Tom Joad returns to his home after a jail sentence to find his family kicked out of their farm due to foreclosure. He catches up with them on his Uncle’s farm, and joins them the next day as they head for California and a new life... Hopefully.
Henry Fonda Jane Darwell John Carradine Charley Grapewin Dorris Bowdon Russell Simpson O. Z. Whitehead John Qualen Eddie Quillan Zeffie Tilbury Frank Sully Frank Darien Darryl Hickman Shirley Mills Roger Imhof Grant Mitchell Charles D. Brown John Arledge Ward Bond Harry Tyler William Pawley Charles Tannen Selmer Jackson Charles Middleton Eddy Waller Paul Guilfoyle David Hughes Cliff Clark Joe Sawyer Show All…
De druiven der gramschap, 怒火之花, Les raisins de la colère, 분노의 포도
It's hard to imagine that The Grapes of Wrath was ever published in America, let alone made into a Hollywood film. Class consciousness is something rarely seen in the media, but it's important that we're aware of it. As the film shows, fighting inequality is not about ideology (being a 'red') but about acknowledging an obvious injustice. John Ford, despite his conservative associations, did make films about unions (see also How Green Was My Valley) and he creates a poetic melancholy in The Grapes of Wrath through the tale of poverty and desperation. His technique is, as always, well considered and his use of shadows and silhouettes creates anonymity amongst the suffering.
It's difficult to approach a classic like The Grapes of…
“Grapes of Wrath” is a shadow of the American odyssey.
As directed by John Ford, the lumbering, towering automobile of the Joad family makes its way across the frontier looking like a wagon train rattling along the Oregon Trail. Where the wagons would leave tin and furniture at the crossings of vast rivers and steep mountains, Ford films piles of discarded sundries on the outskirts of migrant camps in Southern California.
As captured by cinematography great Gregg Toland, “Grapes” was, as Ford put it, “a beautifully photographed movie with nothing beautiful in it to shoot.” Toland and Ford switch effortlessly between tones in the film. The Hoovervilles have the sharp edges and claustrophobia of German expressionism. The unending plains and…
(Catching Up on the Classics Series)
Throughout the course of human history, it has become inevitable that those in power will exploit everyday people.
"We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out; they can't lick us. We'll go on forever, Pa, 'cause we're the people."
Ever since I read author John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men' in school, I have always been curious to learn more about his other famous story The Grapes of Wrath, which is about The Dust Bowl of the 1930s'. During this period in history, the combination of The Great Depression and drought caused prairie farmers to lose their farms. And in The Grapes of Wrath, the Joads from Oklahoma are among the failed…
Painting a gritty yet authentic portrait of family life ravaged by economic hardships, The Grapes of Wrath covers the strenuous ordeal faced by one family as it struggles to keep itself together when everything around them is falling apart. Steered by John Ford's assured direction & powered by a couple of stellar performances, it remains one of the most memorable works of its era.
Set during the Great Depression, the story of The Grapes of Wrath follows Tom Joad who's out of prison on parole, only to find that his family has been forced off their own land. Managing to reunite with them eventually, Tom & the Joad family set off to California in search for better work, opportunities & a hopeful future…
If there was a law, they was workin' with maybe we could take it, but it ain't the law. They're workin' away our spirits, tryin' to make us cringe and crawl, takin' away our decency.
-Tom Joad
John Ford the man that had made a career off of films depicting the beginning of the American Dream and the conquering of the West, here adapts John Steinbeck's novel depicting the end of that dream. I'm in awe at how a film that should be just the most depressing viewing experience imaginable could turn out to be so engrossing.
One of the primary reasons, but not the only one, is the incredible performance by Henry Fonda as Tom Joad. One of the…
Film Club Reboot
Recommend by Sushi
*banjo plucking*
What a beautiful and sad story about the struggles of the Great Depression. John Ford directs this film with honesty and melancholy. Henry Fonda’s powerful performance makes it work despite the film losing its motion in the middle. I can think of the modern version of this film Minari taking the influence.
Cinematic Time Capsule
1940 Marathon - Film #43
”Sure don’t look none too prosperous”
The Joads travel from one situation to the next looking for an ounce of hope, and every time it feels like things are finally looking up, this film hits you upside the face like a lead pipe and reminds you that it’s all about despair.
This film is the very definition of despair.
Every time I watch it I get equal parts depressed and equal parts grateful for the luck I’ve had. To think what these people went through in the midst of the great depression. It’s one thing to read about it or be told about it, but John Ford earns his directing Oscar by…
Henry Fonda appears out of the ether walking down the middle of a deserted highway. Telephone poles line the road like tombstones. It is the perfect opening to a movie and a quintessential black and white shot. This shot was most likely filmed in 1939. It was done by arguably the greatest cinematographer ever – Greg Toland. The following year he would hook up with Orson Welles and change the game forever with a little film called Citizen Kane. But here Toland is just “slumming” it with John Ford. Yeah that John Ford. The one who did all those John Wayne westerns with doorway shots in Monument Valley. Movies should have just packed it in after The Grapes of Wrath.…
Henry Fonda is amazing in this film.
The film is about the all American dream and how much hardship arises when trying to achieve it. A brutal yet beautiful film from 1940 that feels seemingly ageless over 80 years later.
Fonda is the heart of this film! Similar to 12 Angry Men, it's an amazing film lifted even higher by the hands of Fonda. He brings so much charm and hope for the audience and is a driving force as to why I was invested in them.
I'm fond of Fonda... Letterboxd please don't delete my account for this horrible pun.
"I ain't going to California! This is my country and I belong here. It's my dirt... it's no good, but it's mine."
- Grandpa Joad
This is quite spectacular: a gorgeously old-fashioned, beautifully framed, wonderfully scripted piece of early 40's Hollywood history.
It's a well told screenplay that tells of the Joad's eviction from their Oklahoma prairieland farm following continued drought and their travels to a new life in the promised land of Califor-ni-yay.
The Grapes of Wrath is mostly about the hope of people though. There is a significantly large cast in the film, and everyone plays their part to deliver thrills, spills and a few tears along the way. Classic.
This adaptation of the John Steinbeck 1939 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel features some stunning cinematography from Greg Toland (Citizen Kane) together with some expert direction from the legendary John Ford. Screenwriter Nunnally Johnson successfully manages to preserve the spirit of the novel reasonably carefully even though it softens the tone of the original text and narrows the scope to focus on it being more optimistic. It primarily follows the first part of the book and places its focused on survival and the triumph of the human spirit, whereas the book culminates with the toppling and breakup of the Joad family.
