Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
“All you people don’t know about lost causes. Mr. Paine does. He said once they were the only causes worth fighting for. And he fought for them once, for the only reason any man ever fights for them; because of just one plain simple rule: ‘Love thy neighbor.’… And you know that you fight for the lost causes harder than for any other. Yes, you even die for them. “- Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”
For several years now, I’ve wanted to revisit Frank Capra’s classic film “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” with James Stewart as a small-town idealist who is appointed to the U.S. Senate as a puppet for a corrupt political machine just expecting him to hold a seat and keep his mouth shut during the business as usual carrying on in Washington. But when an obvious bit of “graft” (we know it now as pork) gets in the way of a pet project this Boy Ranger leader has to place a National Boys camp in his home state, Smith has to take a stand against the status quo and a machine looking to bury him through slander and falsities. At the time of its’ release, Washington insides denounced the film, saying they were “angry at its allegations of corruption.” Watching it now, it would appear that not much has changed.
Capra’s approach in his films- at least here and in “It’s a Wonderful Life”- was to take the side of the underdog, the improbable David who takes on his story’s Goliath, in this case, a mode of thinking that makes it acceptable to pad your pockets deep down while, on the surface, having the People’s interests at heart. In “Mr. Smith,” a relief bill (this was made in 1939 in the middle of the Great Depression) has hidden in it a provision for a dam meant to serve the interests of political boss James Taylor, who has the state’s senior senator Joseph Paine (Claude Rains, from “Casablanca” and “Notorious”) in his pocket, and a guarantee of 20 years in office for Smith if he plays along. Smith refuses, and in the face of a smear campaign that has him on the brink of being kicked out of the Senate, and with a little street smart coaching by his world-weary secretary Saunders (Jean Arthur), Smith prevails by finding a way to hold the floor for the time-honored tradition of the filibuster, and eventually get his cynical fellow Senators to wake up to the corruption that has robbed this Democracy of some of its’ greatest values.
Inspired by the most thought-provoking presidential campaign in a generation, I finally rewatched Capra’s film, and it’s become a head-long favorite of mine. Of course, part of that is my weakness for a good old underdog story, but on top of that, the idealism in Stewart’s Smith is inspiring to me. He still believes in the fundamental values of this country, and even has a hard time convincing Saunders otherwise when- seemingly licked by the powers that be, his head down at the Lincoln Memorial- he looks ready to give up and go home. But he buckles under, gets that fire for the fundamental values that had shaped him lit again, and is ready to fight for what he believes in, in a way against the status quo. Having my own fire lit through months of self-discovery recently, well, I kind of identify with him. And so he fights the establishment by simply staying true to himself. In the end, his loyalty to himself wins out, and a classic American story has been spun by a master storyteller.
