At the cinema, I am no longer thought; I am emotion.

Why do Frank Capra films make me feel so good inside? This is a question I have pondered since I was a child, though I may not have articulated the actual words at the time.
I sat today at Film Forum, paranoid that I was going to fall asleep during a double feature of Platinum Blonde and Mr. Deeds Goes To Town. Yet after nearly 4 hours of film preceded by a day of work and class, my eyes were glued to the screen, captivated with the same whimsy towards Capra’s work that I had when I was a child.
My best cinematic experiences are one where at first I feel compelled to think about the material I am watching, take notes, and ponder its ideologies, but then instead am stopped in my tracks entirely immersed in whatever is going on on screen. A few weeks ago I was greatly pondering this Godard quote “at the cinema, we do not think we are thought.” Truly great cinema, things I absolutely love and adore, for me, stop me from thinking. I am engulfed by a new world, one where I forget my problems and truly only feel the emotions of the characters. I cease to think, film is thought.
Returning to my experience with Capra, I think I saw Mr. Deeds for the first time when I was ten or so with my father around Christmas time when TCM did a Frank Capra day. I remember that day only because I watched 5 films by him back to back and then declared him to be my favorite director. I was so happy, and what a memory! My first favorite director, my first dabble into the realm of auteur ideology! I loved him because all his films carried a similar ideology, one that made me feel good inside. I liked that no matter what: good triumphed over evil and the nice guy always won. I was a little girl learning morality from 1930s social films. If only the world could be as black and white as in a Capra film: capitalism and money –bad, human relationships and hard work—good.
Now, as a 22 years old, I wonder why the films still have such a hold. I literally had not seen Mr. Deeds since that day as a prepubescent, so I think I went into the viewing with nearly a clean slate. What I am left with in my emotional reaction. Of course, I was captivated and involved in story, but things transcended for me into a moment of viewing that was pure emotion, and without anymore thought about the way the film progressed or was told or shot or all those cinema studies things.
There is always a moment in a Capra film where the evils of the world are trying to convict and persecute the film’s hero. In Mr. Deeds a group of lawyers try to get the hero declared insane because he is trying to give away his money to the impoverished. The moments set in a courtroom where the businessmen condemn him, for some reason I found excruciating to watch, not in a “this is bad cinema” way but in an “I felt so emotional and that the situation was so unjust” way. It’s silly to feel that enraged over a film, especially one discussing topic mostly relevant to the 1930s. I think that this scene exemplifies the emotional, absorptive power I have been trying to identity. When Mr. Deeds was found sane and the crowd rejoices and he gets the girl, I was so overcome with joy I wiped away tears (yes really). The good guy one, and everyone was happy. Perhaps, part of my reaction was the result of nostalgia but so much of it was the pure power of the filmic medium: I felt what the characters felt, what the frame presented, what the director intended…and I sat there in a state of pure feeling as if to declare: at the cinema, I am no longer thought; I am emotion.