Review #305: 'The Grapes of Wrath' (1940)

Based on John Steinbeck's Pulitzer prize winning novel of the same name, about the mid-west proletariat struggle during the great depression of the 1930's, John Ford's adaptation to film is a sweeping and emotional drama, displaying the problems entailed when a family are forced to move west in the search for work. Tom Joad (Henry Fonda), is travelling back to his homestead after five years in prison for manslaughter. On arriving back he discovers that his family have been evicted from the family farm due to a corporate take overs, and banks foreclosing on the land. So the only option is to travel to California, as they had been presented with a flier advertising picking work.

We follow the family through series hardship across the breadth of the USA. Deaths occur, and the working part of the family are mistreated and abused by ruthless business's, who have seized the opportunity to take advantage of the mass exodus of farm workers, making the "pilgrimage" from east to west. The film is an indictment of the times. Many families would have had to make this journey, mainly due to the greed of financial institutions (sound familiar?).

The film is majestically shot in beautiful black and white. The fact that it was filmed in studios does not seem to make the journey any less real. The film ends with Ma Joad (Jane Darwell) making a statement for the entire proletariat population: "We'll go on forever, cause we are the people". A bold statement, that could be used today. The working classes will always be here, and will always be needed. The people are the most important functioning body in the world. What the film shows historically, socially and politically, is that all moments of history (that is each moment there is failure or change) are in a perpetually cyclical motion - therefore, history perpetually repeats itself.


Directed by: John Ford
Starring: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Marc Ivamy