The Name Below the Blackboard

A fictional account of director Frank Capra speaking at a Los Angeles film school in the early 1970s. Surrounded by eager students with 16mm cameras and borrowed idealism, Capra doesn’t lecture—he remembers. He answers questions with a mixture of humility and theatrical flair. He talks not only about filmmaking, but about America, memory, and the immigrant’s lens.

Scene: A small lecture hall at a Los Angeles film school. Afternoon light filters in through dusty windows. The students are quiet—but not reverent. They’ve seen Easy Rider. They’re skeptical.
Enter Frank Capra, late 70s, bow-tied, shoulders still squared like a soldier of the screen. He steps up to the podium and places a worn copy of The Name Above the Title beside a glass of water.

CAPRA:
I don’t claim to have invented the movies, kids. But I will say—I treated 'em like they were worth inventing.

The students laugh—tentatively. Some are flipping through paperbacks of It’s a Wonderful Life screenplays. Others just want to ask about Orson Welles.

CAPRA (pointing to the book):
Everything’s in there. The Name Above the Title. I wrote it myself. No ghost. No committee. Just me and a typewriter and a few gallons of black coffee.
But since you’re here—and I’m here—let’s talk.

First question, from a lanky young man in flannel with a beard still working on its confidence.
STUDENT 1:
Mr. Capra, your movies always seem to believe in America—almost naively. Why? Was that conscious?

Capra pauses. A silence builds—not defensive, but deliberate. Then he nods, as if blessing the question.

CAPRA:
I’ll tell you a story.
I was five years old. Sicily. We didn’t have shoes—just feet and dirt and a dream my father whispered to the stars.
Then one day, he got a letter. A cousin in California said, “Come. There’s work. There’s hope.”
So we sold everything we didn’t eat and boarded a ship.
Ten thousand miles of ocean sickness and stink. My father held me the whole way. Said we were sailing toward a miracle.
And then—after days of water and fear and salt—there she was.
The Statue of Liberty.
And my father, who’d never cried in his life, dropped to his knees and wept like a man who had just seen God in bronze.

The room is still. Capra lets the silence breathe.

CAPRA (softer):
That’s why my movies look like they believe in America. Because I do.
Not the perfect America. Not the myth.
The idea.

STUDENT 2:
But weren’t you criticized for being sentimental?

CAPRA:
Oh, they called me “Capra-corn.” Said I served my optimism with a side of syrup.
But let me ask you:
When you’re five years old, and you watch your father cry at the sight of freedom,
do you ever really grow out of wanting life to turn out all right?

A few nods. One girl clutches her notepad tighter.

STUDENT 3 (from the back):
It’s a Wonderful Life flopped at first. Did that bother you?

CAPRA (grinning):
Of course it bothered me! I thought I’d made something honest.
But the world was tired. It had just won a war and didn’t want to think about whether it mattered.
It took twenty years and a TV license deal for people to realize that movie wasn’t about angels.
It was about despair. About the man who didn’t win—and was still worth saving.

He lets that land. And it does.

STUDENT 4:
How did you get Jimmy Stewart to be so vulnerable?

CAPRA:
Jimmy had just come back from the war. Flew missions. Saw death up close.
He didn’t want to do the movie. Said he didn’t know how to play someone cracking up.
So I told him, “Then just crack up. We’ll film it.”
That scene on the bridge? That wasn’t acting. That was a man remembering what he almost didn’t come back from.

STUDENT 5:
Would you make the same movies today?

CAPRA:
No.
Today’s America is asking different questions.
And maybe the answers are darker, messier. Maybe there’s no George Bailey to clean up Main Street.
But I’d still point the camera at someone. Someone decent. Someone trying.
Even if they fail.

He steps out from behind the podium now. His hands move like he’s still framing scenes.

CAPRA:
You don’t need big budgets. You need a reason to care.
You want to change the world?
Show people what they could be. Not just what they are.

A beat. Then applause—not thunderous, but genuine.
Capra waves it off with a sheepish smile.

CAPRA (gathering his things):
Anyway, if you want the whole story, read the damn book. It’s got immigrants, Oscars, Clark Gable, and a hell of a lot of typos.

He tips an imaginary hat. Then turns back.

CAPRA:
And if you’re lucky, kids... maybe one day you’ll make something that makes someone cry--
not because it’s sad...
but because it makes them believe again.

Fade out.
The reel keeps spinning, and someone hits “record.”