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Day 225: December 11th, 2010
The Grapes of Wrath
It's an older film, so I have to like it, right?
John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath is based on the book by John Steinbeck and is regarded as one of the greatest American films ever made. The film deals with a poor family who are forced off their land and travel to California suffering from the Great Depression.
The main themes within the film centre on depression. This one family depicted in the film speaks for thousands of others with the same problems. The film has some great cinematography, look at the scene in which the entire place is dark, with only one light source being a candle. The entire scene is shot with close-ups, so the audience doesn't get the chance to see what's going to happen. Clearly we aren't suppose to, and this is the director showing control.
The scene with the caterpillar tractors heading towards the farm is a powerful one. We have this one little man standing up to a machine, sadly it fails. The screen itself has the tractor trails super-imposed on it, hitting the audience with the message that nothing is going to stop these men and their machines.
I personally thought the scenes in this film were beautifully shot and powerful. Every character feels real and you connect with them, their poverty. We feel what they feel, we are powerless to stop the caterpillar tractors, just like the characters.
The Grapes of Wrath
It's an older film, so I have to like it, right?
John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath is based on the book by John Steinbeck and is regarded as one of the greatest American films ever made. The film deals with a poor family who are forced off their land and travel to California suffering from the Great Depression.
The main themes within the film centre on depression. This one family depicted in the film speaks for thousands of others with the same problems. The film has some great cinematography, look at the scene in which the entire place is dark, with only one light source being a candle. The entire scene is shot with close-ups, so the audience doesn't get the chance to see what's going to happen. Clearly we aren't suppose to, and this is the director showing control.
The scene with the caterpillar tractors heading towards the farm is a powerful one. We have this one little man standing up to a machine, sadly it fails. The screen itself has the tractor trails super-imposed on it, hitting the audience with the message that nothing is going to stop these men and their machines.
I personally thought the scenes in this film were beautifully shot and powerful. Every character feels real and you connect with them, their poverty. We feel what they feel, we are powerless to stop the caterpillar tractors, just like the characters.