THE GRAPES OF WRATH

Dust storms and bank notices push the Joad family west, chasing a promise that keeps receding as the road goes on. John Ford’s riveting adaptation of Steinbeck’s classic novel of Okie farmers made destitute by the Depression and the Dust Bowl is a film of rare radical politics from studio-era Hollywood. Although Ford envisioned the film as a character study—a portrait of a struggling family—rather than an open attack on capitalism, his adaptation faithfully retains the book’s hard-eyed look at the exploitation of the rural poor.

Like so much of his thirties work, THE GRAPES OF WRATH reveals Ford’s then-ardent Leftist populism. The suffering of the Joad family as it marches slowly toward California is given iconic status by Ford’s monumental compositions, by the remarkable performances from a talented cast and by pioneering cinematographer Gregg Toland’s successful fusion of Ford’s expressionist aesthetic and photojournalist realism. Camps fill, wages fall and the dream curdles, but Ford keeps his gaze fixed on the people holding the line.

"Too many films these days trivialize poverty as an ironically, tastelessly over-produced pageant to earn kudos. THE GRAPES OF WRATH captures that shiver of panic that grips anyone for whom the money for the next meal is unknown. The film remains a vital document of the perversion and torment of the fantasy most commonly known as the American Dream." - Chuck Bowen