Capracorn

Frank Capra. I say the name and you, probably rightfully so, would label me a sentimentalist. I don't experience his work in that way, however.

I experienced Capra as a revelation. Growing up a surfer in south Orange County, I didn't even know who he was. I knew John Ford and Orson Welles, but not Capra.

When I was 18, a girlfriend introduced me to him around Christmas through "It's A Wonderful Life."

I was transformed. You can actually do this with film? You can include family and religion and hopes and dreams---in a very satisfying story and characters?

I became voracious in my appetite for Capra. The University I attended as a freshman, Pepperdine, showed a retrospective of his films. I would break dates with that girl (at UC Davis) to get back and see Capra's stuff.

I found a very similar thing that I found in Keaton's, Ford's and Lubitsch's films: a touch, a voice, a feeling like no other film. Certainly, this voice varied from filmmaker to filmmaker, and it grew and waned throughout their careers, but it was real.

Capra worked in poverty row, but he captured the imagination of the world.