The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

The Grapes of Wrath is a film based off of the 1939 Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won two of them: John Ford for Best Director and Best Supporting Actress for Jane Darwell as Ma Joad. Today it is considered an American Classic that takes an unprecedented for the time, difficult look at the reality many Americans faced during The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl Era.

The Grapes of Wrath is a tale of family and the power of coming together when the world has taken everything else from you.It's another John Ford pioneer film, only this time it's not a triumphant one. Instead of a large scale song about honorable American frontiersman, its an introspective look at a time when wholesome American values couldn't triumph over all else. It examines a time when America was on its knees, rather than on its horse. And this makes Grapes special. The American films of this Era were sooner to ignore any kind of National weakness rather than acknowledge them, much less dwell in them and set them at center stage.

The film gets so dark at times it almost feels like a Horror. The mood of some of these scenes becomes down-right eerie. Yet the comfort and warmth felt between the family is enough to provide a welcome safe haven for audience members to relax and appreciate the love that these characters have for eachother. It's also interesting seeing the way people talked in this region and at this time, which is drastically different from anything I've seen from any other films of the era. Though it may explain the message and sentiment around Chaplin's Modern Times a little better. Grapes is a film that sucks you into its devestated world and leads you to forget that the hardships experienced by these loving people really happened.