Friday, December 2, 2011

"It's a Wonderful Life" meeting Frank Capra

I was having a new look at the movie "It's a Wonderful Life"

and remembering...

It was the late 70's , I was finishing my course work on my masters
degree the weather was colder that year and the campus had that feel of
the end of the winder term. Student were dressed in there coats and
warmer gear, then the usual light wear. My mother had just died from a
hart attract, she should not have been working at the hospital, and
knew she had a hart condition. My father was very sick and my mother could
not stay home with him all day and all the time. My ex-wife and I were having
problems at around this time, everything seemed to be going down hill in small
ways little by little as the sand moves under your feet.

Walking on campus, around the falling leaves I noticed a post
about Frank Capra the Director was having a lecture and would be
screening his film "It's a Wonderful Life",  I thought this would be fun
for me and my wife, something we could do together.

My ex-wife is Jewish and me not, so Christmas and the holiday sometime would bring out some underlying feeling in each of us.

The Screening room on campus was in a small auditorium, that evening
around 7:30, and there across from me was Frank Capra, he was looking well
and with a smile on his face.

Frank Capra had a important and interesting life, from being a gag
writer to being one of the greatest film director of all times. Capra
was a populist,using the simplicity of his narrative structures,
in which the great social problems facing America were boiled down to
scenarios which were simple metaphorical constructs. Capra used myth and poetic
power of film to create proletarian passion plays. As with today's
culture the conflict between cynicism and the protagonist's faith and
idealism, a melancholy and baseless optimism is a powerful content.

As the lecture continued I was affixed on the person, as he
described his life and films, his introduction to the film we were
going to be shown was a surprise, instead of seeing his classic "It's
a wonderful Life" we were to see the classic "Meet John Doe".

I was not to be disappointed, some others seemed put out.

Until recently I did not fully understand why Frank Capra wanted to
show "Meet John Doe". The story of "Meet John Doe" is about conflict
and faith, in the film a man needing money agrees to impersonate a
nonexistent person who said he'd be committing suicide as a protest,
and begin a political movement.
As Capra explained, there was a problem with the ending and a
they had to call in a writer to rewrite the ending, filming the ending
in many ways, as he explained they had John go over the building,
than have him and the leading women both go over then just her. "Meet
John Doe" was make in 1941 just before the war. The story is about
the great depression and how people can over come life's problems by
simple golden rules, over the corruption of government. It's also 

about the loss of faith, a story about redemption.

When the United States went to war in December 1941, Frank Capra
rejoined the Army and became an propagandist. Capra said he was against
"mass entertainment, mass production, mass education, mass everything. 

Especially mass man. I was fighting for,  in
a sense, the preservation of the liberty of the individual person
against the mass."

After the screening and talk Frank Capra said that we were know going
to hear the radio version of "It's a Wonderful Life" At this time more
that haft of the audience stood up and moved to the exit, as if the show
was over. Frank Capra stood up,now red in the face and irritated and told
them " you well never learn anything about films or life if you can not
learn to listen " most just keep going some stayed, I was still in my
seat. I sat and listened to the radio version of "It's a wonderful
Life" with Frank Capra giving me a eye and enjoyed it, Capra had
written and directed the radio version also.

I went over and got a hand sake headed home. Not to long after I went through a divorce my father died and I lost everything I had and was homeless, not unlike
John Doe.

Being a Educational media specialist and artist, looking back to what
happen there that night, hearing "It's a Wonderful life" made in 1946, just after
the war. I was seeing a continuation of "Meet John Doe" the story of a man fighting
against corruption, loss of faith and of redemption.

