Capra is the last survivor of that great quartet of American comedy; Leo McCarey, Ernst Lubitsch, and Preston Sturges. An Italian, born in Palermo, he brought to Hollywood the secrets of the commedia dell’arte. He was a navigator who knew how to steer his characters into the deepest dimensions of desperate human situations (I have often wept during the tragic moments of Capra’s comedies) before he reestablished a balance and brought off the the miracle that let us leave the theater with a renewed confidence in life.

François Truffaut, 1974

Truffaut describes the brilliance of Frank Capra with precision. When you finish watching a Frank Capra film, you absolutely feel a renewed confidence in life.

Truffaut, François. The films in my life. New York, Hachette Books, 1994.