The Grapes of Wrath
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Movie Reviews of The Grapes of Wrath
Movie Review: The Migrant Story Beautifully Told
Summary: 5 Stars
Maybe Tom Joad sums up the plight of the migrants and Okies best when he tells Ma that he'll "be everywhere" at the story's apex, that he will be willing to keep the fight alive and carry on what Jim Casy the preacher wanted for their people. The Joads are just one family, and we certainly expect that each family moving from the south and Midwest to California would have their share of setbacks during the Depression era 1930s, but they embody much more than just a fight for a better life. The Joads' exodus westward is the hope for the American Dream personified; they have to fight not only the resistance to go back from their own family, but the various injustices and prejudiced opinions of those who don't want them in their part of the country. They leave many of their cherished possessions behind (we see this as Ma looks over her possessions one last time in the early part of the film), and they go west with a sense of both optimism and fear.
One great aspect of John Ford's film is the role he filled for various characters. John Carradine does an excellent job as the preacher Jim Casy, from the beginning scene where he meets Tom Joad as they embark towards the Joad house, to him reflecting on the hypocrisy he feels towards preaching. While the film does not get into Casy's character at the depth the novel does (which was probably impossible due to the length of the book), Carradine does an excellent job of making Casy's character come to life visually from novel to film. Henry Ford in a superb choice for Tom Joad, and he is able to bring forth the rebellious nature to this character, as well as a change from beginning to end, from a man who wants to "just get along" to a man who wants to take up a fight for a people. Another fantastic choice was Jane Darwell as Ma Joad, exemplifying the role of keeping the family together at all costs. It is easy to see why she won an Oscar for her role.
Another overlooked aspect is just the cinematography, the wonderful scenery and lighting. There is the scene at the beginning where we see Tom and Casy walking across the field, which seems to parallel and foreshadow their spiritual quest later on. There is the scene where Tom and Casy go into the desolate house, into complete darkness, and the eeriness of the scene is captured as they meet "graveyard ghost" Muley Graves, who refuses to leave his home. And then there is the final scene where no lighting is used when Ma and Tom meet for the last time while at the camps, appropriate and fitting for the moment. Ford does an excellent job of creating mood with various camera angles and lighting.
Ford does an excellent job of bring Steinbeck's story of the Okies, the migrants of the Dust Bowl, to life. This is a significant part of our history, a film that everyone should see, and based on a book that everyone should read. A great book that parallels Steinbeck's novel and gives accounts of personal migrants traveling to the west is "Dustbowl Okie Exodus" by Dorothy Rose, a series of poems about the quest westward.
This film may not "wow" some of moviegoers today; the film is simply made and simply told, exactly how it should be. Its importance lies in that it is a significant part of our history.
It's not hard to see why this is one of the top movies of all time.
Movie Review: The government supplied farm and the Joads struggle shows who a welfare system is in place for, and how manipulated it is today.
Summary: 5 Stars
To quote the amazon.com editorial review, "Ranking No. 21 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American films, this 1940 classic is a bit dated in its noble sentimentality".
Now in 2007 it drops to 23rd place on AFIs list and a point i find that people don't bring up is the welfare system and how in that respect it is more important today than ever in showing why and for who a welfare system is in place for and how terribly flawed and manipulated it is today.
I know this movie is a classic and won oscars and was directed by one of the great directors John Ford. Most know the story, or had to read it in high school, and it makes most best lists. It is a history lesson and teaches unionization, and it is all these things.
The thing that stuck with me the most was the end and what a safe haven the agricultural farm put in place by the government was for the Joads. It safed there lives. There were dances and they could eat and help pay there way by helping in the camp. However the Joads did not want a hand out and even though if work came after all they had been through, starvation, losing family members, treated like pigs, they deserved the right to stay in that safe camp, nobody would criticize them for not jumping at the first job that came along that might turn out to be another nothing.
As soon as 20 days of work came up they packed everything they owned into that car that might not even make their destination and they left the government camp, and happily. All they wanted to do was work and they basically were taken advantage of and walked on and not allowed to do the one thing they wanted.
