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Frank Capra

From Wikiquote
Frank Capra circa 1943

Frank Russell Capra(born Francesco Rosario Capra; May 18, 1897 – September 3, 1991) was a Sicilian American film director, producer and writer who became the creative force behind some of the major award-winning films of the 1930s and 1940s. Born inItalyand raised inLos Angelesfrom the age of five, his rags-to-riches story has led film historians such as Ian Freer to consider him the "American dreampersonified. "

Quotes

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  • I made mistakes indrama.I thought drama was whenactorscried. But drama is when the audience cries.

Quotes about Capra

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  • Shortly after the United States entered World War Two, Army Chief of StaffGeorge C. Marshallsummoned Frank Capra, theHollywooddirector, and asked him to prepare a series of orientation films for viewing byAmerican troops.When Capra demurred on the grounds that he had never made a documentary before, Marshall retorted: "Capra, I have never been Chief of Staff before. Thousands of young Americans have never had their legs shot off before. Boys are commanding ships today, who a year ago had never seen the ocean before." Thedirectorapologized, and promised "The best damned documentary films ever made."
    • John W. Dower,War Without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War(1986), p. 15
  • The films subsequently produced for the Army by Capra and his team survive as classics of wartime cinematicpropaganda- a remarkable accomplishment, in retrospect, since each script had to be approved by some fifty military and civilian agencies inWashington.One of the primary objectives of the series was to combat theisolationistsentiments that lingered in theUnited States,and with this in mind the seven core films that Capra directed were given the collective titleWhy We Fight.PresidentFranklin Rooseveltwas so impressed by the first of these documentaries that he urged it to be shown in public theaters as well as to recruits. This was done, andPrelude to Warwent on to win an Academy Award as the best documentary of 1942. During the course of World War Two, theWhy We Fightfilms were required viewing for millions ofAmerican soldiers.The series was also distributed abroad, with soundtracks inFrench,Spanish,Russian,andChinese.
    • John W. Dower,War Without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War(1986), p. 16
  • To be inspired with the will to win, Capra told his associates as they embarked on this work, Americans needed to be shown that they were fighting for the existence of their country, and at the same time were carrying the "torch of freedom" for a better postwar world- a world in whichconquest,exploitation,and economic evils had been eliminated, andpeaceanddemocracyprevailed. This seemed a clear line, and a familiar one to anyone who recalled the idealistic Allied propaganda ofWorld War One.
    • John W. Dower,War Without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War(1986), p. 16
  • It could be that today'sconservativemovement remains in thrall to the samenarrativethat has defined itsattitudetowardfilmand theartsfor decades. Inspired by feelings of exclusion after Hollywood and the popular culture turned leftward in the '60sand '70s,this narrative has defined the film industry as an irredeemablyliberalinstitution toward which conservatives can only act in opposition—never engagement. Ironically, this narrative ignores the actual history of Hollywood, in which conservatives had a strong presence from the industry's founding in the early20th centuryup through the '40s,'50sand into the mid-'60s]. The conservative Hollywood community at that time included such leading directors asHoward Hawks,Frank Capra, andCecil B. DeMille,and major stars likeJohn Wayne,Clark Gable,andCharlton Heston.These talents often worked side by side with notable Hollywood liberals like directorsBilly Wilder,William Wyler,andJohn Huston,and stars likeHumphrey Bogart,Lauren Bacall,andSpencer Tracy.The richness of classic Hollywood cinema is widely regarded as a testament to the ability of these two communities to work together, regardless of political differences. As the younger, more left-leaning "New Hollywood"generation swept into the industry in the late '60s and '70s, this older group of Hollywood conservatives faded away, never to be replaced. Except for a brief period in the '80swhen theReaganPresidency led to a conservative reengagement with film—with popular stars likeClint Eastwood,Sylvester Stallone,andArnold Schwarzeneggermaking macho,patrioticaction films—conservatives appeared to abandon popular culture altogether. In the wake of this retreat, conservative failure to engage with Hollywood now appears to have been recast by today's East Coast conservative establishment into a generalized opposition toward film andpopular cultureitself. In the early '90s, conservative film criticMichael Medvedcodified this oppositional feeling toward Hollywood in his best-selling bookHollywood vs. America.
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