Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: a Review

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: a Review

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

While finding a politician that is not bought or working for personal gain has always been a struggle, it is not impossible, which is exactly what Frank Capra shows us in his 1939 movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, that every man, deep down, is good at his core. With many characters having two sides to their coin. The character of Joseph Paine is a silver knight, taking the office of Senator to do good as he says in scene 18 entitled “I Compromise” in which he says “I compromised, so that all those years I could sit in that senate and serve the people in a thousand honest ways....I’ve had to play ball”. Paine took office, bought by James Taylor, so he could serve them as honest as he could, all the time coming from a place of sincerity, muddied up by the filth of Taylor. Until the shinning light of Jefferson Smith, who brings back the origins of Paine’s political beginnings, fighting for lost causes, truly fighting for the people. Through this we see that Paine is truly a good person who has had his moral compass shut and put away in the back of Taylor’s desk. The shinning light of an ideal American and model citizen however is none other than Jefferson Smith. Smith represents the man that every person can only ever desire to be because to have the moral standings and sincerity of Smith you would truly have to live under a rock with the full series of Leave it to Beaver and The Brady bunch (minus the crappy movies). What smith truly is, in this production, is every characters realization that goodness still exists, and when you find it you must do everything to nurture and reflect it.

The flow of this picture is classic in that it follows a chronological chain of events and develops the characters every step of the way. In this way of presenting the story, Smith never ceases to learn and grow from the moment he is thrust upon us. When first seen Smith is a nervous jittery Boy Ranger leader who is immediately entranced by the...

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