The Grapes of Wrath 1940

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The Grapes of Wrath- 1940

• John Ford Director
• Henry Fonda as Tom Joad

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The Great Depression- (1929-1941), persistent
drought and the changing nature of work combined
to disenfranchise tenant farmers in Oklahoma and
Arkansas.
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The Dust Bowl

• Drought and over farming combined to render many
  areas virtually barren.

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• Tenant farmers paid rent in the form of a
  proportion of their harvest. Though, families
  may have farmed an area for several generations,
  they had no ownership rights.

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• Okies and Arkies packed up and headed for the
  West. Washington, Oregon and California had been
  experiencing tremendous growth.
• Ad bills promised migrant jobs for farmers.

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• By the mid 1930s, the supply of labor was
  sufficient.
• California the state that had once advertised
  for more migrant workers found themselves
  overwhelmed by up to 7,000 new migrants a month,
  more than for whom there was sufficient
  employment.

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Film and Knowledge

• How does humanizing the plight of the migrants
  operate as social criticism?
• How does this film simultaneously counter and
  reinforce the myth of individualism?

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John Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath

• Nobel prize for literaturein 1962 ...for his
  realistic as well as imaginative writings,
  distinguished by a sympathetic humor and a keen
  social perception.
• The Grapes of Wrath (1939) won the Pulitzer
  Prize.

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John Steinbeck- (1902-1968)

• John Ernst Steinbeck was born in Salinas,
  California, on February 27, 1902 of German and
  Irish ancestry.
• John Steinbeck, Sr., served as the County
  Treasurer while his mother, Olive (Hamilton)
  Steinbeck, was a former school teacher.
• During summers he worked as a hired hand on
  nearby ranches.

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• Attended Stanford University, but did not
  graduate.
• Steinbeck married his first wife, Carol Henning
  in 1930. They lived in Pacific Grove where much
  of the material for Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row
  was gathered.

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• For The Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck traveled around
  California migrant camps in 1936.
• When the book appeared, it was attacked by US
  Congressman Lyle Boren who characterized it as "a
  lie, a black, infernal creation of twisted,
  distorted mind".

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• Steinbeck's twelve-year marriage to Carol Henning
  had ended in 1942. Next year he married the
  singer Gwyndolyn Conger they had two sons, Thom
  and John. However, the marriage was unhappy and
  they were divorced in 1949.

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• In 1950 Steinbeck married Elaine Scott. His son
  John was hospitalized for codeine addiction at
  age seven, and he also had much problems in later
  years with drugs and alcohol. He died in 1991.

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• Died December 20, 1968, in New York City and was
  survived by his third wife, Elaine (Scott)
  Steinbeck and one son, Thomas.

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John Fords Version of Steinbeck

• Won the Oscar for best Director in 1940.
• As Ford says in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,
  "when the legend becomes truth, print the
  legend".

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John Ford (1895-1973)

• Born Sean Aloysius O'Fearna
• Eleventh and last child of an Irish family.
  "Jack" was introduced into the movie industry by
  his silent movie director brother Francis "Ford"
  (who probably took the name from the Model T and
  later played bit parts in his kid brother's
  movies like The Quiet Man 1952).

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• After working as a "cowboy" and riding as one of
  the Klansmen in D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a
  Nation (1915), Jack began acting in his brother's
  one and two reelers and it was not long before he
  was directing himself and upgraded his to the
  name of the Jacobean dramatist John Ford.

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• Developed distinctive style in 1930s.
• Known for simplicity.
• Director John Milius describes John Ford's style
  in terms of the Japanese idea of "conservation of
  line", saying Ford can do with a couple of "brush
  strokes" what it takes others six or eight to do.
  
• Use of outdoor scenery defined the Western
  (Monument Valley Scenes)
• He made Navy pictures (and would retire a full
  Admiral) including documentaries in both Korea
  and Vietnam.

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Film as Critique

• What issues are raised by the film?
• How is the problem portrayed?
• How does the film operate as critique?
• How does the film reinforce ideologies that
  undergird existing relations of privilege?

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• What devices are used to make key points?
• What images are used to convey the situation
  faced by the Joads?
• How does Ford use mise-en-scene to set the mood?

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Critiques and the Film

• Some fault Fords sentimental portrayal of the
  family, others laud his humanizing of individuals
  on the margins of society. What do you think?