Capra’s
Battle With the Deep State and Hollywood’s Role in the Cold War Era
December
21, 2019
For those
who find themselves with excess time this holiday season which they would
prefer not to squander with idleness or Netflix binges, then I’d like to offer
this serving of Frank Capra films to uplift the soul.
Frank Capra
(1897-1991) stands as one of the most brilliant directors/producers of the 20th Century,
and sadly also one of the least understood- known at best for the film It’s
a Wonderful Life played every year as a Christmas tradition, or Mr.
Smith Goes to Washington.
Unbeknownst
to even many film connoisseurs today, Capra was not only a pre-eminent cultural
warrior who took every opportunity to expose fascist movements during the
1930’s and 1940’s but also fought to provide a positive principled
understanding of the divinity mankind’s higher nature in all his
works. When asked to put into words what motivated him to create movies he
said:
“My films
must let every man, woman, and child know that God loves them, that I love them,
and that peace and salvation will become a reality only when they all learn to
love each other”
During
World War II, Capra’s Why We Fight series was one of the most important educational tools
used to shape the hearts and minds of the American population towards the
strategic nature and purpose of the war against the fascist machine which had
received much of its support from financiers in the Anglo-American
establishment. In America, these groups were masquerading as “patriots” under
the American Liberty League promoting America’s neutrality in that conflict. It
was an open secret that these groups preferred to let Hitler and Mussolini
usher in a new order which they saw as a wonderful opportunity to rule the
world, and it was to these groups that FDR declared famously “they who
seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human
beings by a handful of individual rulers call this a new order. It is not new and
it is not order”. The President knew of what he spoke as he had declared open
war on these American fascists from 1932 onward.
Capra not
only struggled to revive Roosevelt’s mission to end poverty, hunger and war
after the war ended, but also struggled against the CIA-run
Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) which was created in 1949 to shape the new era of art,
music and cinema in the post war age as weapons against communism. The CCF had
spared no time in purging Hollywood of all “FDR patriots” under the FBI-steered
witch hunt known as Mcarthyism on the one hand while promoting a new culture of
banality on the other pouring millions of dollars into mind deadening film
scripts conducive to an age of white collar consumerism. This CIA/CCF agenda
was recognized by only a few leading film directors as a spiritual virus that
had to be stopped at all costs.
Other film
makers at the time that stood against this corruption included Robert Kennedy’s
close friend John Frankenheimer, and Director Stanley Kramer, whose film Judgement at
Nuremberg (1961)
still stands alone as one of the most potent artistic exposures of the western
support for eugenics and fascism.
Frankenheimer’s 7 Days in May (1964) showcased the real-life planned coup to overthrow JFK
which had been arranged by the Military’s Joint Chiefs under the helm of
Anglophile General Lyman Lemnitzer in 1962 after Kennedy rejected the General’s plans for Operations
Northwoods. (1)
Capra’s
approach to combating this virus during the years of Cold War terror took a
different path to that chosen by Frankenheimer and Kramer. Rather than exposing
the rot directly, Capra focused on uplifting the image of mankind by channeling
all his efforts on science
documentaries for
children which he felt would have the most long term benefit to humanity.
Capra had
been a target of the House on Un-American Activities due to his friendship with
many blacklisted film makers, and watched as Hollywood was purged of those key
individuals who acted as its conscience when Hollwood’s role as a tool of
patriotism or fascism was still undetermined. Just as the political world was
being re-shaped to a new post-moral world order, so too was Hollywood, and as
historian Micheal Medved stated, “Capra refused to adjust to the
cynicism of the new order.”
Capra’s
documentary The Strange Case of Cosmic Rays illustrates his
powerful technique that sought to unite science and art through a reverence for
God’s creation which is in many ways as cutting edge today as it was 60 years
ago.
Capra’s
Greatest Films for this Holiday Season
After
watching the brilliant It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) which not only exposed the crushing schemes of Wall
Street financiers who sought to ruin local productive businesses/commercial
banks but also awoke a higher sentiment of transformative love in the hearts of
the audience, I would highly recommend watching his lesser known, yet equally
powerful pieces You Can’t Take it With You (1938), Meet John Doe (1941) and State of the Union (1949). Taken alongside Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939), these films act as incredible Schillerian
masterpieces which express the best potential for the moral use of cinema as a
tool to both spiritually and politically ennoble a nation’s citizenry.
Capra
dedicated himself to John F. Kennedy’s challenge to embark upon a new age of
“open-system” collaboration around un-ending discoveries in space, producing
his last film “Rendez-vous in Space” in 1964. Spliced with Beethoven’s 9th Symphony
which set Schiller’s immortal poem Ode to Joy to music celebrating humanity’s
eventual emergence into an age of reason, Capra had his narrator end with the
powerful words: “The Sun still lights up and gives life to our planet,
but only the mind of man can light up, and give meaning to the light of the
universe.”
Even though
darkness clouds the path to that better future towards which world citizens
like Frank Capra dedicated their lives, the light that they knew was there is
getting stronger by the day. So take the time to welcome the year 2020 by
adding some spiritual kindling onto your flame and let Capra’s intention come
alive again.
Happy
Holidays to all.
Footnote
(1)
Frankenheimer, who also directed the Manchurian Candidate was close friends
with Bobby Kennedy and producing the latter’s campaign ads for the 1968
presidential bid
Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review and has authored 3 volumes of ‘Untold History of
Canada’ book series. His works appear regularly on The Duran, Strategic
Culture, Sott, Fort Russ, Zero Hedge, Global Times, L.A. Review of Books,
LeSaker.fr, Vigile Quebec, South Front and Veterans Today. He is a
correspondent/BRI Expert for Tactical Talk. In 2019 Matthew co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation. He
can be reached at matt.ehret@tutamail.com
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