In 2007 we have totally healthy and able bodied people in there early twenties collecting social security, or waiting for the end of the month for the welfare check to come in. Perhaps have more and more children because that check at the end of the month will be fatter. I knew a kid when i was in the national guard that unknowingly to the government stayed with his girlfriend on welfare rent free while he worked, he actually said he loved the ghetto and he d stay there forever. I actually liked him barring the last ignorant statement but he was young and i'm guessing didn't have the best influences to think like that. The Joads didn't have money to eat but you can bet most now a day that are able bodied and can work and choose not to will get there cigarettes. Say you get involved with drugs mess yourself up and you can't work well then you can get disability.
So with everything this movie is, in this day and age that is the message that rang loudest to me. I also realize there are many like the Joads today that fall upon hard times and a government assisted program is a safe haven to them also, and i am not judging all, but talking about the one's that are manipulating and taking advantage.
Perhaps before you are allowed to go on housing or welfare maybe it should be mandatory to watch The Grapes of Wrath and the Joads struggle.
Movie Review: A Classic Adaptation of Steinbeck's Novel
Summary: 5 Stars
Director John Ford has done a masterful job of bringing John Steinbeck's timeless novel to life in this movie. Starring Henry Fonda, Ford's film brings the struggle of the 1930s migrant working family to life.
Fonda stars as Tom Joad, a young man who's just been paroled from prision after serving four years for manslaughter. Upon arriving home, he meets Casey (John Carradine), a former preacher turned drifter. The two then head for the Joad homestead. Once there, Tom discovers that his family is gone. However, Muley Graves (John Qualen) has been hiding out in the Joad home. After he is discovered by Tom, Muley tells of the numerous land corporations and banks who have been taking possession of the local farms. Tom's father's farm has been repossessed, and the family has went to Uncle John's (Frank Darien) home.
Tom and Casey head to uncle John's house, where they find the rest of the family, including Pa (Russell Simpson), Ma (Jane Darwell), Rose-of-Sharon (Dorris Bowden), her husband Connie Rivers (Eddie Quillan), and Grandma and Grandpa Joad. The government agent comes to inform John that his land is being taken over, and the family packs their truck and begins the journey to California.
Along the way, the family is faced with many different trials and tribulations, including the deaths of grandma and grandpa Joad as well as Connie deciding to leave. They are forced to live in campgrounds designed specifically for refugee migrant workers, while Pa, Tom, and Uncle John try to find work.
Eventually, the men find jobs as fruit pickers, but they barely make enough money to buy food. There are run-ins with townspeople who don't want "Okies" stealing any more jobs. All through these troubled times, Ma does her best to keep the family together. Will the Joad family survive?
This movie, like the novel, has become a classic. The movie was nominated for numerous academy awards, and Jane Darwell won for best actress, while John Ford won for best director. The portrayal of life on the plains during the dustbowl years is done with great accuracy. Numerous families lost their farms and land during this terrible time and headed west to find new lives, and their struggle is portrayed excellently by the Joad family. The acting is excellent and the story is moving. There are many acts of kindness during the film, such as the scene where the diner waitress agrees to sell the Joads a loaf of bread and then sells the young Joad children candy for a penny. The scene where Ma Joad shares her meager food with the hungry children at the worker camp is moving, too.
I give this movie my highest recommendation. The acting and story are great, and the historical aspect of the time period is handled perfectly. Watch this classic movie and see what the lives of the migrant farmer families of the dustbowl years were like.
Movie Review: A classic of the human condition
Summary: 5 Stars
I think it is most ironic that independent filmmakers claim to despise the mainstream Hollywood film in favor of making "personal cinema". When one considers the work of director John Ford it becomes so obvious that he was very much a part of the "system" and yet made several stunningly personal films.
