THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940)

No American state encapsulates the American Dream better than California: the land of opportunity that’s forever reckoning with how little of it there may be for the many who still make the journey to the Golden State in search of a better life.

For the Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath, the promise of California’s prosperity is no more than a mirage. For them and millions of so-called “Okies” who fled the devastating poverty of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl, only to find more of it at their destination, their suffering plays like a cruel joke against the backdrop of ripe fruit orchards and sunshine.

No one understood this tension better than the novel’s author, John Steinbeck, whose favourite setting, both literal and metaphorical, was the California landscape of his home. And no filmmaker was better at capturing the staggering beauty and heartbreaking fragility of that landscape than John Ford.

The novel won the ‘Pulitzer Prize for Fiction’ in 1940, making the film adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath both hotly anticipated and hotly debated. Though one of the most popular books of that time, it was also highly controversial for its leftist politics and unflinching depiction of the abuses migrants faced at the hands of farmers and law enforcement.

It was hardly the escapist subject matter that a post-Depression America had come to expect from Hollywood, and with increasing hysteria surrounding the book’s perceived communist leanings, 20th Century Fox head Daryl F. Zanuck presented Ford with the delicate task of translating the novel into a crowd-pleasing drama. He hoped, perhaps, that cinema’s pre-eminent myth-maker could inject some patriotism into the film, shielding the studio from accusations of un-American activity.

But Ford, who was also experiencing a marked increase in success and visibility after the release of Stagecoach (1939), wasn’t one to back down from a challenge. Coming from a family of Irish immigrants, he drew inspiration from stories of the Great Famine and felt a connection with the Joad family’s crucible across the West.

Shot in black-and-white, the film delivers a bold realism that evokes the photography of Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams. Where a lesser director may have chosen to soften or glamorise the rough realities of the Joad family, Ford opts to sharpen his focus.

The cinematography of Gregg Toland (who would go on to shoot 1941’s Citizen Kane) is uncompromising. His signature wide shots deploy a deep field of focus, highlighting the sobering challenges the family faces on their journey.

Ford is committed to rendering both his subject’s plight and their dignity in heartbreaking detail. The cast wears little to no make-up, and many of them give career-best performances here, a credit to his faith in the power of an actor’s performance. He may be best remembered for the way he collaborated with the American terrain, but he deserves more credit for his long collaborations with actors, many of whom returned to work with him again and again over decades.

Henry Fonda, already a Ford favourite after star turns in The Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) and Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), plays the protagonist and prodigal son Tom Joad. Newly released from prison, Tom returns to the Oklahoma family farm to find it abandoned, and his family evicted. The drought and Dust Bowl have left their once bucolic homestead a wasteland. He reunites with his family on the eve of their exodus.

Fonda was by this time a huge star, and he anchors the film with pathos and a righteous anger simmering beneath the surface. While the novel sprawls and diverts from its central characters, Ford chooses to focus more heavily on Tom and Ma Joad (Jane Darwell), letting the rest of the family fall more into the background.

Ford was an expert at eliciting a performance from the actor that would be the most impactful, the most surprising, the most human. He scorned rehearsal and endless takes in favour of spontaneity, addicted to capturing the truth of a scene’s emotion in real-time. Though wide shots will forever be the hallmark of his style, the close-ups in this film are what lingers after the credits roll.

Early in the film, Ma Joad sorts through her few belongings, deciding what to take with her on the trip. When she comes to a pair of earrings, her only fine pair, we see her hold them up to her face in the mirror, a wave of grief washing over her face. A wordless scene, the close-up perfectly illustrates her emotions and sets up a series of increasingly heartbreaking scenes where she is forced to say goodbye to a little more of herself each time.

These moments of sorrow, such as when a gaggle of starving children surround Ma Joad as she prepares a meagre stew for her family, Ford chooses to punch in on their hungry faces. He forces the viewer to bear witness when we would rather look away, refusing to compromise for the sake of comfort.

And finally, the penultimate scene, when Tom decides to leave his family for good. Having shot the film largely in sequence, this scene was put off until the end of production; Ford wanted to give the actors time to develop their connection so that when the time came, all they had to do was sit down, say the lines, and let the emotions come organically.

As Fonda gives the now-famous speech, promising his mother “I’ll be everywhere”, knowing he may never see her again, the camera lets his face fill the frame. Ford cuts between Fonda’s fervent, unblinking expression and Darwell’s as her character drinks in her son’s face for the last time. The scene is one of the film’s best and deserves a more prominent place in Ford’s legacy.

The film’s ending differs most greatly from the novel, eschewing Steinbeck’s bizarre and tragic end for a more vaguely hopeful one. This is perhaps the only time Ford pulls punches, letting the audience off the hook in favour of a more predictable Hollywood ending.

As Ma Joad rides out of the government camp without Tom, her gaze forever towards the horizon, she proudly proclaims that though her family may be divided, they can never be beaten because “we’re the people that live.” The speech is stirring and well delivered, and likely the scene that earned Darwell the Academy Award for ‘Best Supporting Actress’, but it’s the most glaring example of the film’s limitations.

Where Steinbeck doubled down on his condemnation of the ruling class’s culpability in the oppression of the poor, Ford chooses to end on something of a high. It’s an understandable choice, no doubt heavily influenced by the nervous studio’s desire to have a film that was more palatable than political. But it leaves something of the book’s magic on the cutting-room floor. Still, Ford had a hit. The film did incredibly well with audiences and earned John Ford his second Oscar for ‘Best Director’ (though he refused to attend the ceremony to accept it).

85 years on, The Grapes of Wrath isn’t the film Ford is best remembered for, but it represents an important entry in his career-long fascination with the American landscape and the sacrifices its people make for a piece of it.

Ford is famous for panoramic wide shots through Monument Valley; the endless expanse of the landscape against the vast horizon is meant to represent the boundless possibility of the frontier. In The Grapes of Wrath, Ford asks what happens when the land that sustained its people turns on them, making them refugees from one land to strangers in another.

It’s a more complex and nuanced exploration of the American Dream, both buoyed and weighted down by the belief that one day the country will make good on its promise of opportunity.

USA | 1940 | 129 MINUTES | 1.37:1 | BLACK & WHITE | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: John Ford.
writer: Nunnally Johnson (based on the novel by John Steinbeck).
starring: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Shirley Mills, John Qualen & Eddie Quillan.