Frank Capra

Author : Joseph McBride
Publisher : Univ. Press of Mississippi
Page : 825 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2011-06-02
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781604738391

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Frank Capra by Joseph McBride Pdf

Moviegoers often assume Frank Capra's life resembled his beloved films (such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life). A man of the people faces tremendous odds and, by doing the right thing, triumphs! But as Joseph McBride reveals in this meticulously researched, definitive biography, the reality was far more complex, a true American tragedy. Using newly declassified U.S. government documents about Capra's response to being considered a possible “subversive” during the post-World War II Red Scare, McBride adds a final chapter to his unforgettable portrait of the man who gave us It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and Meet John Doe.

Author : Raymond Carney
Publisher : CUP Archive
Page : 536 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 1986-10-31
Category : History
ISBN : 0521326192

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American Vision by Raymond Carney Pdf

Professor Carney analyses Frank Capra's life as well as the broad cultural context of his films.

Author : Eric Smoodin
Publisher : Duke University Press
Page : 315 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2005-01-13
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780822386261

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Regarding Frank Capra by Eric Smoodin Pdf

In this innovative historical examination of the American movie audience, Eric Smoodin focuses on reactions to the films of Frank Capra. Best known for his Hollywood features—including It Happened One Night, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington—Capra also directed educational films, military films, and documentaries. Based on his analysis of the reception of a broad range of Capra’s films, Smoodin considers the preferences and attitudes toward Hollywood of the people who watched movies during the “Golden Age” of studio production, from 1930 to 1960. Drawing on archival sources including fan letters, exhibitor reports, military and prison records, government and corporate documents, and trade journals, Smoodin explains how the venues where Capra’s films were seen and the strategies used to promote the films affected audience response and how, in turn, audience response shaped film production. He analyzes issues of foreign censorship and government intervention in the making of The Bitter Tea of General Yen; the response of high school students to It Happened One Night; fan engagement with the overtly political discourse of Meet John Doe and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; San Quentin prisoners’ reaction to a special screening of It’s a Wonderful Life; and at&t’s involvement in Capra’s later documentary work for the Bell Science Series. He also looks at the reception of Capra’s series Why We Fight, used by the American military to train recruits and re-educate German prisoners of war. Illuminating the role of the famous director and his films in American culture, Regarding Frank Capra signals new directions for significant research on film reception and promotion.

Author : Elizabeth Rawitsch
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 197 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2014-10-16
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780857737076

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Frank Capra's Eastern Horizons by Elizabeth Rawitsch Pdf

Frank Capra has long had a reputation as being the quintessential American director - the man who perfectly captured the identity and core values of the United States with a string of classic films in the 1930s and '40s, including It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life. However, as Elizabeth Rawitsch argues, Capra's construction of national identity did not occur within an exclusively national context. She points out that many of his films are actually set in, or include sequences set in, China, Latin America, the Philippines and the South Seas. Featuring in-depth textual analysis supported by original archival research, Frank Capra's Eastern Horizons explains that Capra's view of what constituted 'America' changed over time, extending its boundaries to embrace countries often far from the United States. Complicating Edward Said's theory of Orientalism as a strict binary in which the West constructs the East as an inferior 'other', it demonstrates that East and West often intermingle in films such as The Bitter Tea of General Yen and in Capra's orientation documentaries for World War II American servicemen; Capra imagined a kind of global community, albeit one with heavy undertones of British and American imperialism. Investigating shifts in what Capra's America has meant over time, both to Capra and to those who have watched and studied his films, this innovative book offers a startlingly fresh perspective on one of the most iconic figures in American film history.

Author : Frank Capra
Publisher : Da Capo Press
Page : 534 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 1997-03-22
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 0306807718

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The Name Above The Title by Frank Capra Pdf

Although Frank Capra (1897–1991) is best known as the director of It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take It with You, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Arsenic and Old Lace, and It's a Wonderful Life, he was also an award-winning documentary filmmaker as well as a behind-the-scene force in the Director's Guild, the Motion Picture Academy, and the Producer's Guild. He worked with or knew socially everyone in the movie business from Mack Sennett, Chaplin, and Keaton in the silent era through the illustrious names of the golden age. He directed Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Jean Harlow, Claudette Colbert, Bette Davis, and others. Reading his autobiography is like having Capra sitting in your living room, regaling you with his anecdotes. In The Name Above the Title he reveals the deeply personal story of how, despite winning six Academy Awards, he struggled throughout his life against the glamors, vagaries, and frustrations of Hollywood for the creative freedom to make some of the most memorable films of all time.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
Page : 29 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2012-06-06
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 9783656211303

