You Can't Take It with You (1938)

 Frank Capra’s “You Can’t Take It with You”

Thematic Elements: 

Frank Capra adapted the stage play ‘You Can’t Take It with You’ into film in 1938, at a time when rising tensions were mounting around the world involving capitalism, fascism, and communism. A war of ideas was pervading the culture and society at the time with the goal of ideological supremacy. Capra’s ‘You Can’t Take It with You’ explores a possible remedy to those mounting tensions, in the form of an individualistic pursuit of happiness, freedom to pursue that happiness, and the unity of community with your fellow man.

At one point in the film, Grandpa Martin says that there are too many ‘-isms’ in the world today. ‘Communism, fascism, …they’ve got an -ism for everything” is what he says to an effect. The film primarily seems to focus in on capitalism, as capitalism is the primary -ism of American culture, even to this day. The film begins with an introduction to our capitalist society, as the opening shot shows the busy metropolitan market of Wall Street. We first meet Anthony Kirby, a successful banker who has just returned from Washington DC to secure permission to monopolize on war munitions due to the increasing likelihood of war breaking loose. The various bankers are giddy to take advantage of the hostile times they are living in and profiting off this global malady. This presents the viewer with the capitalist American stage to set the foundations for the themes of the film. However, there is one issue with Mr. Kirby’s plan to monopolize. To build his munitions factory, Mr. Kirby must buy up 14 acres of land in New York. The only problem is that there is one holdout who is refusing to sell his lot to Mr. Kirby: Grandpa Martin, the grandfather of Alice, Mr. Kirby’s son’s fiancé (which Mr. Kirby is unaware of). As Grandpa Martin is introduced, we are also introduced to the foil of Mr. Kirby’s capitalist mindset. As Grandpa Martin waits for a meeting at Mr. Kirby’s bank, he meets Mr. Poppins, an accountant reconciling the books. Grandpa Martin asks Mr. Poppins if this is the kind of work he wants to be doing, which Mr. Poppins replies no to, he’d rather be creating toys and other creative pursuits (to which Grandpa Martin invites him to stay at his homestead with other fellow creatives to freely pursue their passions). Here is where the antidote to capitalism comes into play, as Grandpa Martin’s conversation with Mr. Poppins suggests that capitalistic pursuits lead to creative stagnation and sacrificing the joy of life to toil away day after day working for power hungry corporations. Grandpa Martin yet again questions the capitalist institutions of American politics in regarding taxes as a mechanism for theft to its American citizens. Grandpa Martin’s one-acre estate is an island of misfit toys, allowing creative people an escape from an oppressive capitalist structure, providing them the freedom to pursue their own creativity as well as allowing for individual expression. 

Mr. Kirby’s son, Tony sees Alice’s family as experiencing happiness and freedom, something lacking in his own family. Tony’s wanting to be more like Alice and her family is the reason Tony purposely mixes up the days of when he is supposed to be bringing his family over for dinner. His envy of his family to be more like Alice’s is also the reason he quits his father’s business to join them. Tony’s family, however, view this apparent freedom uncouth and improper. Grandpa Martin tries to convince Mr. Kirby that if he keeps trying to obtain more capital and more power, the more he will lose in the things that really matter in life, the love and friendships you could be making. This point becomes evident at the end of the film. Both families are at the courthouse for their hearing. Grandpa Martin cannot afford lawyers so he stands in for himself, however, the love all of the people feel for him in the courtroom more than make up for the fine that Grandpa Martin must pay. Mr. Kirby on the other hand, has four expensive lawyers in his arena, but no one to support him. Mr. Kirby over time comes to realize that his reach for wealth and power will give him wealth and power, but it will not give him the comradery and passion that life has to offer. He comes to this realization as he stands alone in his board room, realizing that he must let Grandpa Martin keep his home as well as the other residents of the 14 acres, and that he must let his son Tony marry Alice. As he tells the family, everybody joins in the celebration of togetherness as the meaning of life comes into vision: creativity, togetherness, comradery, and freedom.  The togetherness that gets expressed at the end of the film breaks down the walls of political -isms and celebrates a potential world where the fundamental freedoms of life come together. 

Camerawork: 

You Can’t Take It with You is an uplifting and upbeat film about the hope of overcoming the social and political oppressive structures that exist in society. Even for it’s uplifting nature, Capra adds some darker shadings to the story. Capra depicts a society in a frenzy, on the verge of chaos. This chaos is presented in the pace of the story. As the more people that get added to a scene, the more frenetic the scene becomes. Capra’s camera matches the pace of its characters. In scenes involving only a couple of people with conversational dialogue, Capra presents a slow scene involving subtle movements by the characters, presented with little editing. In scenes involving lots of people, or more and more people coming into a scene, the quicker cuts become, the faster the editing, and the more the camera glides parallel to the frenetic characters. This could involve the notion that more and more people added into a single situation presents more creative viewpoints, as the more individuals added to a society creates a larger propensity for scattered ideas and chaotic social structure. Capra uses this frenzied energy presented by the camera and editing to creating a more socially unbound society lacking control by greater forces. In scenes involving even larger groups of people, like the restaurant or courtroom scenes, the attitude the camera presents becomes even more chaotic and uncontrollable. Even in the courtroom scene, the judge smacks his gavel over and over to no avail and eventually gives up as he cannot control the chaos of the people. Capra uses his camera to heighten the sense of pandemonium that presents itself in the growing of people in a community and the growing diverse ideas of a community and the anxieties that come from this 1938 society. However, by the end of the film Capra celebrates this lack of control, as the entire family join in song and dance. The final scene is one of frenzy, but a frenzy of jubilation as Capra celebrates the things that make us unique and chooses this uniqueness as a mechanism for unification -  a unification that surpasses communism, fascism, and capitalism in exchange for the more valuable way of life, because all of the materialism and ideology presented in our modern world are the things in life that you can’t take with you when you go.

Best Shot: 

A great shot from You Can’t Take It with You is the scene in which Alice realizes how snobbish and indecent her future in-laws are. As she storms out of the courtroom, photographers surround her as Tony tries to stop her from leaving. This is one of many scenes involving Capra’s style of portraying a frenzied crowd of people. Capra infuses a Baroque style of chaos and disorder to show the temperament of the mad frenzied society, however this frenzy also runs a parallel temperament to that of Alice, who is fuming with anger over the judgment of her future family. Capra creates chaos to match the inner turmoil of Alice. Tony comes in to center frame to stop her, creating a center line of stability amongst the chaos, echoing Grandpa Martin’s sentiment that the only way to stop the madness of the world is through the personal relationships you develop in your life which creates a stability – much like the stability of the individual two protagonist in the sea of chaos in the frame, the stability of the love between the two is the only remedy for the bubbling social structures trying to overwhelm them. Even though Alice still leaves Tony in this scene, Capra uses the energy of the scene to convey his theme of personal values overpowering the chaotic social and political.