The following is the first of a series of three essays that were written for an examination in a class titled Philosophy Through Film, in which specific philosophical texts were paired with specific films. The pairs that these essays concern are Books VI-VIII of Plato’s Republic with Frank Capra’s You Can’t Take it With You, selections from Sigmund Freud’s The Ego and the Id with Victor Fleming’s 1941 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Henri Bergson’s Laughter: An Essay on the Comic with Jerry Lewis’s original The Nutty Professor, respectively.
The Immaterial Good à la Capra:
Plato and Frank Capra, though separated by more than two millennia of history, espouse a deep concern for the state of the human spirit throughout the body of their works. They both trace the turmoil of the human condition to a fundamental delusion about the material world, namely, that it is all that there is. Capra investigates the human condition most explicitly in his 1938 classic film You Can’t Take It With You. Just in parsing the title of the film one can find inherent Platonic themes. The first implication of the title is that there is a you after death, and not only a you that has being, but also a you to which can be attached complex predicates like possession. From this it is easily gathered just from the title that Capra is positing the existence of a spirit, or immaterial dimension of man…something that provides for an existence post-mortem.
What you cannot take with you into this post-mortem immaterial existence is obviously materials – all of the physical objects that you have amassed throughout the course of your life (and also all of the earthly conquests that you have made). From this it is gathered that the only goods that exist after physical death are immaterial goods, and further, that these immaterial goods can be amassed throughout the course of your physical existence. Capra assumes that anyone presented with this information can do their own cost-benefit analysis and realize that goods that you can take with you are more valuable since they span both the material and immaterial lifetimes of a person. Lastly, since the title advocates the pursuit of immaterial goods (which are indubitably higher goods) during the course of the material life, the possibility of transcendence is also implied in a very idealistic sense. The very title of the film contains Capra’s entire argument; the film itself is this very argument hammered home by a very pathetic (in the Hellenic sense of pathos) pictorial representation.
What you cannot take with you into this post-mortem immaterial existence is obviously materials – all of the physical objects that you have amassed throughout the course of your life (and also all of the earthly conquests that you have made). From this it is gathered that the only goods that exist after physical death are immaterial goods, and further, that these immaterial goods can be amassed throughout the course of your physical existence. Capra assumes that anyone presented with this information can do their own cost-benefit analysis and realize that goods that you can take with you are more valuable since they span both the material and immaterial lifetimes of a person. Lastly, since the title advocates the pursuit of immaterial goods (which are indubitably higher goods) during the course of the material life, the possibility of transcendence is also implied in a very idealistic sense. The very title of the film contains Capra’s entire argument; the film itself is this very argument hammered home by a very pathetic (in the Hellenic sense of pathos) pictorial representation.
In the film the Kirby family members represent the ultimate materialists. They are financially successful – very, very financially successful – and they are in positions of great power within society. They all function under the same delusion that the material world is all that there is and the goal of life is to amass wealth and power. This also holds true to some degree for all of the Kirby employees and associates depicted throughout the film (with the sole exception of Alice). One thing that is striking about the films materialists is the deep dissonance that is depicted in their psyche (spirit). To some extent, they are all unhappy and in some facet dissatisfied in life. Capra edits in shots of their nervous tics and twitches, their scowls and grimaces, their fearful eyes and confused, limp, speechless mouths. Capra’s most persuasive argument against the materialists of the film is the emotional constitution of their characters. On top of this, the materialists of the film are isolated in both a physical way – they have no friends and little love within their family – and an emotional way – in that they are very deeply alone even when surrounded by others.
Conversely the Vanderhof household represents the ultimate transcendent idealists. They are at least poor enough that a 100-dollar fine would be difficult for them to manage. Most of the residents are unemployed and devote the entirety of their time to leisure (not play, but again in the Hellenic sense). They have all been guided towards transcendence by Grandpa Vanderhof, who early in life saw that there was more to life than amassing material goods (transcended the material realm) and decided to pursue a truly good life. The Vanderhof household has friends and love of family, and, as a result of their pursuits of leisure, they all also have love of self. Capra depicts this every time he enters the confines of the Vanderhof house and focuses on the deep serenity coupled with activity. There is a steady look of contentment on the faces of the films immaterialists and this becomes Capra’s argument for idealism. Capra’s, and most of Hollywood in general’s, arguments are never logical (based on logos) or ethical (based on ethos), but rather emotional or pathological (based on pathos); instead of giving philosophical explications as to why immaterial goods are more important than material goods, Capra gives you a miserable materialist and he gives you a contented idealist, then asks who is happier.
Capra’s other major argument is the conversion of Anthony P. Kirby (the film’s ultimate materialist), a conversion that Capra presents as unavoidable. Like the materialists (as described previously), Kirby is very successful and powerful and very unhappy and discontented. From his first meeting with Martin Vanderhof, Kirby is put off. Although not stated explicitly, it is implied that Kirby is becoming more and more distressed that someone who has less material goods (and note that for Kirby these are the fundamental building blocks of happiness) than he does can be happier and more content in life than he is. This nags at Kirby and his confusion as to how this could be drives him towards aggression and condescension. The idea that it is Vanderhof’s pursuit of immaterial goods that makes him happier and more content than Kirby is slowly introduced to him throughout the police detainment and trial of the two families. This introduction is slow because the argument is two pronged: the first prong being the harsh words of Vanderhof and his ability to apologize afterwards, freely giving away a prized material possession as token, and the second prong being the demonstration of Vanderhof’s immense immaterial wealth in the courthouse when a jam-packed room rushes to contribute whatever they can to Vanderhof’s cause.
The harmonica is largely a symbol of all of the leisure pursuits that Kirby has given up to his work in pursuit of material goods, or, more broadly, a symbol of the immaterial wealth that Kirby has forfeited. In the gift of the harmonica Capra has symbolically depicted the gift of gnosis and shown, metaphorically, Vanderhof handing Kirby the key to dispelling the materialist delusion. The harmonica is the key to the final sequence of scenes in the film. After the trial Kirby delays his meeting (his ultimate materialist conquest) to stare at the harmonica as the truth is slowly and finally revealed to him. First Ramsey comes in and in the most haunting and beautiful monologue of the film explains how he and Kirby were one and the same, but in ruining him financially, Kirby has shown him that his entire life has been a wasted pursuit of fleeting temporal goods. Second, his son comes in to see him and resigns, bluntly forcing Kirby to acknowledge his complete isolation; Kirby is alone even within his own family. Third, Kirby receives a call that Ramsey has had a heart attack and died on his way out of the building. This death is traumatic for Kirby because Ramsey and he were similar, and Ramsey died stripped of all his material goods, alone, and without the opportunity to amass the immaterial goods he had neglected for so long in life. As Kirby mounts the elevator and ascends he also transcends. When the elevator doors open at the top floor his slow acquisition of gnosis is completed in an epiphany where Kirby sees the material world from a transcendent immaterial standpoint and recognizes the delusion under which the majority of all people function. After this, Kirby does the only thing one can do: he comes back down to the material world, but this time bearing the fruits of knowledge (knowledge of the value of immaterial goods). Kirby, when shown the difference between transcendent immaterial goods and fleeting temporal material goods, makes the only decision that Capra thinks can be sensible, and goes off in pursuit of those things that he can take with him.
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