In the central part of the United States of America lies a limited area called “the dust bowl”,Because of its lack of rain.Here drought and poverty combined to deprive many farmers of land.
There is an area in the central United States called the "dust storm zone" because of the lack of rain. The drought and poverty here have caused many farmers to lose their land.
This is the story of one famer's family, driven from their by natural disasters and economic changes beyond anyone's control and their great journey in search of peace, security, and another home.
This is the story of a peasant family who was driven out by natural disasters and uncontrollable economic changes, and they were on a great journey to find peace, security and another homeland.
———————
In the foreign films I have watched, most of them are blue and black, and there are also many white and yellow ones, but I did not expect to see such completely red works in the film history of Ugly Kingdom. Although the "Sullivan's Journey" and "Green Mountain and Green Valley" I have seen before are also works that reflect class contradictions, they are far from the film's ideological clarity and determination. If you say "Su" is hiding in a bed The weak prayers chanted, the film "Blue" is a poem full of emotions chanted in the face of the ruins, while the "Grapes of Wrath" is the brave charge horn blown by the soldiers in the trenches.
The homeland is also used as a symbol to describe the destruction of the natural economy by industrialization and the resulting social and family changes. "Green Hills and Cuigu" describes the whole process of the gradual fragmentation of the homeland, which is the memory of old dreams. "It tells the story of finding a new home after losing one's home, and it is a longing for a new ideal. Although the two films stand under the same era background, because of the different focus, "Grapes of Wrath" has extraordinary significance beyond the era.
The film describes the hardships and tragic experiences of land-lost peasants after they became proletarians under the conditions of a specific era. However, if you look at the entire history of human society, resources are constantly concentrated in the hands of a few people, and people are forced to undergo cruelty. The competition, oppression, and struggle of the world overthrow, break, and reorganize the social structure time and time again. Isn’t this cycle of repetition permanent?
When I watched this film, it was hard not to think of the living conditions of the bottom layer that I had been in contact with, whether in mines or factories, as well as those street occupations that were rough and shabby like a cow and horse. Life, they all make me daunting and daunting. "996", "introduction", "sudden death", and "suicide", these hot keywords in today's society, are the phenomena they represent differ in essence from those shown in the film?
The industrial revolution at the beginning of the last century caused the industrial society to disintegrate the agricultural society. The unrestricted development of capital spawned a serious social crisis and the anger of the proletarians. Let’s look at the industrial informatization at the beginning of this century. The intelligent revolution is launching against the old industry. The new round of shock is also intensified vicious competition, which has spawned a new hesitation of hitting workers in the new era.
I saw a widely recommended video the day before yesterday. In answering a question from a female boxer, Wen Tiejun talked about the increase in the suicide rate of the elderly in rural areas due to the great social changes. The workers are in a dilemma. After the capital has extracted the best years of the laborers, they have been abandoned. The changes in the rural economic system have prevented them from staying in the city for their old age, nor can they return to the past rural life.
The particularity of our country's development cycle has allowed our proletarians to experience the unique pains of the last century and the unique struggles of this century at the same time. In this era, a person who has lost the means of production is not only reduced to a labor commodity to be slaughtered, but what is even more frightening is that rapid technological progress and manpower renewal will quickly shorten your shelf life and make you an expired commodity.
At that time in the film, capital's choice of people was only a crude price squeeze. A worker with a low unit cost would eliminate another worker with a high unit cost. Now, capital squeezes all the elements that make up this person. It will grab your age, it will grab your beauty, it will grab your health, your talents, it will grab your existing education and abilities, it will also grab your malleability and creativity, even your Gender, your family and background, your resume, your contacts, your hobbies, your morals, your sexual orientation, your values, your character, your attitude, your beliefs, your credit rating. ...All things considered, when one of the content is rejected, the whole person is completely rejected - it is hard to say that the living conditions of the current laborers are superior to those of the previous laborers.
The reason why a great literary work is classic is that such a work can always contain some universal laws of human society, and these universal laws can resonate with people in different eras. No matter how long time passes, it can be impressed. State the common aspirations of people in different eras.
Isn't "Grapes of Wrath" exactly such a work?
The grapes of anger are not the anger of a grape, because the grapes never grow individually, and the grapes are always a tightly integrated group. The "Grapes of Anger" is not just about a small family of insignificance. The story, it stands on the opposite of all the vanity of mankind, and stands with a broad group of eternal misfortune.
What is this group like? The film gave us a very touching image. These poor people still maintain their optimism and love of life in such an embarrassing situation. In the scene in the exodus camp, even if the children are hungry, they did not engage in shameless begging and rude snatching. They still share their food compassionately even when the food is not enough; these poor people are honest, but by no means stupid, they have the wisdom to see through deception, and the wisdom to fight against power; the most important thing is their bravery and strength, no matter how they live. The blows came one after another, and they never give up!
And they are honest. Honesty, what a precious quality this is! They have never thought of not relying on labor in exchange for happiness! Moreover, all their dissatisfaction does not stem from dissatisfaction with themselves as the hired, nor dissatisfaction with material poverty. Their anger stems from the fact that they have not been treated honestly and impartially. Their anger is because they "like being Drive around like reptiles", their dignity as a person is ruthlessly trampled on!
When the protagonist’s family came to the resettlement camp organized by the government by mistake, when the protagonist just heard that there was running water, toilets, and dance parties in the resettlement camp, he smiled. He said, his first time. I feel that I am treated as a person with respect — how can I not be moved by them when I see this place? With such a simple and lovely quality, they have never had extravagant expectations for society. They just require honest labor to be honestly rewarded, and respect their right to live like a truly equal "person", instead of treating them as animals. , As a tool!
