What happens when people trifle with nature.

Rating: 10/10 (16 February 2010)

A revisiting of this movie merely confirms what is already established as fact: that this movie is great. It's grim story about people struggling to survive. That these conditions existed in the United States is a disgrace. To be thrown off the land is bad enough, but then to be humiliated compounds the injustice. The story is told in the form of semi-documentary which gives it further authenticity. The movie is about land. People own it, farm it, exploit it, divide it, fight for it, defend it, plow it, drive over it, drive through it. The people are transiting; the land stays. Tom Joad enters and Tom Joad exits; he is a metaphor for the transitory nature of existence. The only thing stable is the land. Ma Joad is trying to keep the family together but it's a losing battle. Only the will to survive gets them through. This movie is an incredibly powerful story, strongly acted, and told with candor.
The Grapes of Wrath is director John Ford's homage to nature and a warning to all - that nature, in the form of rough terrain, inclement weather and immense distances, can be lethal to humans. In this movie the land is more than just mere scenery, more than just a back drop for a story, more than just a passing reference, it is an integral player, indeed it is the story itself. Briefly, the movie is about a family, the Joads of Oklahoma, who, after being evicted from their farm during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, become homeless and, in quest of work and a more secure place to live, embark on a long journey through prairie and desert to California. For them, California is the proverbial land of milk and honey and holds for them a promise of a new and better life, much like the ancient Hebrews may have felt when they left Egypt in quest for their promised land. As the Joads travel west in the their broken-down jalopy they are dwarfed by the sheer immensity of the landscape. The movie features several panoramic vistas of the rugged western landscape, prairie and desert, geographical barriers that the Joads must surmount to reach their goal and places where they can die. For the land is not friendly and benign; instead it is a source of contention and a cause for grief, such as that visited upon the Joads as they lose their homes and possessions and are forced to migrate in order to survive. The Joads' vulnerability is further reinforced by the distances they must travel and the stress caused by the move itself. Two members of the family die while on the road and another disappears; nothing is close by. Driving many miles means having to deal with the possibility of their truck breaking down en route and becoming stuck in the middle of nowhere. And like the land itself, the people encountered by the Joads on their journey are surly and begrudging at best. The message is unmistakable. Nature can crush us at any time and must be respected for what it is, an all-encompassing, awesome, stark entity that is both life giving and deadly, especially when ignored, as the Joads learned as the "wind" destroyed their lives, perhaps as a pay back for the way the land was abused. And when the Joads finally arrive in California, reality quickly sets in and with it comes more trouble and disappointment, all of this having to do with the land, which again poses a threat to the Joads' survival. The story ends with Tom Joad, who is in trouble with the law, shown trekking across the land and the rest of family again on the move as they continue to seek work. The foreboding mood that permeates this movie is further enhanced by the black-and-white photography that further brings out the stark emptiness and vastness of the land. This movie is a dramatic statement that warns the audience that human kind must be cognizant of the whims of nature for nature is something that cannot be ignored or trifled with. In the 1930s people did not treat the land with respect and the land responded in kind. That the Joads got caught up with that is the stuff for a dramatic story but nature itself is beyond our ability to control as so aptly shown in this movie. We build dams and they inevitably fail. We build dikes to keep out the ocean yet we still have floods. We build huge ships that sink. We build airplanes and rockets that crash. We build mighty bridges and buildings and they collapse. And in Grapes of Wrath, we farm the land and the soil turns into dust. And THAT is the story.