Director Frank Capra was a great filmmaker, but he used his talent to promote a utopian vision that never existed and never can exist. Capra was a progressive who clearly believed in the perfectibility of man — if only more people would faithfully follow the civic religion that worships the goodness of the “common man.”
In “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” Capra’s Jefferson Smith (memorably played by Jimmy Stewart) is a small-town nobody who’s suddenly propelled into Washington politics when he’s appointed to the U.S. Senate. Smith is a wide-eyed innocent who’s surrounded by crooks and thieves. He just wants to use the power of government to do good — for the boys of an organization he works with, mostly — but everyone else is in it for money and power.
It’s a good movie, even if it’s really corny and wildly two dimensional. If you watch it, you have the idea that everything could be great in this country if we would just trust the simpletons such as Smith, who live in the uncorrupted small towns of the country, far from the influence of the evils of Washington.
We rarely have wisdom we need ’til it’s too late to avoid mistakes
It’s great to visit Memory Lane, but it’s fatal to try to live there
Voice of harsh inner critic still sucks joy from my creative life
Listening to our own inner voice can be the toughest thing we do
Do you want a company or do you just want to get something done?
Do political labels make things clear or just confuse everyone?
Once you taste what is possible, you can’t accept being ‘normal’
When I feel too much ambition, my ego has gotten too inflated
Separating religion, spirituality makes it harder to find the Truth