A Film Canon

The second of Capra's American Gospels, You Can't Take It With You pitches itself against 'ism-mania', suggesting that the world's problems should instead be solved by consulting the canon of American common sense, which rejects all such ideological extremities; or, alternatively, contains their revolutionary potential within its own rational charisma. To this end, Capra takes the conversation-space that emerged at the conclusion of Mr. Deeds Goes To Town, and transforms it into the centrepiece of the film, in the form of a family home that finds itself assaulted by a businessman wanting to make way for a munitions factory. This opposition allows for a redefinition of the family against the constrictions imposed by business life, whether figured spatially, as the nuclear family, or temporally, as the Gothic family, haunted into business by a long line of entrepreneurial ancestors. By contrast, the eccentric Vanderbilts all live as children, making no qualitative distinction between different generations, and impulsively welcoming anyone sympathetic into their bosom, clarifying Capra's democratic vision as an extension of the neighbourhood. From this perspective, God is little more than another rational, charismatic American - or, rather, every rational, charismatic American instantiates God - contributing to the latent pantheism that informs protagonist Tony Kirby's (James Stewart) childhood dream to distill the human equivalent of chlorophyll - a common denominator capable of distributing 'natural', radiant goodness.