We all got little pieces of the one big soul that belongs to everybody ...

Rating: 10/10 (13 November 2012)

Watching John Ford's 1940 masterpiece "The Grapes of Wrath" spares dozens of historical readings about the Great Depression. Through the absorbing realistically-handled journey of the Joad Family, sharecroppers from Oklahoma, the movie is a tacit homage to all the farmers who were kicked out of their own land after half a century, and by an enemy even more redoubtable because he was invisible. Call it corporations, banks, politics, it's impossible to point a finger on a responsible person, let alone a gun, all the 'Okies' are left with is a bitter resignation mixed with the hopes for brighter futures in California, the promised land.
Through its documentary value, "The Grapes of Wrath" works as the perfect contradiction to all the supporters of Capitalism as the core of American ideals. It's a film about the little people, those who had faith and lost it. The central character is Tom Joad, an ex-convict, released after four years. Joad was imprisoned for homicide but doesn't carry any regret, the 'victim' had it coming: he pulled a knife. Joad is the kind of more-or-less decent individual victim of unfortunate circumstances but learns to deal with them rather than whining. The second representative character is Casey, an ex-preacher played by John Carradine. The preacher lost the spirit, and it hardly surprises that it's Communism he embraces at the end.
An ex-convict, an ex-preacher, ex-farmers, the gallery consists of a bunch of people who 'used to be', and seem incapable to conjugate the life in the future. In a world where farmers are forced to leave the land they walked on and died on, what positive can ever be presaged? The fear ends up killing Grandpa Joad, and the grandmother doesn't outlive him for long. But one person doesn't fear future; it's Ma Joad, and Jane Darnell embodies the pioneer spirit, temerity despite exhaustion, with her droopy but magnificently scintillating eyes. When they live the farm, she doesn't give a last look for they're going to California, and she has no time to mourn the past. She's not braver than the others: the night before, she meditated on her own sadness, alone, but as the heart of the Joadses, it's her duty to exude the happiness the Family is looking forward.
The power of "The Grapes of Wrath" is to vehicle its powerful and inspirational message through characters rather than facts. Ma Joad, through her eyes, smiles and spirit, incarnates the ferocious and so womanly attachment to practical stuff like eating, living, being clean, she's the unwounded soul of that crisis-stricken America. On the other hand, men are more inclined to think, to translate the facts into abstract notions, and ultimately to fight. Tom Joad is no more eager to become an agitator than anyone else, but the odyssey of the road 66, opened his eyes on the new face of America. Either facing the disdain or the support of fellow citizens, he understands that the salvation cannot come from the individual but from solidarity. His "We all got little pieces of the one big soul that belongs to everybody" almost sounds like a spiritual protest slogan.
It's even ironic that a right-wing conservative directed "The Grapes of Wrath", but the whole socialist and communist undertones were less taboo at that time. The film was adapted from the Pullitzer-prize winning novel of John Steinbeck, released in 1939, at the dawn of a worldwide conflict that put the Red Scare into perspective. Naturally, the farmer's contribution to the war efforts leaded them to a more prosperous state, from which their descendants benefited. But as a slice of the American life during the 30's, the film encapsulates all the desperation, the fears and the hopes of a population that stopped to believe in its own ideals. And now that the world is stricken by another crisis, with the financial system, and the most pervert side of Capitalism as responsible, it's time to look at "The Grapes of Wrath" with a new eye for the film is still relevant today, maybe more than when it was praised as one of the greatest American films of all-time.
And cinematically speaking, it's also a gripping adaptation that conveys the oppressive feeling of this era through a very powerful black-and-cinematography. There's indeed a magnificent contrast between the shadowy photography of the earlier scenes and the sunnier ones when they arrive in the campground in California. At one part, Casey makes a poignant preach implying that he found a new faith, his face hides in the shadow while his eyes are clearly seen, as to suggest a new lucidity, as if the use of lights allowed him to shine within his own words. The same goes for Henry Fonda during his memorable "I'll be there" speech, although the lines seem less spontaneous or more cinematic. And this is not to blame on the script but rather on Fonda who magnificently played a character full of anger and hopes, always distant but never unnoticeable, that's Fonda's charisma, subtle but irreplaceable, Fonda who should have won the Oscar for Best Actor.
The film was nominated for several other Oscars, it lost the Best Picture to Alfred Hitchcock's "Rebecca" but won a Best Supporting Actress for Jane Darnell and Best Director for John Ford. The two awards are much deserved for Darnell is the heart of the film, and fittingly concludes it with her immortal "We're the people", you sure are, Ma  and John Ford who works each shot with an admirable craftsmanship. Many of them show all the Joadses in one frame as to continually sustain the idea of their unshakable unity, which is the kind of values that the film stands for: unity and solidarity.
Quite odd from an American film to celebrate these ideals, but this is what makes it such an endearing, timeless, and universal classic.