Film Analysis: The Grapes of Wrath

Christina Todd

garyandchristina@gmail.com

Eng034w

Film Analysis

March 20, 2011

The Grapes of Wrath

Between the years of 1935 and 1940 thousands of farmers and their families were forced off their farms in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri onto Route 66 in search of the land of milk and honey: California. They followed the road searching for the promise of jobs, higher wage and a better life after banks began forcing them off their land that they had lived and worked for the last fifty years or more.  Families ripped from their roots, with no place to call home, Okies as they became dubbed, found themselves on the long stretch of highway with empty stomachs and empty pockets (OKSTATE).   In 1939 the world was introduced to the Joad family through John Steinbach’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Grapes of Wrath.   The Joad family came to represent the hundreds of thousands of people thrown off their land and forced to chase a better way of life in California, a “simple and uncomplicated” (BEACH) story.   In his essay, The Grapes of Wrath: A Novel of Mankind, Akira Nakachi discusses the two stories being told “on one side a tragic story of the migrant laborers driven on by antagonistic forces of nature and the social system till death stares then in the face, and on the other it is a forceful story of the migrants going forward over a number of obstacles” (NAKACHI}.  The book evokes sympathy and anger in its audience  as you read about the Joad’s  sole quest to find honest work in order not to starve, you feel compassion for them and for every other family who had to do through this American tragedy, could a 128 minute film based on the book bring those same feeling to its audience?

In 1940 John Ford held the dubious task of bringing John Steinbeck’s heart wrenching epic tale of the Joad family to life on the big movie screen.  The Grapes of Wrath stared Henry Fonda as Tom Joad who is the strength of the Joad family. “He is a man of action. He does what he thinks is right and never regrets what he has done” (NAKACHI).   He is smart, but quick to anger, he sees the situation for what it is, he is not a dreamer, and the entire Joad clan relies on his knowledge to get them through.    Jane Darwell won the 1941 Academy Award for best supporting actress for her portal of Ma Joad the family matriarch and the glue that tried desperately tried to keep the family together.  The character of Ma Joad is a tribute to all the strong women who kept their families together through death, hunger, and circumstances beyond their control.

A freshly paroled Tom Joad returns home after a serving four years in prison for homicide.    He discovers his family farm, along with those of all their neighbors, have been reposed by the banks.  He arrives just in time as his entire family is set to leave for California the very next morning. In their old run down jalopy packed to the sky with family and belongings they travel Route 66 on their way to California with a flyer tucked in their pocket promising jobs and good wages.  The movie tracks their travels to California as they encounter death and hunger, the camps and places along the way, the disappointment of the land of promise as they find themselves in transit camps and exploited for little pay by wealthy ranch owners, and the contempt and prejudice of  native California’s who don’t want them there.   Tom watches as his family falls apart and vows to take up the cause of his people. The movie closes with what is left of the Joad family back on the road following yet another promise of work (ERICKSON).

A series of three flashbacks narrated by a Muley Graves (John Qualen), a local crazy man so connected to his land that even after his family has left he stays prowling the deserted farms like a ghost, to tell the story of the evictions taking place across the state. In an eerie candlelight scene, which for seconds at a time go black, Tom and Jim Casey (John Carradine) coroner Muley demanding to know what is going on. The sound of wiping wind is heard in the background as Muley tells of dusters, notices, bankers, and caterpillar tractors. As Muley talks the screen shows several caterpillar tractors driving over dust blown farms and the sound of loud creaking tractors engulfs the audience eardrums, it resembles a march of destruction.

