Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capra, 1939)

Okay, sorry, I haven’t reviewed here in a long while now, but I’ve had much work to do lately; essays, scripts, journalistic work and getting drunk with my friends. Hopefully, after Thursday most of the heavy work should be done and I’ll be back on track. Regardless, the last film I saw was another Frank Capra film, and it was quite damn good, to keep it short. I’m starting to get more and more impressed with this director, and I have acquired more of his films to watch.

Mr. Smith is a naïve young man who gets through some incompetent and corrupt politicians gets to go to Washington and become a senator. We are given imagery of sickening patriotism, pompous shots of the American flag in all its eternal glory, and discomforting angles of the statue of Lincoln. But all is not well in Washington, and Smith (so extremely well played by the fantastic Jimmy Stewart) soon realizes he is nothing but a puppet, and his illusions of the greatness of democracy are shattered. It is the struggle of one individual man against a system, but not without its fair share of optimism. This is one of my favourite elements of Capra’s cinema, how he juxtaposes the individual to the collective, and optimism in the face of hopelessness. James Stewart does a great job portraying the young naïve senator who has to face up to reality and realize something about himself and the system that he thought he knew. The supporting cast is equally excellent, with the great Claude Rains as the great support to Stewart, but also holds up well by himself. This film also features some very dark moments, but they are throughout illuminated with light of a positive message.

This is also probably, of the Capra films I’ve seen, Capra’s most impressively shot film. The angles are great, every shot has significance, and the cinematography is at times stunning. Particularly the dark moments are properly and well lit, and do give the audience a feeling of desperation. While some viewers have distaste for Capra’s sometimes very positive message, I would just like to say: grow up. While I guess this is a bit of personal taste and subjective opinion, I will still stand by that Capra’s films are incredibly well crafted. While I do enjoy the message of the film, what stands out for me, and is ultimately most important, is the filmmaking craft. Capra has showed through his films that he is a great storyteller, but also a great artist and poet of the filmmaking craft, and his films are beautiful examples of filmmaking, surely some of the highlights of the Hollywood golden era. If you look beyond all the other Hollywood bullshit, you will see in some of the greatest films of the era that there lies a true brilliance in the crafting of these wonderful films, and they are in fact pure cinema, pure filmmaking, with all the other stuff that has to be thrown in there for the audience of the time just being filler. You remove all that, and the films show their wonderful structures, the elegant storytelling and auteur views of the world.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a great example of the height of the Hollywood golden era, and is a very impressive film by Capra. The beauty lies in the simple shot structures and the emotional drama that is achieved. The later part of the film is pure brilliance, but the beginning of the film is also great. James Stewart never fails, and he delivers everything that is great about him here, and does perhaps one of his greatest roles. What an actor…