Despite their reputation for optimism, many of Capra's major films, especially the ones he made in the years surrounding the Second World War, are equally preoccupied with existential crises and ultimate concerns. Like George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life (1946), the protagonist of Meet John Doe is brought to the edge of self-destruction before rediscovering purpose. Capra's rich visual imagination and vigorous approach to montage is evident throughout. His abiding interest in the mechanisms and rhetoric of political persuasion is paradoxically ambiguous and trenchant.