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April 27, 2004
The Grapes of Wrath
I watched John Ford's 1940 film version of The Grapes of Wrath tonight. It's a fascinating film, what Roger Ebert calls a "a left-wing parable, directed by a right-wing American director," in a review written before the DVD release. I'd never seen the film before, but the famous shot of the Joad family riding their battered, decrepit car into the destitute Okie transient camp in California has haunted me ever since I saw that scene in a clip tape we used in film courses at the University of Illinois. It's a great shot (by Citizen Kane cinematographer Gregg Toland), and while I probably won't be able to teach the whole film in my summer class, I'm trying to catalog a few film clips that I'd like students to see, and this shot beautifully captures Toland and Ford's near-documentary style in Grapes.
I take Ebert's point that the dialogue can seem a little preachy. Specifically, he mentions the scene in which Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) says good-bye to his mother near the end of the film ("Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there"), and I certainly recognized the speech as self-conscious (echoing similar lines by Eugene Debs), but I'm not sure that it's entirely disproportionate to the scene or to Joad's charismatic character.
Posted by chuck at April 27, 2004 2:15 AM
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Lucky Day: Wherever there is injustice, you will find us.
Ned Nederlander: Wherever there is suffering, we'll be there.
Dusty Bottoms: Wherever liberty is threatened, you will find...
All: The Three Amigos!
Posted by: Rusty at April 27, 2004 3:58 PM
Okay, so maybe the language *is* a little over the top in "Grapes...."
Just realized that I haven't seen "The Three Amigos" in about fifteen years.
Posted by: chuck at April 28, 2004 12:18 AM
It's funny...
I bought a boxed set with four Akira Kurosawa films a few months ago, and when I saw Seven Samurai I was thinking to myself, "Hey, this is a lot like Three Amigos."
Posted by: Rusty at April 28, 2004 7:11 AM