Ron Howard has spent the vast majority of his life on soundstages, starting when he was a three-year-old on the set of The Andy Griffith Show. It’s safe to say that he’s seen his fair share of memorable scenes, whether it was Jim Carrey leaping around in green prosthetics in How the Grinch Stole Christmas or Tom Hanks calmly informing NASA that there might be a problem with the Apollo 13 mission.
However, when Howard revealed his pick for the most unforgettable scene in movie history, it didn’t come from his personal experiences as an actor or director but as a viewer. It didn’t come from one of his contemporaries, either. Instead, he identified a famous scene in a 1939 movie directed by Frank Capra and starring one of the greatest actors of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
“No scene is more vivid in my mind than Jimmy Stewart… and the filibuster scene [in Mr Smith Goes to Washington],” Howard said in a conversation with the American Film Institute. “Here’s this character who is so easy to underestimate, so innocent at the beginning of the movie, and then nearly broken by, sort of, the burden of his knowledge, the truth that the system is, of course, imperfect, and yet girding himself, giving everything he’s got to try to reach for the light, to try to do the right thing.”
Capra’s political drama is often overshadowed by his later collaboration with Stewart, 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life, but it’s one of both men’s best works. Stewart plays Jefferson Smith, the head of the Boy Rangers in an unnamed state, who the governor unexpectedly appoints to replace a deceased senator. Given Smith’s complete lack of experience, the governor believes he’ll be his puppet, but the newly minted legislator moves to the nation’s capital with high hopes and even higher ideals.
His naivete is quickly used against him as fellow senators manipulate him into supporting their corrupt schemes while the press mocks him for being a small-town simpleton. He strikes up a close relationship with his new aide, a Washington veteran played by Jean Arthur, and after being falsely accused of introducing legislation for personal gain, he takes a stand on the Senate floor and lambasts his colleagues for their moral degeneracy, begging them to remember the higher purpose of their work.
“Just get up off the ground, that’s all I ask,” he says “Get up there with that lady that’s up on top of this Capitol dome, that lady that stands for liberty. Take a look at this country through her eyes if you really want to see something… you’ll see the whole parade of what Man’s carved out for himself after centuries of fighting. Fighting for something better than just jungle law, fighting so’s he can stand on his own two feet, free and decent, like he was created, no matter what his race, colour, or creed… Great principles don’t get lost once they come to light. They’re right here; you just have to see them again!”
It’s a speech that is both timeless and yet hopelessly naive from a 21st-century perspective when surveying America from the eyes of Lady Liberty would show you the ‘jungle law’ that Smith was so vehemently certain was in the past. However, it remains a galvanising scene thanks to the writing and Stewart’s acting.
“It’s a powerful moment that I find moving every time I see it,” Howard said. “It’s a brilliant piece of acting and directing.”