Ford uses filming effects like candlelight lighting, a moving score, a powerful panning shot,  cryptic sound effects,  and wonderful dialogue given by Ma Joad to tug at the heart strings of the viewing audience as the Joad’s say goodbye to the only life they have ever known.  It is early in the morning, the sun has yet to rise and Ma Joad is sitting in the run down farm house all alone, the only light is coming from the old stove fire she is sitting in front of, this fire illuminates her face and little more. A sad accordion version of Red River Valley begins to play as she opens a small box next to her and begins going through its contents.  The song moans on as she picks each item from her past up and holds it in the light, a small smile comes across her hard face as she looks at mementos from her past, one of the only times she will smile through the whole movie.   The final scenes at the old farm seem to be pulled from old photographs; it is a head on shot of the running jalopy packed with the whole Joad family. Their rundown sad farmhouse is in the background, the truck pulls out of the frame, the viewer is left looking at the front of the house. The screens are ripped, the door is open, and there is trash everywhere.  This still frame leaves little doubt to how poor this family really is.  Suddenly you begin to hear the wind start blowing, softly at first, but then it begins to roar, you see it on the screen as a dust ball bounces through followed by a piece of news paper.  The ratty old door begins to bang back and forth, bang, bang, bang.  The camera pans to the left, we see the old jalopy headed down the dusty road, the accordion score of Red River Valley starts up again, the audience can still hear the wind and the banning of the door: bang, bang bang. Cut to a three-shot of the truck’s cab.  Al, Grandma, and Ma Joad are driving away.  Ma Joad is sitting tall with a hard stoic look on her face, she is staring straight ahead, and a stirring dialogue takes place between her and Al over the sad droning of the accordion:

AL :( grinning) Ain’t you gonna look back, Ma?--give the ol' place a last look?

MA JOAD :( coldly shaking her head) We're goin' to California, ain't we?

      Awright then, let's *go* to California.

AL: (sobering) That don't sound like you, Ma. You never was like that before.

MA JOAD: I never had my house pushed over before. I never had my fambly stuck out on the road. I never had to lose... ever'thing I had in life (FORD).

Through his direction and great acting Ford is able to make his viewers feel the pain of saying goodbye, equal to that of the book. As a viewer you are connected with this family’s struggles and when it dawns in you that this family represents thousands you feel anger, but like the characters of the movie you too wonder who to direct this anger to.

               A montage is used to show the rattling jalopies travel toward California. A US Highway 66 appears on the screen. Superimposed behind it is a montage of

The Joad’s weighed down jalopy moving through farm land and cities. The signs of towns on U.S. Highway 66 fade in and out—Sallisaw City Limit, Checotah, Oklahoma City, Bethan, Peso River, New Mexico.  Ford breaks up the montage to pull a couple  . . .

               In the second half of the film John Ford spends the time introducing the audience to three very different migrant camps in California.  He is showing us that upon arrival the Okies had three choices despair and hunger, tyranny rule, or if lucky enough to find a free space a government run camp.

               The first is the Hooverville Transient Camp, two miles outside city limits, clearly these people are unwanted.  Using subjective view, Ford has the audience staring out the windshield from behind the wheel of the Joad’s old jalopy as it rattles its way through the crowded camp.  Hungry and emaciated faces stare back at the viewer as the jalopy weaves through dirty tents and huts.  The faces staring at you move slow, sometimes crossing the path of the jalopy, all faces are staring, none are happy, it looks like a city dump full of people.  The feeling viewers get is that they have just rode through utter hopelessness, filth, and disillusionment. Through the subjective view you see the peoples hunger and despair.

               The second camp visited is the Kenne Fruit Ranch. This camp is representative of all the evil rich ranchers who exploited the tens of thousands of homeless and hungry Americans who were willing to do anything just for food.   The scene is set so viewers know something wrong here; the camp gated and guarded by armed men, cops and yelling Okies line the road leading to the main gate. Again Ford uses subjective view to put the viewer in the driver’s seat of the jalopy as it is police escorted through the line of migrants and armed guards lining the side of the road.  Like the Joad’s the viewers don’t know what the commotion is about, but something about this scene seems really wrong.  Still using subjective view through the dirty windshield you see a migrant worker break free from the line, he is yelling, but like Tom Joad, we can’t hear what he is saying we only see him dragged back by more armed men.  This camp is made to resemble later images of concentration camps, Ford focuses the camera on the hungry group who swarm the barbered wired gates after the Joad’s jalopy has passed through.  The children’s little hands grasp through the chain link holes, they stare after the line of dusty cars, Ford focuses on the face of a young girl in a close up shot, the viewer’s like the Joad’s still don’t know what is going on, Ford makes it so you are herded along with the family to a dirty house, told to shut up and pick fruit and don’t ask questions.  In almost every scene shot inside this camp a man can be seen holding a weapon, the men are short in tone and have a take it or leave it manner, by their expressions you know that they don’t’ care one bit about these starving families, if they won’t work for their low wages there is a line of starving people that will. 

