The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath is a testament to the people whose story is told, and is a profound and revolutionary social and economic critique, the meaning of which goes far beyond the Oklahoma dust-bowl and the orchards of California. It is both mythic and real, and its humanity universal. It is the greatest American film ever. John Ford's realisation captures the spirit of Steinbeck's novel completely. His adaptation is respectful, and his ending utterly faithful to the book's intent. Steinbeck's suckling metaphor is one of hope, where from the deepest tragedy rises a like a phoenix the basic decency of simple people giving all that they have left to a stranger. Tom's leaving is inevitable. He is radicalised and his path is strictly defined. What happened to the Joads happened to thousands of families: the banks' perfidy, the exploitation by farmers, and the hostility to organized labour, are historical facts, and these essential elements are the backbone of the film. The killing of Casy is one of the most politically powerful scenes in US movie history, and the case for government intervention is as strongly stated as it can be in the camp sequence. Gregg Toland's photography prefigures the neo-realists. The integrity of Nunnally Johnson's script and Ford's unerring sense of pathos, have left us not only a film of deep humanity but an important social artefact. The makers of The Grapes of Wrath, to paraphrase De Sica on the neo-realists, offer us "a transformed reality from which they drew forth the inner, human, and therefore universal meaning: it is reality transposed to the realm of poetry". Roberto Rossellini's landmark neo-realist Open City, is also a film the meaning of which goes beyond the immediate drama of the story and its historical genesis. It is film where the struggle of daily existence and life's tragedies are related unadorned and with supreme empathy and authenticity. Open City is a film of its time and beyond time, grounded in real lives played out in real homes and real streets. The film opened up the horizon not only of a freedom so harshly won, but of a new cinema beyond the 'illusion of reality'. When Francesco speaks to Pina on the eve of their wedding, he speaks of aspirations that are timeless: "We're fighting for something that has to be, that can't help coming. Maybe the way is hard, it may take a long time, but we'll get there, and we'll see a better world. And our kids will see it. Marcello and - him, the baby that coming". Tom Joad's last word's to his mother echo the same sentiments: "I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - 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. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too."