#95
Starring:
Henry Fonda
Jane Darwell
John Carradine
Directed By:
John Ford
1941 Academy Awards
Winner:
Best Supporting Actress
Best Director
So this is old. More than a month old. But life has been busy and sitting to watch anything and blog about it? Not really happening. This was just something that I was doing while I was watching the movie, mostly just my thoughts as it played. Watching it, I really felt the need to put my thoughts down. So I apologize that it's a bit disjointed. Looking back at it, I attempted to have this make a more narrative type sense but then realized this as it was was truer to what I was thinking at the time. And because trying to have it make any more readable sense was close to impossible LOL
While this isn't among those films that won the Academy Award for Best Picture (although it was nominated) it did win Oscars for Best Supporting Actress for Jane Darwell and Best Director for John Ford. It was also included in both of AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies lists, at #21 and #23 respectively.
Early August...
In the category of You Might Be A Movie Geek When...
Not much on tonight.
Could've watched the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Temple of Doom. Or the Hangover. I chose to sit thru The Grapes of Wrath from 1940.
Shot of tractor tracks past the family and through the house and then following behind the CAT as it keeps going is powerful. Doesn't matter what your income level is, you feel as if those tracks are run right over your own heart.
To think that your only choice is to load up everything you own that you can carry and leave is heartbreaking. The film makes an adventure of it of sorts with some cheerful music as the ride Rte 66 but the reality of it is harsh.
And then reality hits. What they are heading to, what they hope and assume is there, probably isn't. This is the Depression.
Some more stark reality - the car repair shop guy cant believe they are living on the road, ridding out to CA. The other says guess they don't know better. They have good jobs. They haven't felt the reality of no money and no job and no food
We've seen grandpa pass on the trip, now grandma.
How so much has changed. We travel some of the same routes and roads but dying on the trip doesn't happen. Its not the same journey
Scammers trying to get men to work without contract so they can stiff them on the wages.
Growers paying half what they say to get more work done for less wages. Keeping the families they employ - because the kids work too - from even being able to afford the overpriced goods in the only store they can get to, owned by the company.
The story isn't just about their hardships. Its about the family. How they're trying to keep together despite the hardships.
And then the promised land as it were. A camp run by the governmant Dept of Agriculture.
The kids don't even know what a bathroom is, what a sink, or a flush toilet is.
Finally a place were there is running water, decent food, licensed agents to get you work, dances even!
Even then things aren't perfect and the past catches up to them
So many layers -
Economy
Poverty
Injustice
Dealing with what comes in life
Were the people. We keep on living. They cant wipe us out they cant lick us we keep right on living
Could've watched the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Temple of Doom. Or the Hangover. I chose to sit thru The Grapes of Wrath from 1940.
While known to not be exactly like Steinbeck's book, this is one of the films teachers love to show. Sometimes seeing what you've read about in a book is the only way to really have the mind and the heart make a connection
Get to CA and there is no work. Get to a camp for transients and its packed. No work. No food.
Economy
Poverty
Injustice
Dealing with what comes in life
Just so interesting to see how while things have changed, they haven't. The more things change the more they stay the same, yeah? We are currently struggling with massive amounts of people being out of work (like I was at the time I watched this) or with people being underemployed (like I am now) and with the same issues of living conditions and hunger and poverty. Those things will never go away but even after all these years - 74 of them! - you'd think maybe this whole world would be a little better?
Just for a little extra, here's the film's Rotten Tomatoes page.
