The Grapes of Wrath In John Ford's film The Grapes of Wrath, the audience travels along with an Oklahoma family that has set out to find wealth and privileges in California during the Great Depression. The film was taken from John Steinbeck's classic novel The Grapes of Wrath. The filmakers intentions in putting this novel to screen was to show how the impact of the Great Depression effected the families of that time. The film was taped in a journalistic, documentary-style black and white texture which helped create a strong feeling of poverty and realism to the audience. The filmakers did a good job at recreating scenery to make the plot as real as possible. The use of actual dialect of the Okies, was helpful to make the dialogue as realistic as possible. Throughout the movie the family's clothing, possessions and even the car added to the effect that Steinbeck had created when he wrote his novel long ago. As the movie progresses, there is actually two stories, one of the individual journey of the Joad family, and one for telling the general plight of the migrants. The director shows the individual family to show that the migrants are really people and to bring their plight home to the audience.
he others. That shift in thinking is also accompanied with the replacement of the individual family by the world family. The thing that started the breakup of the individual family was the loss of their land. The family had lived there for many generations and had strong ties to the land. Getting thrown off the land was sort of like losing their family history. Grampa Joad died because he couldn't take leaving his home. He is the first family member to leave the family. Previous to this the Joads had always paid their own way and never asked for charity When they get to the government camp, there is a brief respite from the breakup of the family. They are finally getting treated like humans again. This shows the audience that there actually is some good in the world. To this point in the movie the family hasn't had any good fortune to look up to. The characters that were chosen to play the parts were great portraying their character roles. Peter Fonda who played Tom Joad did a!
great job is showing the depth of his character's harshness and sincerity. Tom Joad can be seen as the main protagonist. He is a strong, responsible person who doesn't like being pushed around. At the beginning of the book he had just got out of the state penitentiary and is on probation. That limits his actions when he gets to California because he broke parole and can't get arrested. He and the family have to flea after he g
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