The Grapes of Wrath is an emotionally wrenching portrayal of ordinary people searching for the American dream during one of the worst periods in American history. It is also arguably one of the best films in the decades-long career of John Ford.
Based on the 1939 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by John Steinbeck of the same name, “The Grapes of Wrath” is a movie that criticizes capitalism and is the most liberal movie made during that era. But the fascinating aspect is the inclusion of John Ford, a staunch conservative who made Westerns about whites invading native American land, deciding to direct this movie. During the Great Depression of 1930, a man named Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) returns home to Oklahoma after four years in prison for killing a guy in a drunken bar fight. Outside of town, he meets Jim Casy, played by John Carradine, who used to be a preacher but has lost his faith and now drinks and wanders around. Notice how the weather begins to change as Tom approaches his house, becoming cloudy and dark, signaling that he is about to learn something terrible. When he gets there, his neighbor Muley tells him that landowners and bankers have kicked all the local farmers off their land, including both of their families. Tom and Casy pay a visit to his uncle Jim, where Tom finds his family, including his mother, Ma Joad (Jane Darwell). He decides to travel with his family, who are all leaving Oklahoma for California in search of a job, in their battered old vehicle, which they have converted into a mini truck that appears to be excessively overweight.
The screenplay, written by Nunnally Johnson, is taut and never drags. The Joad family encounters numerous difficulties throughout their thousand-mile journey. Their grandpa (Charlie Grapewin), who was reluctant to leave the place where he had spent his entire life and had to be intoxicated to accompany the family on their journey, dies in the middle of it. The screenplay rightfully does not hold onto the suspense of not telling us what they will find once they reach California. Midway through their journey, the Joads get a sobering glimpse of what lies ahead when a character shares the tragic events of his time in California, but they decide to march on anyway because they do not have any other choice. They had to believe that they could find something there to survive and start over.
Soon after they arrive in California, there is a scene that perfectly encapsulates ground reality, in which the family stops at a migrant campsite only to discover that there are several people like them. When Ma Joad starts cooking, all the children from the site gather around her, looking hungry and desperate, leaving her speechless and making her realize that her family has fared better than the others. The Joads find themselves in trouble wherever they go in California. They move from one migrant camp to another, but they still cannot find acceptable labor at decent rates. Their time at a migrant camp at Keene Ranch turns out to be the worst, as Tom ends up killing a security guard who had killed Casy, and they must flee the camp without letting the guards see Tom. After several hardships, they finally find a place worth living called Farmworkers’ Weedpatch Farm, owned by the department of agriculture.
I was glad that the film did not turn out to be about poverty p**n because the filmmakers did not romanticize poverty to gain more recognition or awards. It feels like a realistic portrayal of people whose livelihoods are at risk and who are doing their best to get through the worst of times. The film’s greatest asset is the endearing relationship between Tom and his mother, Ma Joad, which has quickly become one of my favorite mother-son relationships portrayed on screen. In a scene when the family arrives at the farmworkers’ weed patch farm, a dejected Tom meets the guard and is surprised that the facility has indoor toilets, showers, and dancing. He smiles and thinks how much his mother will like this place, as he says,” Ma sure gonna like it here. She ain’t been treated decently for a long while.” Ma Joad holds the family together as her other sons flee, the elderly die, and they confront hostility and hardship from every direction.
Jane Darwell, who deservedly received an Academy Award for her portrayal, delivers the performance of a lifetime as a mother of the house with a combination of strength and tenderness. Her famous last “We are the people!” monologue shows how every bitter experience has made her strong, firm, and more confident to confront the world. Henry Fonda has this charm of being flawless and effortless in his acting abilities and being as simplistic as possible without overdoing any emotion, which is what he incorporates in Tom, a character who is a good man and a good son but has a knack for getting into trouble despite his intentions being good.
The black-and-white cinematography of Gregg Toland (Citizen Kane, The Long Voyage Home, Wuthering Heights, etc.) perfectly captures the vast, barren landscape of rural America, from Oklahoma to New Mexico to Arizona to California. He shoots most of the scenes with long shots and wide angles, especially in the camps, to give us a sense of how people are shacked up and living in squalor.
The Grapes of Wrath still feels relevant today because it tells the story of ordinary people who muster the strength to carry on after having their economic futures shattered, with no hope in sight.
The Grapes of Wrath movie link: IMDB
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