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A structural analysis of Frank Capra’s “It’s a wonderful life” by Anonim Pdf

Essay from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Other, grade: 1,3, University of Constance, course: “Reading” Baz Luhrmann, language: English, abstract: This essay performs multiple tasks. On the one hand the narrative structure of Frank Capra’s “It’s a wonderful life”, directed in 1947 shall be worked out. It’s intended to show how meaning is created in this movie through an understanding of its specific narrative structure. On the other hand, this essay will include several central ideas from contemporary texts in narrative theory, like William Simon for example.

Author : Leland Poague
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 312 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 1994
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780521380669

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Another Frank Capra by Leland Poague Pdf

Another Frank Capra offers a new interpretation of the great Hollywood director beyond the patriotic sentimentalist or the cynical opportunist that he has been taken for. Often cast as a cinematic simpleton or primitive, Capra's exploitation of the stylistic and narrative resources of cinema was, in fact, extremely self-conscious and adventurous in ways typical of artistic modernism. His modernism is also evident in his repeated and strong identification with female characters. Informed by recent work in genre theory and feminist psychology, Another Frank Capra shows Capra to be a 'proto-feminist' director whose feminism has been entirely neglected by previous critics.

Author : Frank Capra
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 538 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 1971
Category : Capra, Frank, 1897-
ISBN : UOM:39015003759548

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Frank Capra: the Name Above the Title by Frank Capra Pdf

Author : Robert Sklar,Vito Zagarrio
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 293 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 1998
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 1566396077

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Frank Capra by Robert Sklar,Vito Zagarrio Pdf

Frank Capra's films have had a lasting impact on American culture. His powerful depiction of American values, myths, and ideals was central famous Hollywood films as It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and It's a Wonderful Life. These pre-war films are remembered for their depiction of an individual's overcoming adversity, populist politics, and an unflappable optimist view of life. This collection of nine essays by leading international film historians analyzes Capra's filmmaking during his most prolific period, from 1928 to 1939, taking a closer look at the more complex aspects of his work. They trace his struggles for autonomy against Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn, his reputation as an amateur, and the ways in which working within studio modes of production my have enhanced the director's strengths. The contributors also place their critiques within the context of the changing fortunes of the Hollywood studio system, the impact of the Depression, and Capra's working relationships with other studio staff and directors. The contributors' access to nineteen newly restored Capra films made at Columbia during this period fills this collection with some of the most comprehensive critiques available on the director's early body of work.

Author : Ian Scott
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
Page : 302 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 2014-10-17
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780813159669

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In Capra's Shadow by Ian Scott Pdf

Because screenwriter Robert Riskin spent most of his career collaborating with legendary Hollywood director Frank Capra, Riskin's own unique contributions to film have been largely overshadowed. With five Academy Award nominations to his credit for the monumental films Lady for a Day, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take It with You, Here Comes the Groom, and It Happened One Night (for which he won the Oscar), Riskin is often imitated but rarely equaled. In Capra's Shadow: The Life and Career of Screenwriter Robert Riskin is the first detailed critical examination of the Hollywood pioneer's life and work. In addition to being one of the great screenwriters of the classic Hollywood era, Riskin was also a producer and director, founding his own film company and playing a crucial role in the foundation of the Screen Writers Guild. During World War II, Riskin was one of the major forces behind propaganda filmmaking. He worked in the Office of War Information and oversaw the distribution -- and later, production -- of films and documentaries in foreign theaters. He was interested in showing the rest of the world more than just an idealized version of America; he looked for films that emphasized the spiritual and cultural vibrancy within the U.S., making charity, faith, and generosity of spirit his propaganda tools. His efforts also laid the groundwork for a system of distribution channels that would result in the dominance of American cinema in Europe in the postwar years. Riskin's postwar work included his production of the 1947 film Magic Town, the tale of a marketing executive who discovers the perfect American small town and uses it for polling. What Riskin created onscreen is not simply a community stuck in an antiquarian past; rather, the town of Grandview observes its own traditions while at the same time confronting the possibilities of the modern world and the challenges of postwar America. Author Ian Scott provides a unique perspective on Riskin and the ways in which his brilliant, pithy style was realized in Capra's enduring films. Riskin's impact on cinema extended far beyond these films as he helped spread Hollywood cinema abroad and articulated his vision of a changing America.

