#55
MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN
01-06-15
Back to Mr. Deeds.. First, I love Gary Cooper, his integrity. Some say minimalist, I say that some people aren't very demonstrative or gesticulate. But I believe him in every role he's ever played. These are my favorite types of films - an American microcosm, there's no fancy angles, just a great movie with a great theme. Besides how money ruins things, but how people lose sight of even the things they love because they're caught up in a rat race to benefit 1% of the population. I love how even a man with his beliefs becomes a little corrupted, such as when the man asks, "Why are you feeding horses donuts when so many of your fellow man is hungry" - the man who enters the house is the same kind of man, except he wasn't lucky. It's not a skill to be born into privilege. He's totally sane, not an assassin, it's the situation him and millions of people in America (and elsewhere) were facing. It's so touching while he's eating he almost feels a sense of guilt as his family is starving at home, and asks if he could take some to feed them. He also finds out the only person really close to him is the one who betrays him. Why? For a month's vacation with pay. Money over humans.
The courtroom scene is wonderful, like every Capra courtroom scene. It's about conformity, how people are all different in their own ways. The most sane man being called crazy. Just like crazy people think others are nuts. I see the importance of this film because it seems we're almost going through the same thing, and we have the thing I'm typing on as a new distraction. The key is not to let it control us. One of those great films that either reinforce your values, or at least to consider and re-evaluate things. I highly recommend it. It usually has to take watching someone else cry on the screen to give me tears, but the word "hungry" repeated in my head, and how it was said - the greatness of acting. Could this movie be made today? As if having empathy for the working-class is decadent, or being honest, having values is "freedom-taking" - I'm hoping for a New Deal, real reform in America and throughout the world, and not to go the other way. It seems like everyone is being subdivided into groups to fight each other, divide and rule, Hegelian and Orwellian. Mr. Deeds Goes To Town (Capra) - 9/10 - I tried watching this a little over a year ago, and from the beginning it was scratching, so I took it back to the library, and it took them until now to "fix" it.
I think this is one of those films that should be mandated for every American citizen.
Capra has been one of my favorite directors, definitely the most earliest. This film has human emotions all over it, and it's done it such a great way. I almost wish I could read the original screenplay just to see what Capra thought was important to include. And by coincidence, at around 2am I was flipping around, and they had the great "You Can't Take It With You" last night. It was right at the time Grandpa goes into the tax office, and asks the man why he's there. I love it. People have been so programmed to just do what their told, go to the job, pay bills, die. "Isn't there something you'd rather be doing" and I think most people do and should try.
03-22-15
Saw it on TV this morning, nice way to start out the day. It's a film that reflects my values, even in 1936. Such an excellent film about the true meaning of life as opposed to the material conformity, as well as psychological issues - the courtroom scene is a great ending to show how each person has their own fidgets and when it's different from their own, everyone else is crazy, as shown by the two who are not "pixilated" - I also love the man who enters the home to tell Cooper what he lost, and how money has moved him away from his prior humanity.