The Grapes of Wrath (film)

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This film has been preserved in the National Film Registry in 1989.

The Grapes of Wrath is a 1940 American drama film directed by John Ford. It was based on John Steinbeck's 1939 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. The screenplay was written by Nunnally Johnson and the executive producer was Darryl F. Zanuck.

The film tells the story of the Joads, an Oklahoma family, who, after losing their farm during the Great Depression in the 1930s, become migrant workers and end up in California. The motion picture details their arduous journey across the United States as they travel to California in search of work and opportunities for the family members, and features cinematography by Gregg Toland.

Why It Rocks

1. It's extremely faithful to Steinbeck's original 1939 novel, and it also manages to rearrange plot incidents, and provided a semi-happy ending which the novel notably didn’t have.
2. John Ford’s role in the film is important as well. With his appreciation for family and heritage, and connection to the land, the film adds several moments that amplify this. A scene where Ma Joad finds a pair of earrings while going through family heirlooms, is original to the film. Ford had a feel for grit, for poverty and desperation, that other directors at the time lacked. His vision was focused, stark, and unforgiving. He also added an Irish sentimentality that was often at odds with Steinbeck's message, but made the film a bit more palatable to audiences.
3. For the film adaptation, Ford and Johnson removed nearly any concrete criticism of police, politicians, and especially evangelists –the subject of Ma Joad's scorn. This made the film more a story of the Joads' struggle to survive than an indictment of a society dependent on exploiting the lower classes. If anyone is condemned, it is the filmgoer for not helping change conditions. Strangely enough, the film depicts work only once, as Tom Joad and others dig a ditch, and even that scene isn't farmwork.
4. Despite the changes made, the film didn’t hold back on capturing the novel’s harshness: Taking Casy the preacher's bleak message –"There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just what people do."-- directly from the novel. Including Tom Joad's crucial question, "What is a red anyway?" Showing poverty– on the roads, in cities and in migrant camps– when Hollywood was mostly avoiding it. It also contains tons of suffering and injustice, even if specific incidents mentioned in the novel aren’t present.
   1. Hollywood film hadn’t deal with social issues so unflinchingly, and with such pessimism, since I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang.
5. Cinematographer Gregg Toland found a visual equivalent for Ford's (and Steinbeck's) lyrical view of nature, but he adopted documentary techniques to portray conditions as realistically as possible. He also pushed the boundaries of what was considered acceptable cinematography. Especially in its opening, much of the film is shrouded in darkness, with characters mere suggestions in the frame, or highlighted in chiaroscuro.
6. One of the film's most impressive moments has an extended traveling shot from the highway into a squalid camp. With its tilted angles, jarring turns, parched ground, and tarpaper shacks, the camera makes California look like a Third World refugee camp. Simply by exposing these conditions to a mainstream audience primed for romance and comedy, the film achieved everything Steinbeck set out to do.
7. Excellent and sometimes symbolic and groundbreaking performances from the actors to the point where its nearly documentary-like.
   • Henry Fonda is magnificent as an unmercifully-harrassed Okie who refuses to be beaten and crushed by misfortune, in one of his signature roles.
   • Jane Darwell is marvelous (although her accent is inappropriate) as the strong center and backbone of the migratory family that must leave its ancestral land. She brought to the role a necessary crafitness and need.
   • John Carradine (as Casy the preacher) and John Qualen (as Muley, a displaced farmer) both have troubling. almost mystical speeches that are among the highlights of their careers.
8. Impressive soundtrack not just by Alfred Newman, but also with the subtle effects of birds and crickets.

Bad Qualities

1. The Okies seen very stoic, with the film portraying them almost as frontiersmen from the 19th century unable to adapt to modern life. In reality, Okies knew all about contemporary culture, coveting it – the movies, the clothes, the cars, the makeup. They wanted nightclubs and big band music, despite the depressing "Red River Valley" used by Alfred Newman to anchor the soundtrack.
2. Noah Joad disappears from the story midway, without a proper explanation.

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