There are some days when I look around and I don’t believe in much. But even on those days, I still, still believe in Frank Capra.
Like many people of my generation, I came to appreciate Frank Capra’s film work through the annual Christmastime airings of It’s a Wonderful Life, his 1946 masterpiece starring James Stewart and Donna Reed. As I understand it, the movie was a commercial failure upon release. But like many great works of art, it only found its audience years after its creation, when people really began to understand what its creator intended it to be: a journey into the darkest night of his protagonist’s soul, when he overcomes some of the world’s vilest machinations by not abandoning his hope and his ideals.
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