His films hold up well today because they display his personal love of character, land, place (there is a difference), time, honor, tradition and ritual. THE GRAPES OF WRATH is one of his finest pictures. His obsessions and political leanings come to life in Steinbeck's haunting, searing and highly religious narrative.
I agree with many other reviewers who believe that the film is largely leftist propaganda. Certainly the other great political film directors Leni Reifenstahl and Sergei Eisenstein can be see in many of Ford's compositions- as is the case with the masked tractor trooper montage. But propaganda, like the very medium of film itself, operates on pure emotion. This film is loaded with one emotional image after another.
The photography of Gregg Toland matches the best of Life Magazine in its immediacy and realism, while at the same time dramatically recapturing the best of German Expressionsim. There are so many frames that could stand proudly next to the works of Adams, Bourke-White, Wood and Robert Capa as examples of photographic art.
The cast is uniformly excellent. The sincere and utterly real performances of John Carradine, Russell Simpson, Jane Darwell, John Qualen and the great Charley Grapewin all give performances that are on the level with anything ever produced from an Actor's Studio graduate.
Enough cannot be possibly said about Henry Fonda's performance as Tom Joad. How fitting that Fonda would play Henry Stamper in the film version of Kesey's SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION as Old Henry S. really is in many ways Tom Joad all grown up. Simply put it is one of the finest characterizations ever captured on film. He was not just an American icon, he was a fine dramatic artist.
The script retains much of the best of Steinbeck's novel and many of its great quotes. Yes, it does preach, but never at the expense of the narrative. This is a lesson so many "serious" filmmakers have yet to learn. The film has not dated in THE GRAPES OF WRATH is about a specific time and place in American History yes, but it is also about what it means to be a human being. In that sense it transcends nationalism and is a fine work of World Literature. It is an equal with CITIZEN KANE as one of the finest films ever made.
Now finally available on a beautiful transfer DVD, THE GRAPES OF WRATH, with his glowing silver and black images belongs on any serious film fan's shelf.
Movie Review: The Grapes--and Apples and Oranges--of Wrath
Summary: 5 Stars
It's striking how many reviewers here base their comments on a simplisitic comparison between the film version of "The Grapes of Wrath" and the Steinbeck novel on which it was based. For many such a comparison seems to function simply as an excuse to proclaim the inherent superiority of the Steinbeck original--and, by extension, the superiority of their own literary taste values-- when all it really does is highlight the patent silliness of trying to pit different artforms into some sort of evaluative competition. Literature and cinema are two vastly different modes of representation each with their own strengths and limitations, so the framing question shouldn't be which version of "The Grapes of Wrath" is "better"--as if there were a universal yardstick with which to measure such things--but rather how do they perform in terms of their respective mediums? On that count, I think we are extraordinarily fortunate with both the Steinbeck and Ford versions of "The Grapes of Wrath" to have two masterworks that operate consummately at the peak of their respective artforms. What each does well, it does brilliantly. As a verbal medium that unfolds slowly, literature is good at offering rich, layered descriptions of person and place and mapping complicated narrative links and Steinbeck makes the most of this in his novel. Cinema, by contrast, is an expressive medium that works best through registers of visual and aural metaphor, allegory and performance...and it's on this ground that I think the film version of "The Grapes of Wrath" more than merits its classic status. It is a magnificently "cinematic" film that uses the expressive capacities of the medium to produce a richly layered experience that is truly moving and that lingers long afterward, sometimes for years or even a whole lifetime. I first saw "The Grapes of Wrath" on TV one rainy afternoon in my childhood and it left indelible impressions that have impelled me to go back to the film time and again: The haunted eyes of Jane Darwell's Ma Joad as she sits in the truck cabin, lit from beneath, driving into an uncertain future, the winds of history howling oustside; the terrifying collision montage as the monstrous "cats" move in to destroy the Okies' homes; the soulless gas station attendants, standing together in uniforms like corporatized automata, muttering that the Joads are too miserable to be human. It's a film dense with iconic richness and an enduring testament both to the artistry of the many workers that created it, and to the democratic spirit of popular cinema at its very best.