125th anniversary of Capra
On May 18, 1897, in the suburbs of Palermo, Sicily, the seventh child, named Francesco Rosario, was born in the family of the gardener Salvatore Capra and his wife Rosaria Nicolosi. 5 years after the birth of Francesco, the entire Capra family emigrated to the United States, where the father of the family began working as a fruit picker in California.
Throughout the ten years of his studies at school, Francesco worked as a newspaper seller in his spare time. The money earned plus the support of his parents allowed him to enter college at the California Institute of Technology after graduation in September 1915, where he studied as a chemical technologist. In 1916, Francesco's father died as a result of an accident. Since the cost of college tuition was $250 a year, Francesco had to work in his spare time: he played banjo in nightclubs and worked odd jobs, for example, worked in the campus laundry, as a waiter and cleaned engines at a local power plant. After graduating from college with a bachelor's degree in 1918, Francesco was trained in the Reserve Officer Training Corps and entered military service with the rank of junior lieutenant. His military service consisted of teaching mathematics to future gunners.
Capra's military service did not last long: he fell ill with the "Spanish flu" and was commissioned. Returning to his family, Francesco found himself in the position of a dependent: the only one of the family who had a higher education was unemployed. For a person who earned a living from childhood by his own labor, the position of a dependent turned out to be a heavy moral burden and led to depression. Depression led to complex appendicitis, burdened with peritonitis. Somehow cured of a serious illness, who did not want to be dependent on his brothers and sisters, Frank (in 1920 Francesco Capra received American citizenship and became Frank Russell Capra) he went to wander around the western states of the USA. He spent the night in flophouses, worked odd jobs on farms, starred in extras, played poker, sold shares of local oil wells.
In 1921, Frank Capra, having obtained a movie camera, made his first 32-minute documentary about the visit of the Italian warship Livia to San Francisco. Shortly thereafter, he came across a newspaper advertisement for the opening of a new film studio. Capra decided to try to find work at this film studio and presented his film as proof of his cinematic experience. The attempt was a success - Capra was commissioned to make a short film. For this work, Frank Capra received his first fee - $ 75. After this first serious work in the cinema, Capra began to look for similar vacancies in the film industry - he tried all the cinematic specialties: operator, editor, screenwriter, assistant director, etc. Finally, in 1926, Frank Capra made his first feature film "The Strong Man". During the period 1926-1928, Frank Capra made 9 silent full-length feature films. In 1929, he made the film "The Younger Generation", which became the first sound film in both the director's creative biography and in the history of the Columbia Pictures film company.
During the period from 1929 to 1961, when Capra shot his last feature-length film, he shot 26 full-length sound feature films. 5 films directed by Frank Capra were included in the Golden Thousand. Based on this indicator, Frank Capra is included in the list of the 100 greatest directors of world cinema compiled by FilmGourmand. Frank Capra's cinematographic work has been awarded 12 film awards, including 3 Academy Awards, one Golden Globe, as well as the honorary Golden Lion of the Venice International Film Festival (among the 12 most outstanding figures of world cinema).
Today, on the 125th anniversary of the birth of the great director, I want to remind fans of his work shots from his best films included in the Golden Thousand.
