Frank Capra's American Dream

How can you go wrong with a doco about a great Yankee humanitarian like Capra and having the likes of Scorsese, Dreyfuss, Oliver Stone and so on, praise the man himself? This conservative structured doco takes us from A to Z of Capra's career.

Ron Howard hosts a biography of the life and career of filmmaker Frank Capra, including interviews with the director's friends, colleagues and admirers.

Ron Howard as narrator? Well, it works for "Arrested Development", so why not here? And, in deed, he does have a pretty good speaking voice for this sort of thing.

But anyway, if anyone deserves a good documentary, it is Frank Capra. With films like "It Happened One Night" and "It's a Wonderful Life", he was sort of the Norman Rockwell of film, crafting an American vision in his tales. Little worlds where life can be perfect, even when it is not. And what makes it most interest is how Capra was not an American by birth, but by choice... he had more to say about the country than many of its inhabitants did.

Frank Capra's American Dream (1997)

**** (out of 4)

Ron Howard hosts this wonderful documentary that covers the life and career of three-time Oscar-winner Frank Capra. The documentary features interviews with two of his sons as well as various famous faces including Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Robert Altman, Andre De Toth, Richard Dreyfuss, Michael Keaton, Amy Heckerling, Arthur Hiller, Angela Lansbury, Garry Marshall, John Milius, Richard Schickel,Edward Zwick and even some who worked with Capra including Jane Wyatt and Fay Wray.

If you're a fan of Capra then you'll certainly enjoy this detailed documentary that does a very good job at talking about the director's early life and how he ended up in Hollywood. From here we basically get a look at all of the films he made and a discussion of their box office success or failures as well as their impact on Capra himself. We get a more detailed look at the bigger titles including IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN, MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, MEET JOHN DOE and of course IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE.

The documentary does an extremely good job at going over the highs and lows of Capra's career as well as his own personal life, although the main focus always remains on the films. Fans of the director will get a lot of great stories told about the films and those new to Capra will get to learn about what made him so special.

Solid, interesting, informative documentary on Frank Capra both the man and his improbable journey from immigrant poverty to being one of the best known directors of all time.

One of the most interesting aspects is the way the documentary shows Capra's best work was often darker and less corny or sentimentalized than it's remembered. Heroes earn any happy endings they get, and there is often pain, self-doubt and loss along the way. It makes the valid point that emotional and ultimately hopeful is far different from sentimental and corny, and Capra knew and fought for that difference.

For the most part the interviews with other directors, actors, friends and family are very effective. Although there are a few Hollywood types who's connection to Capra and his work seems tenuous at best, and sometimes analysis gives way to gushing.

While not quite deep, emotional or revelatory enough to be a great film, it is a very good one, that any film buff should certainly see.

I watched this documentary on the Criterion Collection edition of IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT. It looks at the life and major works of Frank Capra, and goes into a satisfying amount of detail. I enjoyed the debunking of the idea that Capra's movies were all sentimental mush without hints of ambiguity or darkness. I could have done without some of the hyperbolic gushing (every scene seemed to be "the finest proposal in movie history" or "the most sublime close-up of all time" or "the best nose twitch since FRED OTT'S SNEEZE"), but overall I came away from the documentary with a better appreciation of Capra's style and ideals. It's so weird how a filmmaker so steeped in the concerns and pop culture of the 1930s and 1940s can still touch so many.