Department of French & Italian Student-Faculty Forum Series presents
Stairways to Nowhere: The Arsenical Dream of Mr. Frank Capra
by
Fabio Benincasa
Friday, March 31, 2006
2:30-3:30 pm
Ballantine Hall 147
Born Francesco Rosario Capra, in Bisaquino near Palermo, Sicily, Frank Capra was the first Italian-American director to reach the status of independent and autonomous author inside the Hollywood studio-system. During his long career, Capra earned three times the Oscar award for best director (1934, 1936 and 1938) and twice for best picture (1936 and 1938). Despite this great success (or maybe because of it), Frank Capra is one of those Classic Hollywood directors who were marginalized during the process of analysis and reconsideration of authorship in cinema developed during the Fifties and the Sixties that involved instead «commercial directors» such as Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford.
Undoubtedly, Frank Capra always struggled to be considered an author and an artist. The title of his own autobiography, The Name Above the Title, is an explicit proclamation of artistic and creative autonomy. Capra's visual transparency and apparent narrative simplicity are the consequence of a strict dialectic between the director and his audience.
This short paper will try to highlight Capra's subtle creative method, while at the same time underlining how his status as the son of immigrants had a strong influence on his filmography. The analysis will focus particularly on Capra's famous but underrated comedy Arsenic and Old Lace (1941), apparently a minor work, but important as a bond connecting two different creative periods: the «populist» age of the Thirties and the more controversial production of the Forties.
Fabio Benincasa is an Italian doctoral student in the Department of French & Italian. He received a law degree from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 1999, and an MA in Italian in 2004. Discussion and refreshments to follow lecture.
If you have a disability and need assistance, accommodations can be made to address most needs. Please call 855-5458.
