad" side is mostly hidden by James Stewart's face and her good left side is very much favored!

This bit of knowledge before going into the film certainly influenced my experience of the film. Does an obscure book of interviews count as pop culture? I think not... but I will for the purpose of keeping this blog within a theme.

Despite the distraction of watching only one side of Jean Arthur's face, I really loved this movie. Just like I have loved all of Frank Capra's other movies I've seen (It Happened One Night of course, You Can't Take it With You which my high school also did a production of a few years ago, Arsenic and Old Lace, and of course It's A Wonderful Life).

 It's certainly one of Capra's more patriotic films (not counting all the  Why We Fight films he did during World War II which I have not seen), and that's saying a lot because Capra is most certainly a very patriotic director. A film like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington would never get made today. Hollywood tends to lean much more towards films berating congress and the government for this poor decision or that unfixable and upsetting corruption, than ones that glorify the American congress and our wonderful freedoms and rights as citizens in this fantabulous country. You certainly wouldn't find a five or so minute montage of Washington D.C. monuments superimposed over a massive American flag waving in the wind in a movie today. My initial reaction was to think the patriotism overdone and ridiculous, but that made me think about the time the film was made (when patriotism was more of a good thing), and the time and place I've been raised and our film industry today (where patriotism has more of a bad spin to it).  It was very interesting...

Before I conclude this post I would like to add one more thing. I wish they had shown this film to me in my high school Government class. I learned more from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington about our Congress and how laws are made than I did for the entire semester I took that class. It made me realize that 1) I went to a public high school, and that even though it was pretty and looked like a college campus and had an amazing Drama program it still left me with some pretty silly holes I have to fill in and 2) that films can be really important teaching tools to the masses and 3) that they can do this without assuming the audience is an idiot and can still be thought-provoking, amazing and interesting films. *Not that those films don't exist today.

And finally, pictures of Frank Capra looking intense, alluring, deep in thought and also laughing.

           

COMING SOON: Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder!