The opening shot of The Grapes of Wrath, John Ford, 1940
In his recent video appreciation of this film, The New York Times’ A.O. Scott admits to being a little gobsmacked: “I’d never thought that The Grapes of Wrath would strike me as the most topical movie for right now.” Ain’t it the truth, brother—and incidentally, can you spare a dime?
Shameless formalist that I am, I’m always blown away by the pictorial aspect of Grapes, shot by the great Gregg Toland. The whole thing looks like some incredible confluence of Walker Evan and F.W. Murnau. DIg the spectral quality of the shot below, the faces reflected in the windshield as the Joads trek through the California desert by nightfall.
Ford’s—and Steinbeck’s—love of the sheer bountiful hugeness of the American West is palpable during the traveling scenes. I also love the contrasting attitudes of the various fellow Americans the Joads meet along their way to California—the generous folks at the diner, including the seemingly cynical truckers; the bigoted, all-dressed-in-white gas station attendants; the sympathetic agriculture inspectors. And I love the detail of the production design. Every last object in the below shot, seen from today’s perspective, seems—well, to me at least—positively numinous.
This really is one hell of a magnificent film. If you haven’t looked at it in a while, I strongly suggest you get on it.
UPDATE: Joseph Failla sends his thoughts:
It’s hard for me to imagine that The Grapes of Wrath would need a nudge to get anyone to watch it, especially with it’s timeliness today. But I think you’re on the right track speaking of it pictorially. It’s literally filled from start to finish with images I’ll never forget.
As you pointed out, Henry Fonda at the crossroads.
Fonda, John Carradine and John Qualen speaking in almost total darkness with only their faces illuminated in the shadows.
Qualen raising his rifle to an oncoming bulldozer threatening his home.
Qualen kneeling in the dirt ranting about the importance of a man’s land “…and some of us died on it.”
The family leaving the farm by way of an overloaded truck before the dust bowl engulfs them.
Grandpa Charley Grapewin’s death on the road to California.
The endless caravan of families making the same trip along the highway.
The arrival at the first camp and the desperate look on the faces of those already there.
An innocent woman accidentally shot by policemen pursuing a “troublemaker”.
Ma Jane Darwell looking at her reflection in the mirror, putting on earings she wore as a girl.
The murder of John Carradine under a bridge at night.
Fonda’s silhouette as he crosses the horizon along an empty field.
I’m sure because of those images and many others, Grapes has always attracted me back for more and more viewings. It never seems to get old and remains just as forceful a piece of Hollywood studio movie making as I’ve ever seen.
At this point you may want to take another look at Bound For Glory, it’s not nearly as visually breathtaking as Grapes, but it does cover the same era with a similiar proletarian point of view. Also you get two generations of Carradines giving great performances which link these films together for cinephiles forever.
I had the pleasure of running Fox’s archive/vault print of Wrath back at the end of September and it was a honey; looks like they have an equally nice print for the DVD. It was spooky running the film then as that was the weekend the news was full of ‘bailout’ talk and other depressing topics…
Call me crazy, but I prefer that other Ford-Toland collaboration from 1940, The Long Voyage Home. Toland’s photography is even more brilliant than in Grapes (J. Rosenbaum called it his best pre-Citizen Kane work), and the Fordishly decentered narrative provides some of his warmest moments. Ford’s love of the sea is palpable and infectious (much like his love of the West in those other pictures). Even the miscasting of the Duke as a Swedish rookie comes off as merely quirky and adorable.
@B.W.—You’re not crazy—“The Long Voyage Home” is beautiful, unique. I do think that “Grapes” beats it in the emotional directness department, though. So maybe you’re just a trifle eccentric…
I love both Grapes of Wrath and Long Voyage Home, and see strong thematic similarities in them. Thanks, Glenn, for this concise and lovely appreciation of Grapes of Wrath, a movie that I see dissed all the time. I have never really forgiven Robert Duvall for his nasty comments about it in Première during the publicity for Colors many years ago. I still enjoy Duvall’s acting a great deal, of course, but that was the end of my interest in his interviews. (Ditto Sean Penn, who allowed as how Ford knew where to put the camera but had no idea how to direct actors.)
I was going to say I don’t know why Grapes isn’t more revered nowadays, but I think you nail it in your “emotional directness” comment. How Green Was My Valley has it too. I think many critics squirm at a quality that they conflate with sentimentality. That, and some critics also believe Nunally Johnson and Ford watered down the politics–the late George Fasel argued that point with some heat. I would counter that the politics are more subtle in the movie, which I don’t see as a bad thing, having read the novel and found its didacticism to be its chief flaw.
P.S. If you want to see George’s piece, here it is:
http://agirlandagun.typepad.com/a_girl_and_a_gun/2005/01/john_ford_class.html
@Campaspe: George’s piece is typically acute and provocative, and his point that the placement of Ma Joad’s speech in the film is conservative is spot-on. Still, the picture’s portrayal of the all-but-socialist Dept. of Agriculture camp as a potential heaven on earth is hardly anti-progressive…
Wish George was still around. He really did provide a kind of intellectual oasis.
Duvall’s bedbug about “Grapes,” as I recall, had to do with authenticity—real Okies didn’t talk like that, and so on. It’s an essentially narcissitic complaint—“You can’t tell ME”—among other things, and to hell with it. Duvall’s a talented guy…but man, did you see “Assassination Tango”?
Sean Penn’s a talented guy too, but we already know that he’s hardly one to back down whenever a potential contest over who can be a bigger, more ill-informed jerk springs up.
Glenn, I miss George all the time. I am so glad that his family has left up his archives so I can refresh my memory when I read about some movie that he had analyzed before. He was also such a gentleman–he relished intelligent disagreement, he never squashed it.
I do think Ford was constitutionally incapable of the kind of raw questioning of the American system that you find in the novel, but Ford’s sympathy for the downtrodden and essentially humanist perspective still get the point across.
While editing, wasn’t it Zanuck’s decision to put the Ma Joad speech at the end of the film?
I seem to recall reading or hearing that from somewhere but could be wrong.
DH, you have me intrigued and I’m looking it up. I have no Ford bio in my library at the moment (bad, I know), but at least one link, apparently from the University of Vienna, backs you up. Scroll down to “Background”:
http://www.univie.ac.at/Anglistik/easyrider/data/GrapesWr.htm
What is particularly interesting, esp. in light of George Fasel’s point about moving the speech, is what the link says about Steinbeck approving the change.
Tag Gallagher’s Ford bio gathers a number of contradictory accounts without really endorsing any of them. One has Ford agreeing with Zanuck that the piece needed an upbeat ending, then going off sailing after shooting Tom’s farewell. Zanuck then phoned him with news of the Ma-Joad-speech-ending, and Zanuck shot it with Ford’s approval. Another version of the story has Nunnally Johnson writing out the lines in front of Ford and Zanuck. And so on. Gallager finds “Ma’s uncharacteristically prolix oration” to be a “tawdry resolution.” He’s not wrong about Ma; nothing she does prior to that speech in the film ever gives you the impression she would make such a speech. In any case, it’s Tom’s farewell that always kicks me in the solar plexus.
Ha! I haven’t seen “Assassination Tango”, but I ran across it on cable the other day, and your review popped into my head. It’s the only one I can remember reading, and I thought, “Well, it can’t be THAT bad. Can it?” Since the film had been on for a while, I didn’t stay to find out, so I remain curious.
“Assassination Tango” is painful.
Nick Redman’s “Becoming John Ford” doc backs up the story that Zanuck went so far as to shoot the scene – all with Ford’s okay.
I have to agree that the speech felt a little “tacked on” even before I heard the Zanuck story. Part of me appreciates a film that doesn’t lose faith in people and the future, and I certainly appreciate that the speech is a beautifully crafted piece of writing, but the movie is about Tom Joad’s fate and it ends with him.
Check out Ford’s run over three years.
How Green Was My Valley (1941)
Tobacco Road (1941)
The Long Voyage Home (1940)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Drums Along the Mohawk (1939)
Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)
Stagecoach (1939)
Most anyone would declare at least 4 of those classics.
I’d claim 6 (minus Tobbaco Road) and 4 outright masterpieces – “Valley,” “Stagecoach,” “Lincoln,” and “Grapes.”
And look how they differ in style and mood. “Lincoln” and “Voyage” especially. They’re beautiful things in ways you have to see to understand.
Wilder, Stevens, Wyler… There were directors who had solid, consistent runs. Sometimes a few classics in a row even, but nothing like this. It’s really unbelievable.
I would have to see it once more, preferably on a real screen, to truly fix it in my mind, but I would add Long Voyage Home to those masterpieces. In addition to being unbelievably beautiful–you talk about being gobsmacked, you should have seen me watching this film–it has absolute control of tone and feeling.
Otherwise I couldn’t agree more.
I have never seen Tobacco Road, by the by, but have never felt any huge rush to do so.
Glenn, Ma’s speech reminds me a bit of Vikram Seth’s comment on War and Peace. He confessed that he never read the long philosophical digression that comprises part two. After Natasha and Pierre’s story closed, Seth said he thought, “I apologize, Mr. Tolstoy, but for me your novel just ended.” I feel the same way about Tom’s leavetaking. Ma’s speech has never spoiled anything for me, but it does always feel like a coda.
I have a lot of problems with “The Long, Long Voyage Home” and “How Sentimental Was My Valley,” but I’ve always liked “The Grapes of Wrath” and been puzzled by how it’s underrated within Ford’s career.
Also, I have a soft spot for Jane Darwell’s performance and thought it unfair that she’s often singled out as a primary weakness in the film. Her voice adds so much. Am I remembering correctly that Ford wanted Beulah Bondi (who I think might have been a bit on the nose)?
I tend to forgive Ma Joad’s speech as an attempt to literalize Steinbeck’s symbolic ending, wherein Rosasharn, having lost her baby, suckles the dying old man. Which, obviously, could not have been filmed in 1940.
I would trample small children to see “Long Voyage Home” on the big screen. Of all of these, that’s the one I’d most like to see for exactly the reasons you mention about tone and feel.
If I ever get the time I’m going to push myself to try and articulate in writing what it is about “Voyage” and especially “Lincoln” that make them so unique. Moments and atmosphere – no real story, just moments and atmosphere.
@Stephen Bowie: Yes, I think Darwell is wonderful also. Not her speech so much—the way she says “Aren’t you gonna tell me goodbye, Tom?” as Fonda is trying to sneak out of the tent. Just kills me.
I love Darwell for the look on her face when she holds up her girlhood earrings and turns to the mirror, only to see an old woman looking back at her. That is a moment that lies ahead for us all, if we live long enough, and I defy anyone, including David Thomson, to say she overplays it.
Glenn, you’ve inspired me to finally get onto Amazon and order some John Ford box sets that I should’ve gotten a long time ago. Ashamed of the gaps in my John Ford viewing…