Author : Charles J. Maland
Publisher : Boston : Twayne Publishers
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 1980
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : UOM:39015046354034

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Frank Capra by Charles J. Maland Pdf

From the early cinematic career of Frank Capra to the psychologically revealing films of Martin Scorsese, the books in this series offer an authoritative guide to the study of film and its trends by studying individual filmmakers and cinematic movements.

Author : Frank Capra
Publisher : Univ. Press of Mississippi
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2004
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 1578066174

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Frank Capra by Frank Capra Pdf

Few Hollywood directors had a higher profile in the 1930s than Frank Capra (1897-1991). He served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and of the Screen Directors Guild. He won three Academy Awards as best director and was widely acclaimed as the man most responsible for making Columbia Pictures a success. This popularity was established and sustained by films that spoke to and for the times--It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Meet John Doe, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. These replicated the nation's hopes and dreams for a national community. He worked with some of the brightest stars in Hollywood--James Stewart, Clark Gable, Jean Arthur, Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Claudette Colbert, Bette Davis, Donna Reed, and Ann-Margret. Capra's interviews express his connection to the national audience and explore his own story. He was a Sicilian immigrant boy who survived rough-and-tumble beginnings to become Hollywood's most bankable director. In reflecting on his life, almost every one of his films was a parable of acclaim verging on disaster. He spent much of the 1940s in uniform while making films for the War Department. Although Capra was an optimist, World War II and his series of Why We Fight films called his legendary optimism into question. His postwar film It's a Wonderful Life (1946) gave an answer to those questions with an astonishing directness Capra never equaled again. In 1971 he published his autobiography, The Name Above the Title. Many of the interviews collected here come from this period when, as an elder statesman of motion picture art and history, he reflected on his long career. The interviews portray the Capra legend vividly and demonstrate why the warm relations between Capra and his audiences continue to inspire acclaim and admiration.

Author : Jonathan J. Cavallero
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
Page : 234 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2011-05-17
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780252036149

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Hollywood's Italian American Filmmakers by Jonathan J. Cavallero Pdf

"[This book] explores the different ways in which Italian American directors from the 1920s to the present have responded to their ethnicity. While some directors have used film to declare their ethnic roots and create an Italian American 'imagined community,' others have ignored or even denied their background . . . Cavallero's exploration of the films of Capra, Scorsese, Savoca, Coppola,and Tarantino demonstrates how immigrant Italians fought prejudice, how later generations positioned themselves in relation to their predecessors, and how the American cinema, usually seen as a cultural instituion that works to assimlate, has also served as a forum where assimilation was resisted." -- Book cover.

Author : Joe Saltzman
Publisher : Norman Lear Center USC
Page : 204 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780971401815

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Frank Capra and the Image of the Journalist in American Film by Joe Saltzman Pdf

Author : Michael Newton
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 170 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2023-09-07
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781839023507

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It's a Wonderful Life by Michael Newton Pdf

Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life is one of the best-loved films of Classical Hollywood cinema, a story of despair and redemption in the aftermath of war that is one of the central movies of the 1940s, and a key text in America's understanding of itself. This is a film that remains relevant to our own anxieties and yearnings, to all the contradictions of ordinary life, while also enacting for us the quintessence of the classic Hollywood aesthetic. Nostalgia, humour, and a tough resilience weave themselves through this movie, intertwining it with the fraught cultural moment of the end of World War II that saw its birth. It offers a still compelling merging of fantasy and realism that was utterly unique when it was first released, and has rarely been matched since. Michael Newton's study of the film investigates the source of its extraordinary power and its long-lasting impact. He begins by introducing the key figures in the movie's production - notably director Frank Capra and star James Stewart - and traces the making of the film, and then provides a brief synopsis of the film, considering its aesthetic processes and procedures, touching on all those things that make it such an astonishing film. Newton's careful analysis explores all those aspects of the film that are fundamental to our understanding of it, particularly the way in which the film brings tragedy and comedy together. Finally, Newton tells the story of the film's reception and afterlife, accounting for its initial relative failure and its subsequent immense popularity.