The Grapes of Wrath

John Ford's adaptation of John Steinback's The Grapes of Wrath (1940) is one of the director's most thematically-interesting films. Quite contrary to his oft-complacent Westerns, Ford expresses outrage at the plight of small farmers in Depression-era America, driven West.

Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) returns to his Oklahoma farm after serving a prison sentence. He finds that local landlords have driven his family out, and tracks them down to a relative's home. Together with Ma Joad (Jane Darwell), the rest of the family and itinerant preacher Casey (John Carradine), Tom and Co., set out on a car ride for California, hoping to find menial work. They end shuffling from work camp to work camp, brushed off by bosses, bullied by cops and shunned by Californians.

John Ford is usually pegged as a conservative director, a reductive and oversimplified view. Patriotic, pro-military and religious to a fault, Ford also cultivated liberal outrage at social injustice, anti-Communist witch hunts and treatment of racial minorities. He wasn't a socialist, of course, but a progressive populist, who saw the average citizen as the true hero of America. A conservative director would not have made The Grapes of Wrath in the pre-World War II era, when anything remotely leftist was considered subversive.

Ford's depiction of Depression-era America is at complete odds with the optimism of other films. The Okies are shuffled from place to place, each promise of work denied or unfulfilled, the American Dream proving a bitter joke. Authorities are either violent, crooked or completely indifferent to their charges, echoed even by ordinary people. Scenes in the work camps are shockingly subversive: a cop fatally wounds an old lady with a stray bullet; starving children beg for food; farmer's homes are plowed before their very eyes. In light of this stark story, the most complacent American ought to be roused to action.

The movie fudges Steinbeck's novel a bit with a vaguely happy ending, affirming that "the people" will find a way to combat the injustice. The denouement, with Joad walking alone on a desolate landscape, directly recalls Young Mr. Lincoln, setting Tom up as a future fighter of injustice. But the stark, oppressive events of the story remain in one's mind, showing that perhaps justice isn't always done in Ameirca.

Ford's direction is marvellous. Gregg Toland's striking black-and-white cinematography complements the film's desolate atmosphere; set-bound sequences mix well with real locations, and Alfred Newman's mournful score contributes wonderfully as well.

Henry Fonda does a fine job in the lead. Tom is a generally complacent character, afraid to get into trouble, but Fonda's inherent Everyman dignity makes him compelling and relatable. The supporting cast frequently steals the show. Jane Darwell is excellent as Ma Joad, tough, world-weary but optimistic. Ford regulars John Carradine and John Qualen give career-best performances; Qualen is particularly impressive, his embattled homesteader a far cry from his bumptious characters in His Girl Friday and The Searchers.

The Grapes of Wrath is an interesting movie from a director known for his allegedly pro-Establishment worldview, showing that intolerable situations make even the most complacent men and women consider Revolution.