Meet John Doe
This world is one of such pervasive systems of control and interpretation that there is simply no way for John to break free into an assertion of mere individuality in the final movement of the film, no matter what he intends or does. Personal intention counts for little or nothing in this world (perhaps as little as it counts for in a modern bureaucracy). The machine inscribes individuals within its own alternative “intentional” structure, independent of their will or wishes. It gives their acts meanings and values beyond their personal knowledge or control. How radically and profoundly at odds this is with the traditional Hollywood film, grounded in its sentimental post-Romantic exaltation of the autonomous ego, needs no comment.
Capra’s most powerful image of the pervasiveness of the systems of control and understanding around John is contained in the scene in which John attempts to tell the truth, to speak personally and as a mere individual to the John Doe Convention (though the utter impossibility and meaninglessness of merely personal and individual speech in this situation–in a convention, on a stage, in front of a crowd of thousands of people–is the point of the scene). Having just had Norton’s effort to use the John Doe movement for his own political purposes revealed to him (and the passivity of his role in the discovery is relevant–he does not seek out the truth but simply has it disclosed to him by Connell), he leaves Norton’s mansion and rushes to the field where thousands of his followers have assembled. His intention is to talk to them man-to-man, to tell them the truth candidly and personally, but Capra’s narrative, photography, and editing tell us how radically displaced the individual presence or personal voice is in this institutional universe. One cannot talk to a convention man-to-man; one cannot talk to thousands of people personally and intimately. Capra’s layered visual field reminds us one final time of all of the layers of technological and bureaucratic packaging that contain and control discourse in this world, from the radio announcers looking down on the stage from their sound booths above the crowd to the public-address system that strips the intimacy from the tones of one’s voice. (The irony of this taking place in the first baseball field we have seen John actually present in the film needs no underlining; but a baseball player, especially, should realize that self-expression on the diamond is possible only in terms of obedience to impersonal rules and regulations.) Capra’s layered sound track and contrapuntal editing demonstrate that the technologies of knowledge and understanding are as completely in place in the field as they were during his speech in the radio studio earlier. The technology that allows Doe’s voice potentially to reach thousands of individuals by the same virtue necessarily robs him of a personal presence. Every technology is precisely as repressive as it is expressive.
