By DONALD DE MARCO
Francesco Rosario Capra, better known to fans of the cinema as Frank Capra, was born on May 18, 1897 (Pope St. John Paul II was born on May 18, 1920) in Bisacquino, Sicily, the youngest of seven children. He died in La Quinta, California at the age of 94. The journey from Bisacquino to La Quinta bears a curious literal resemblance to Aquinas.
His family left for the United States when Francesco was five years of age. As he recounted many years later in his autobiography, The Name Above the Title, it was the worst experience of his life, but seeing the Statue of Liberty was the best experience of his life. This contrast between the worst and the best was to follow him throughout his life.
While in San Francisco, with twelve cents to his name, he answered a newspaper advertisement placed by an actor who was looking for a director to help him create film versions of his favorite poetry. He showed up at the studio, announced that he had just arrived from Hollywood, and fast-talked his way into his first directing role.
Capra did not always take his Catholic faith very seriously. He identified himself as a Christmas Catholic. He felt pretty good about himself when some of his earlier films were successes and, as a result, did not concern himself too much about his faith. A turning point in his life came when a friend said to him, “The talents you have, Mr. Capra, are not your own, not self-acquired. God gave you those talents; they are His gifts to you, to use for His purpose.”
Capra then re-evaluated his faith and began to take it more seriously. He began using his talents in a new direction. “My films,” he said, “must let every man, woman, and child know that God loves them, that I love them, and that peace and salvation will become a reality only when they all learn to love each other.” In speaking about his film You Can’t Take It With You, Capra said that it was a chance to promulgate Christ’s admonition to love thy neighbor which he averred “can be the most powerful sustaining force in someone’s life.”
In his 1971 autobiography he stated that “Mankind needed dramatizations of the truth that man is essentially good, a living atom of divinity; that compassion for others, friend or foe, is the noblest of all virtues. Films must be made to say these things, to counteract the violence and the meanness, to buy time to demobilize the hatreds.”
Hollywood moguls did not always agree with Capra’s moral vision. “Capra-corn” was the derisive label they ascribed to his movies. But his movies were hardly cornball. They incorporated genuine moral lessons about love, kindness, faith, and hope. They were both Christian and realistic, much to the inspiration and enjoyment of his legion of viewers.
Capra regarded It’s a Wonderful Life (1947) as his ultimate triumph. “It was produced with no concern for the critics,” he wrote. “I thought it was the greatest film I ever made,” he added. “Better yet,” if we allow him a bit of self-congratulations, “I thought it was the greatest film anybody ever made. It wasn’t made for the oh-so-bored critics or the oh-so-jaded literati. It was my kind of film for my kind of people,” Nonetheless, this timeless Christmas classic earned him an Oscar nomination. He previously won the coveted Oscar for directing his 1934 romantic comedy, It Happened One Night.
It’s a Wonderful Life could easily be re-titled as Life Is a Wonderful Gift. Just as Christmas is about giving, starting with God the Father giving us His Son, so is life. Capra’s classic now stands with Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol as the most treasured Christmas stories we see each year at Christmastime.
Dickens’ story involves a man from Hell, Jacob Marley, who shows Ebenezer Scrooge the ruinous future he is preparing for himself and for others. Capra’s movie involves an angel from Heaven, Clarence Odbody, who shows George Bailey what a wonderful life he has had.
In both stories the order of time is changed so that the trajectory of the two lives can be seen from the perspective of eternity. Also central to the stories are the families of Bob Cratchit and George Bailey (played by Jimmy Stewart). Both stories reveal how each person can have a profound effect on the lives of others, especially on intimates, according to how he views the significance of his life.
Christmas is about eternity since it represents the eternal God coming into a world of time. It is the conjunction between the timeless and the temporal. It offers us, therefore, an occasion to reflect on our lives and consider where we are going. It beckons us to see our lives in a larger perspective and to think about the relationship between our birth and our destiny. Christ’s birth is inseparable from his destiny. The light He brings into the world is one that illuminates all of human history.
This larger perspective, achieved at Christmastime in both of these timeless stories, is needed for the conversions of the two central characters: Ebenezer Scrooge and George Bailey. Given a frame of reference that transcends the moment, they come to realize the essential importance of love and generosity. They come to understand that life is a blessing, one that must be shared with others. Both the Bailey and the Cratchit families are the immediate beneficiaries of this insight. They are the beneficiaries of what Christmas throughout the year represents.
This Christmas, we might reserve a moment to thank Frank Capra for his many cinematic gifts, especially, It’s A Wonderful Life, and for his vision and his integrity.
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is a professor emeritus of St. Jerome’s University and an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary. He is a regular columnist for the St. Austin Review. His latest books, How to Navigate Through Life and Apostles of the Culture of Life, are posted on amazon.com.)
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