1 of 4

A man is hunched at a bar, alone in the midst of a raucous holiday crowd. Tears trickle down his cheek; his sweaty hands are restlessly locking and unlocking. He bows his head and prays for help. But when that help takes an unexpected form he angrily rejects God's messenger, and bitterly proclaims that it would have been better if he'd never been born.

Very few scenes in movie history are as powerful—or unforgettable—as this one from Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life.

Voted the Most Inspiring Film of All Time by the American Film Institute, the movie tells the story of George Bailey: a big dreamer in a small town who has watched life, as he perceives it, painfully pass him by. Sacrificing his dreams as he looks out for others, his hopes ebbing as the years slip past, George ultimately reaches a dark night of the soul in which both his hope and strength fail. But when all seems lost, God miraculously intervenes. And an hour (and a lifetime later), George's eyes have been opened to the countless ways God has touched his life—and other lives through him.

Few directors have touched as many lives as Frank Capra, who was raised Catholic and never failed to attend Mass on Easter—"to contemplate the miracle of the Resurrection," as he once said. Capra's vision was of goodness and innocence victorious in a selfish and calculating world, of the "little guy" triumphant—not because he was little, but because he represented all men everywhere.

Never ducking the facts of human suffering or the everyday struggles of life, Capra often placed his characters in situations of trial in which their faith was sorely tested. Then he would make things right with what J. R. R. Tolkien would later come to describe as eucatastrophe: a miraculous salvation in which good is victorious, faith is rewarded and God's wisdom affirmed.

Tolkien wrote that eucatastrophe "can give to child or man that witnesses it a catch of breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears"—and this renewal of hope, this inner strengthening that affords a new grip for our tired hands, was Capra's goal, a goal he believed he'd been given by God.

In his autobiography The Name Above the Title,Capra recounted how he'd been visited by a stranger while hospitalized with tuberculosis, shortly after his first big hit. The little bespectacled man—who he was, Capra never learned—made no introduction. He simply sat down across from the director and, after a moment or two of silence, accused him of cowardice.

Before the sickly (and flabbergasted) Capra could react, he continued: "Do you hear that man in there?" From a radio in an adjacent room issued the voice of Adolph Hitler. "That evil man is trying to poison the world with hate. But to how many can he talk, and for how long? Fifteen million? Twenty minutes? You, sir, can talk to hundreds of millions, for two hours—and in the dark. The talents you have, Mr. Capra, are not your own. God gave you those talents; they are His gifts to you, to use for His purpose."

The little man stood, bade Capra goodbye and walked away down the stairs, never to be seen or heard from again. But his words turned the life of the director upside down—in very Capraesque fashion, we might add. Capra arose, checked himself out of the hospital and drove his family far from Beverly Hills and Hollywood. His tuberculosis miraculously cleared, his creativity and vigor returned and a new goal—to use his gifts to entertain, engage and encourage his fellow man—energized his films.

This vision combined with Capra's mastery as a director and writer to create an unforgettable body of work, full of images that—like that scene from It's A Wonderful Life—leave us heartened and uplifted.

Capra is generally remembered as "a practicing Catholic" who may have converted to Christian Science at one point, according to the website adherents.com.

Here's a closer look at three more of Capra's finest—and the spiritual/biblical imagery within.

next page... |  1 of 4 | last page