Frank Capra: Mr America

Frank Capra: Mr. America satisfies all the baseline requirements of a documentary. It gives some backstory on its subject (legendary film director Frank Capra), shows the highlights of his peak, and gives some context for the figure's importance. Unfortunately, this doc does not do anything more than those bare minimums.

For a very basic overview, Mr. America tells the story of Capra being an impoverished Italian immigrant who came to America and found the motion picture industry to his liking. He ascended to the top of his craft-collecting numerous Academy Awards in the 1930s-for iconic films such as It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, & It's A Wonderful Life. After that, however, Capra disappeared almost as quickly as he had ascended before re-surfacing in the early 1970s with a new book and in with a more sophisticated movie-going public now re-evaluating his films.

In terms of rote box-checking, Mr. America does an adequate job of covering its bases. Capra's story is a fascinating one and the clips from his films elicit real emotion/nostalgia, while his importance to early-Hollywood (Columbia Pictures, specifically) cannot be understated.

At the same time, there is nothing new under the sun to examine vis a vis Capra in 2023-so I'm not entirely sure what purpose this documentary serves other than to capitalize on his name (which, admittedly, is what got my eyeballs). I think that such lack of new material really hurts this doc, because it essentially amounts to a re-packaged (if nicely so) rehash of previous Capra topics. I wanted to know more about his transition to the United States or his post-career socio-political stances (quite interesting), but likely there just isn't anything new to unearth in those regards.

As such, I consider Frank Capra: Mr. America to be a perfectly acceptable doc on its title subject-perhaps more if the viewer has little previous knowledge of the famed director. But even slightly more seasoned Capra/film fans may come away feeling a little underwhelmed.