Mr. Smith Goes To Town

Frank Capra - 1939
Capra uses angled framings, among other devices, to have Stewart, Smith, standing as a servant of America but above the crowd. In the senate, complex layerings of the seating is used; nice vertical use as we have a long shot of lower floor, Stewart, then the paopoly of shades of the upper floor. He has quick takes, crosscut with the speech, of Payne remarkably low down in the frame as he hides behind his desk figuratively. Also note that Capra does like to use the long shot, often with a slanting shadow, for dramatic (not so much striking, but dramatic) tableau-like shots.
And also note Capra's keen use of the montage, nice and Soviet with dissolving heads. Also the endless array, across his pictures, of newspaper headlines.
As far as storytelling, Capra gets his pieces in place very, very quickly. He then takes a long while for development, then shoots us throuhg the revelation of trouble, then takes a long time on the final summonings up (as in 'Deeds')
The remarkable thing about this film is that it pretty much portrays America as a fascist dictatorship, with the 'happy ending' both abrupt and ambiguous. Again our hero isn''t stupid really, he always knows the game. However, the public is here seen as under the thrall, manipuable by not just greedy senators but most importantly, and a theme throughout Capra's work, the media, the papers generally. These interests of big business trash the pathetic attempt of the children to clear Smith, even seemingly employing the police. The only reason this isn't a tragedy is a worryingly arbitrary deus ex machina. This is Capra making what is'nt far away from a pessimistic film.