               An  establishing shot of the sign welcomes the Joad’s to the Farmworker’s Wheat Patch Governement Camp. The camera closes in on the sign hanging underneath the camp name, it reads Department of Agriculture. This is the first camp that Ford does not use subjective view; he wants us to read the Joad’s faces as they finally find a place where they are welcomed.  They are very weary of the camp’s director, who is dressed in bright colors, he has a smile on his face, and he resembles Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the man who would eventually help America out of the depression.  In contrast to the other camps, everyone here looks healthy and many smiles can be seen on the Okie’s faces.  Children run happy and healthy; viewers are left wondering why there aren’t more camps like this one?

Sadly the massive scale of suffering in the book is absent in the movie.  I had never seen the movie before this, but I had read the book several times over my life, as it tells part of my family’s history.  When I chose the topic of hunger I knew there would be no better movie to watch then this one, based off my knowledge of the book, I was wrong.  While Ford shows some struggles of the migrant worker, in the transit camps scene and in a story told by a man in a highway camp about his children who died with bellies swollen from hunger, he doesn’t delve into how bad the situation really was.  Families piled on top of each other, floods and rains, abandoned barns filled to the rafters with families hungry and cold and dying.  Ford’s adaptation of the film ends on an upbeat note, the family is headed towards twenty days of work and things are looking up, Ma Joad delivers the famous line, “That’s what makes us tough. Rich fellas come up an’ they die an’ their kids ain’t no good, an’ they die out. But we keep a-comin’. We’re the people that live. They can’t wipe us out. They can’t lick us. And we’ll go on forever, Pa . . . ‘cause . . . we’re the people” (FORD).   Yet the end of the book tells a very different tale. The Joad’s are broken, on the verge of death and barely hanging on. They are headed to an abandoned barn in need of some shelter from the flooding, a man inside is dying of starvation, one of many heart wrenching scene of despair absent from the movie.  In leaving these miserable conditions out of the movie, John Ford has done a disservice to the history of the Okies.   Not only do we as viewers miss out on the intense suffering, but we also miss out on how amazing these people where, who fought dust bowls, tractors, prejudice, hunger, and death.  For those wanting to know what is was really like for the Okies read the book, for those who want a happily ever after, stick to the movie, just remember a greater story of survival lies just beneath it’s surface. 

Cited Works

BEACH: Joseph Warren Beach, “John Steinbeck: Art and Propaganda,” Steinbeck and His Critics.  (Albuqueroue, 1956). P.252

DIRKS: Tim Dirks. “The Grapes of Wrath (1940)”. Filmsite. 2011. Web. 9 Mar. 2011.

ERICKSON: Glenn Erickson. “The Grapes of Wrath Review”. DVD Savant, 24 March. 2001. Web. 14 Feb. 2011.

FORD: Grapes of Wrath. Dir. John Ford. Perf. Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, and John Carradine.  Fox Home Entertainment., 1940. DVD.

NAKACHI: Akira Nakachi.  “The Grapes of Wrath: A Novel of Mankind” Page 47-61. Print.

OWEN: Louis Ownes. “The Culpable Joads: Desentimentalizing the Grape of Wrath”.  Critical Essays on Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, edited by John Disky, G.K.  Hall. 1989. Print.

STEINBECK: Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: The Viking Press, Inc. 1939. Print.