We're the People that Live

Rating: 8/10 (9 December 2013)

John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" is today very much a literary classic, but when this film came out in 1940 it was still a modern best- seller, having been published only the previous year. It tells the story of the Joad family, small tenant-farmers from Oklahoma, who lose their home and livelihood to the twin disasters of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression of the early 1930s. Like many others in a similar situation, they head to California, which they believe to be a land of plenty and opportunity where they will be able to make a good living as agricultural workers. When they arrive there, however, they find that they have been misled. California, its population swelled by thousands of migrant workers from other parts of America, already has a surplus of labour. Unemployment is therefore high, work difficult to find, wages low even when any work is to be found, and decent accommodation unavailable.
The novel was a controversial one when it first appeared, largely because of the author's left-wing political opinions, which are clearly reflected in the text. It was perhaps an unusual choice for a movie to come out of Hollywood, an institution which was far less liberal in the thirties and forties than it is today, especially as it was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck and directed by John Ford, both generally regarded as conservatives, or at least as far more conservative than Steinbeck. Zanuck did, however, have a reputation for occasionally making films with a social message- "Gentleman's Agreement" is another such- and the film does tone down the left-wing emphasis somewhat, removing Steinbeck's editorialising passages in which he comments directly on social conditions, and providing a happier, more optimistic ending. Nevertheless, there is still something socialist about the film, especially in the scenes set in the Government-run camp which imply that it is Big Government, not Big Business, which offers more hope to the little man.
Ford and Zanuck might not have been pleased to learn that their film was twice used by America's enemies to make anti-American propaganda. During the war Dr Goebbels used extracts from it, passing them off as genuine newsreels purporting to show that America under Roosevelt was a backward, poverty-stricken land. In 1948 it had a brief release in the Soviet Union, but was hastily withdrawn when the authorities realised that Russian audiences were drawing the "wrong" conclusions from it, namely that in America even the poorest people could afford a car, something which in the USSR was a privilege reserved for high-ranking Party officials.
Apart from drawing attention to social conditions during the Depression era, Steinbeck's book had two main themes, the relationship of man to the land and the importance of the family unit. The first of these is largely omitted from the film; it has been pointed out that, although the Joads are agricultural workers by trade, we never see them engaged in any agricultural work. The importance of the family, however, is something stressed in the film. The scenes in which the Joads' son Noah and their son-in-law Connie walk out on the family unit, while not omitted, are very much played down.
The main characters in the film are Tom, the family's eldest son, and its matriarch, Ma Joad. Both can be seen as symbolic of the American people and their struggle against hardship, although the ways in which they react to their plight are rather different. When we first see Tom he is a rather wild and angry young man, just released from prison after serving four years for killing a man in a brawl. In the course of the family's journey he learns to channel his anger and resentment into a quest for social justice and becomes a committed socialist, but ironically is forced to go on the run after killing another man while trying to protect a friend. While Tom reacts with socialism, his indomitable old mother reacts with a defiant stoicism and determination not to be beaten. To her are given the last words in the film:-
"We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out, they can't lick us. We'll go on forever, Pa, cos we're the people".
Jane Darwell, at 61, was probably rather older than the character imagined by Steinbeck. (The Joads' youngest children are still of primary school age). She gives, nevertheless, a compelling performance as the tough, determined Ma, one which won her an Oscar for "Best Supporting Actress". Henry Fonda as Tom is equally good, but he lost out on "Best Actor" to James Stewart in "The Philadelphia Story".
Darwell's was one of two Academy Awards won by the film, the other going to Ford as "Best Director". Ford's victory was controversial as he beat Alfred Hitchcock, whose "Rebecca" had taken the overall "Best Picture" award. Whatever the merits of that particular decision, however, "The Grapes of Wrath" is a fine film, and Ford's direction is one of the things that make it so. He was always a director with an eye for a striking image, something much in evidence here. His stark black-and- white photography is well suited to the film's social realism and unsparing look at the darker side of the American dream. Authors have not always been happy with film adaptations of their work, but apparently Steinbeck was delighted with this one, even though it is not always faithful to his storyline. That fact perhaps says more about the film than any critic ever could. 8/10