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.
Free phone wasn’t worth keeping,
Hope can be dangerous when the path ahead is dark and uncertain
We’re neither friends nor enemies, just strangers who share the past
Why do so many find it funny to embarrass the people they love?
Best time to raise dragon-slayers is when dragons are everywhere
The Alien Observer:
Do tales of ‘Black Friday violence’ reflect reality or just our bias?
I’ve lost all interest in begging anyone to fix the political system
Why do you need a license? It’s time for separation of marriage and state