John Doe was to jump off the building Christmas eve and was saved, were as George Bailey jumps and is saved through this his redemption. If you see life or a film
but can not hear what the message is you can sometimes go out into the
night and not really see or understand what life is about, the conflict
between cynicism and the protagonist's faith and idealism, and about redemption






Timothy Dougherty

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Silence Barriers

"Silence Barriers"

by Timothy Dougherty


Magic to go straight to the area, with a sense of size and sullen grimness, being half choked with the flush of morning

Talk to me Rain so glowing and without life the scattered impulses you gather me, passionate act, our traditions

Friends are open with green hills of simple grace and sense of importance, a friend with shoulders and her rose morning

Half choked friends suffocated in their convictions and hardened resolves, friends are the recesses of our memory

The past as the shifted friends on adroit grounds, accosted ideas and ideals, lampooned with cherished prejudices and bowed submissions

My mind is haunted with friends the unearthly burden of life or just a place for chill trepidation, friends drank of naught colorless care

It is often with desperate resolve of spirit, we conversed in fluency and nothing passed, only desperation

The walls have resolve and the universe to a fundamental nothingness, as if some human defect has been detected in some hollow moons rings

So ironic words, flung and flushed out to some intolerably wind, as the silence becomes intolerably given stare of diffidence rebounds

Looking at some day-dreams, how I give my eyes to the demons of false glory and simple wanton success, the same demon who rules too often

Eyes with the gift of deep, dark silences the eagle in his tracks and trade eyes, acted in honor and delicacy, sudden dreams we give

With admiring vision the dark silence comes, as friend loathsome and listened in gazed intent as protestations held and than replies went

In life the regimental vague acceptance becomes only a smile only a smile, a smile





Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Lumen Leonine

Lumen Leonine


Footsteps receptivity impertinence

latent skys lashing scorns breath

leaden steps of freedom rest


Leaping ambitions smiles lightly

leisurely shadows lengthening

leonine breath questioning

Lighting glares twilight stares

fixed tenderness liquid light

she moves with the night

Sunday, January 2, 2011

2011

2011


I end as I began peculiar satisfactions, I earnestly speak as themselves of human spirits. The spiritual substances, minds human pleasure

Reality is meant as affecting orderly and distinct and not of fictions of the mind perceiving ,the sense of the sun doubt the whether

We are the distinct the mind perceiving ,affecting not fictions ,real beings of principles , I end as I began... qualities without mind

The accidents that misrepresent are accused in the extennsion, weight the sensible star or the mundane the idea of the imagine by nights end


I start as I began. the common discourse the acknowledge that we take away never existence even in the imagination accused acknowledged

We eat and drink ideas as qualities common clothed in ideas we walk far wrong not to think ,you will often hear but to apply the accidents

I start as I began...to warn you to think the possible the unfair reasoning and to obliged in this to dwell ,therefore to wonder centain



Much between difference, the truth of proposition of truth, words perceive the softness, the colour, taste, warmth, figure the difference


I start as I began. I readily grant it , this the objects or things the sound the harsher difference the palliate to seek the truth clothed

Lets pretend to propose in time the question in a moment ,the evidence is discredit the senses, you believe the plausible that prevails


It is perceived with mistrust, I need to remind you of the course , to deny the existence of anythings is percieved as plausible ,chose than

I start as I began. Ideas the answers burnt ,ideas are pain of the course ,deny the mind unperceiving more that its idea the instance


Considered the dream perceived off in the great distance ,the existence only in the mind ,the external space ,the bodies of existing near



I start as I began -Going blind and afterwards made to see O < I saw the mind at a Distance The i dea


The objects of sense exist only when perceived and created in question or disguise in the moment of annihilation we fail to admire truth


Language govering incumbent upon the moment of all the furniture in the room is reduced to nothing and again created in defence of moments


I start as I began, I choose not to consume the possible , fabric framed the continual creation to all hand on light and colour the moment

the sight and the touch in contrary, I mean the futher absurd impute as prognostices of the images the external things in delusion believed

I start as I began. Perceive and close the truth, existing nowhere without the mind in consideration in the distance a clearing, the visible

The advocate of existence of matter is never certain, yet we acknowledge the percieved urged upon you as angles emphatice stressed inference

I acknowledged that one exist nowhere else ,the mind as objected. Answers or matter really exist ,but as the induction to substance

I end as I start. Objections, and the consequence of life and mind, the manners of purpose, the easily mentioned the never understood

I start as I began. Imaginging the believe of the words we settled the opinion of the unthinking being, the senseless,..the cause, the Act



by Timothy Dougherty