Review of The Grapes of Wrath (1940) by Tim H — 04 Apr 2008

Okay, I'm going to try this again without hitting the F5 key. Apparently, that reloads the page. Whoops.

I finally get this movie. I'm not going to lie. I was one of the kids in high school who started this book, but never finished it. I find it funny that I'm only student teaching away from becoming an English teacher myself and it took this long to really appreciate this story. Perhaps some of the classics aren't finding their prime environment in the high school setting. It's a shame, because this tale is painful.

Before I go on, I'd like to state that I was truly moved at one point in this movie. It's a small scene on the grand scale of everything, but when Tom Joad asked his mother to dance, I actually was almost moved to tears. It was this beautiful moment among all this sadness. I get why it is called the Great Depression now.

People were terrible to one another. I'm both happy and a little ashamed to review this movie from a critical literacy perspective because I see the evils done in this movie with an understanding of why it happened. It doesn't excuse what happens in this film. The cops are the devil in this story and everyone hates the farmer. But it all comes from fear and fear makes people do crazy things that they normally wouldn't do.

It's been a long time since I "read" the novel, but John Ford does a really good job (with the exception of avoiding thirty pages about a turtle and the end) covering this story. This is his element and it only makes sense that they brought him on board to direct this film. Henry Fonda is perfect in the role (although I didn't see him in that part initially.) Fonda always plays these justice parts (now that I know his background, that's terrifying.) like in Twelve Angry Men. I see Henry Fonda's character persona as a man who sees through all the evil and blindness in the world and stands tall for what is right. When he escapes the peach ranch to find out why people are standing at the door, I was simultaneously thinking "no, don't do it! You'll ruin something halfway decent," but I know that I wouldn't stand for the movie not addressing that. It would have been out of character.

This really does deserve to be named one of the top movies of all time. I am a better man for having watched it.