Frank Capra’s story is that of a Sicilian immigrant who, in the 1930s, achieved dazzling popular and critical success as a film director. It is the story of a man who believed in the American dream and became its promoter. Like no one else, he showed a benevolent, optimistic people in his films, and made humanism a cardinal popular value.
In this story, Capra sometimes bent reality to better fit his fantasy. His cinema and his life are at one with America, its culture, its values, and its contradictions.
Image credit: National Archives and Records Administration