The Grapes of Wrath (1940): Thematic Emphasis Through Visual Style

Abstract

Wrath has attracted enormous and enduring critical and popular attention.' Yet, in some ways it has also remained a neglected film, a film obscured by the shadow of its illustrious parentage (John Ford out of John Steinbeck) and by its generic absorption into that body of culturally significant art representative of and concerned with Depression America. Certainly, The Grapes of Wrath was and still is a highly visible film; its popularity as a classic is evidenced by its frequent appearance on prestigious commercial television series, at cinema club retrospectives, and in literature, film, and American Studies classrooms across the country. In addition, the film enjoys a wealth of critical consideration-as an adaptation of a work of fiction, as a cultural artifact which illuminates various aspects of popular American ideology and myth, and as part of the oeuvre of a major film auteur. Paradoxically, however, this widely considered film has suffered from visual neglect. Examined from several critical perspectives, The Grapes of Wrath has been more frequently looked into than looked at. Its visual surfaces have been hardly explored and mapped, its texture and tone have been rarely considered as functions of its imagery, and its dominant thematic emphasis has been only minimally related to its visual style. The reasons for this literal and figurative oversight can be linked, of course, to the myopia demanded by focused and limited critical discourse. Adaptation criticism, for example, is practiced through a comparison of a novel and film. And, no matter how sophisticated and cinematically liter-