In this study, Professor Carney provides a fresh analysis of the career and work of film director Frank Capra. There are few filmgoers who have not seen or been moved by one of the thirty-six feature films directed by Frank Capra between 1926 and 1961, among them are It's a Wonderful Life, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Meet John Doe, Lost Horizon, It Happened One Night, Mr Deeds Goes to Town, and Pocketful of Miracles. Critics, however, have often dismissed the director as sentimental, or patronised his populist tendencies. Professor Carney locates the director's oeuvre within a larger tradition of post-Romantic expression, placing him in the company of figures such as Hawthorne, Emerson, James, Winslow, Homer, Sargent and Edward Hopper. His vast knowledge of Capra's biography, the intricacies of the Hollywood studio system, film-making techniques, and the American cultural heritage has produced a study that moves beyond the boundaries of film scholarship. The detailed readings of individual films are presented within a broad cultural context and the context of Capra's own development. Thus, the book is as much an exploration of the American imagination as it is a study of a single director's work.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Drawing upon the works of Romantic writers and painters for background, Carney argues that far from being simple-mindedly sentimental, Capra's films reflect the director's continuing investigation of the traditional American uncertainty about whether an individual can express imaginative dreams within the repressive norms of society. The examples he cites of motifs and compositional strategies the films share with specific paintings by Homer, Eakins, and Sargent support Carney's fresh insights into the stylistics Capra developed and make the reevaluation he urges of the films all the more compelling. Recommended. Marshall Deutelbaum, English Dept., Purdue Univ., W. Lafayette, Ind.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
An extraordinary achievement and undertaking . . . a true fruition and a powerful defense of the auteurist impulse in film studies. -- Film Quarterly
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First Sentence:
It is useful and only a slight simplification, to make a fundamental distinction between two alternative traditions of mainstream American feature filmmaking in order to suggest an essential difference between Frank Capra's work, which emanates out of the one, and that of most other major Hollywood directors of the thirties and forties, which emanates out of the other. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
expressive predicament, dreamland sequence, narrative eventfulness, meditative shift, imaginative mobility, layered sound track, housewarming ceremony, charged consciousness, enriched consciousness, films that follow, expressive gap, expressive problems, imaginative openings, imaginative substitutions, imaginative movement, acting strategies, social performer, stylistic world, visionary community, melodramatic expression, preceding film, imaginative relationship, respective films, imaginative performance, late films Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Wonderful Life, Bitter Tea, Platinum Blonde, Ladies of Leisure, State of the Union, John Doe, George Bailey, That Certain Thing, The Miracle Woman, Stew Smith, Henry James, Jefferson Smith, The Way of the Strong, New York, Frank Capra, Tom Dixon, Jerry Strong, Barbara Stanwyck, Longfellow Deeds, William James, Lost Horizon, Deeds Goes, Broadway Bill, Bedford Falls, Florence Fallon New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
It is useful and only a slight simplification, to make a fundamental distinction between two alternative traditions of mainstream American feature filmmaking in order to suggest an essential difference between Frank Capra's work, which emanates out of the one, and that of most other major Hollywood directors of the thirties and forties, which emanates out of the other. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
expressive predicament, dreamland sequence, narrative eventfulness, meditative shift, imaginative mobility, layered sound track, housewarming ceremony, charged consciousness, enriched consciousness, films that follow, expressive gap, expressive problems, imaginative openings, imaginative substitutions, imaginative movement, acting strategies, social performer, stylistic world, visionary community, melodramatic expression, preceding film, imaginative relationship, respective films, imaginative performance, late films Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Wonderful Life, Bitter Tea, Platinum Blonde, Ladies of Leisure, State of the Union, John Doe, George Bailey, That Certain Thing, The Miracle Woman, Stew Smith, Henry James, Jefferson Smith, The Way of the Strong, New York, Frank Capra, Tom Dixon, Jerry Strong, Barbara Stanwyck, Longfellow Deeds, William James, Lost Horizon, Deeds Goes, Broadway Bill, Bedford Falls, Florence Fallon New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 43
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20
books
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- Portrait of a Lady Pb by Henry James on 5 pages
- Studies in Classic American Literature (The Cambridge Edition of the Works of D. H. Lawrence) by D. H. Lawrence in Front Matter (1), Front Matter (2), and page 41
- What Maisie Knew (Modern Library Classics) by Henry James on page 143, and page 287
- It's a Wonderful Life by Jimmy Stewart in Front Matter, and page 325
- The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James on page 57, and page 412
See all 43 books this book cites
- Blue-Collar Hollywood: Liberalism, Democracy, and Working People in American Film by John Bodnar in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- In Capra's Shadow: The Life and Career of Screenwriter Robert Riskin by Ian Scott in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Class, Language, and American Film Comedy by Christopher Beach in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Frank Capra: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers) by Leland Poague in Front Matter (1), and Front Matter (2)
- Going the Distance: Dissident Subjectivity in Modernist American Literature (Horizons in Theory and American Culture) by David R. Jarraway on page 32, and Back Matter
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