How can such a film not be touched? Think of the people who live in ugly snail dwellings in Hong Kong, think of the people at the bottom of the pyramid who have been struggling for a lifetime in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and can’t afford to buy a house, and think of those who were treated as criminals and lost their ID cards when they were called in the factory. People who pick up in the humiliation underground, think about those who did not receive the care and sympathy they deserve until their sudden death in front of their desks working overtime late at night, think about those who can no longer bear the hopeless life of a machine in their youth, the final choice People who commit suicide are alive like walking corpses...These are the most precious inventions of life, soul and flesh creatures. These are the most shining quality gods in the world—they "people" "Does their physiology and psychology really get the respect that we should treat a person?
The greatness of this work is not only that it fully recognizes the justice of the people, but also that it advocates the use of struggle to achieve this justice. How could this happen in a capitalist bastion like Ugly Country? ! It's incredible!
There is no such thing as the usual religious style in Western works. There is no hypocritical preaching, no sweet comfort, no powerless empty sigh, no meek obedience, no compromise compromise, and no cowardly escape! Only at the end of the film, Henry Fonda’s persistent gaze and firm steps, he declared war with a deep sense of consciousness. He said: "We are living a life that is not as good as a horse. Some people own tens of thousands of hectares of land. , And thousands of people are starving to death, we can unite!" "I am going to find a way to change everything now!", he said: "A person’s soul should not belong to oneself, it just belongs to A small part of everyone’s big soul, I will be everywhere in the dark, and your eyes will be me! Wherever the poor fight to eat, there will be me! Wherever the police beat the poor, I will be there! I will be in the crowd of angry shouting, I will be laughing when the children smell the scent of dinner! I will be there when people can enjoy their own food and live in homes built with hands! "
When he kissed his tearful mother with a mortal determination goodbye, walked steadily to the heights of the hill, and walked towards the bright sunrise on the other side of the hill. The image of this character has been sublimated from a mortal womb. On the spiritual level, he has melted into the self in the hearts of each of us, and into the whole of the people, because the direction he is moving forward is the direction that our human civilization should always adhere to!
John Ford makes good use of symbolic shots to express the meaning above the plot. At the beginning of the film, a lonely walker who walks from a wide crossroad, implying the people's destiny and helplessness in history, is used at the end of the film. The protagonist walks towards the dawn in the dark as an answer to the language of the first shot, so that the classic shot that echoes before and after will appear again in his later film "Sunset in the Sand". In my impression, the scene of this big intersection has been used as a tribute to this classic film for reference by several movies.
For a socially responsible work of art, it must not only ask questions, not only point out the direction, but also propose ways to solve the problems, and use strong confidence to predict the results, so as to enhance the inspiring effect.
The mother of the protagonist of the film arranged this paragraph at the end of the film:
"...We will be stronger only if there is a blow. The rich (the exploiting class) will soon die out. The monopoly they want to pass on will not last, but we will never end. We are the people and cannot To obliterate, cannot be eliminated,-we-because we are the people!"
This passage of the mother's deafening oath is like a Communist Manifesto, and it serves as the best footnote to the rationality and justice of the cause of his son's commitment. Mother and son, they are a complementary relationship. It is precisely because of such a kind mother that such a great hero can be born. It is precisely because there are people who are like sons who are determined to dedicate themselves, and mothers have this kind of relationship. Isn't the strong confidence and the greatness of the people radiating most enthusiastically from them?
In "Grapes of Wrath", the plot fictionalizes a government-sponsored refugee resettlement camp, which uses an experimental collectivist community to propose solutions to real problems. Under this concept, the people conduct self-management, and the state provides workers with employment and welfare through public utilities and policy contracting. This beautiful idealistic homeland is actually the embryonic form of primary socialism. The reason why the author proposed this model is that similar attempts had already appeared in reality at that time. We know that between the two world wars, the Soviet Union, the United States, Germany, and several of the most advanced countries all used nationalism. Means to solve the serious social crisis and rejuvenate the economic situation. But at the end of the film, we see that this community is actually unable to provide permanent shelter to the protagonist's family under the obstruction of capital. It is neither durable nor universally promoted. The author is just using this miniature utopia to pin his hopes for the future society.
In addition, it should be noted that even though this work has such roots, it is not anti-political. From the beginning to the end, what stands on the opposite side of the poor in the film is only monopoly capital, profiteers, and the violence they employ. By praising the resettlement camps organized by the government, the image of the state power was smeared as pure and white as the toilets in the resettlement camps. This is the realistic limitation of the work and the author, and there is nothing to criticize, but I can't help but play. When I see the harmony of collective life in the resettlement camp, the neat and elegant decoration facilities that have been deliberately created, Too perfect to even reveal a bit of weirdness, the kind, amiable, overly refined behavior of the community officials, which is almost hypocritical, always reminds me of the model concentration camps and gas chambers of the Nazis....
It is unwise to point the spearhead at state organs and raise the banner of anti-regime. Just as I watched on the "Browse News" program at station B a few days ago, Ma Qianzhu said when commenting on the sudden death of pdd that it is unrealistic to completely eliminate competition. Under the current economic framework, we must treat workers well. Relying on increasing investment in social welfare and making national taxation responsible for the increase in the value of workers is the reform of the distribution system. --- This is also a helpless compromise to reality.
The compromise of an artistic work cannot weaken its social value. The key to the problem is at what height the creator stands to influence the original intention of his creation. A writer or director who has high demands on his own sentiments will regard his work as The sacred mission, he will integrate his own interests with the most basic emotions of the people, summarize the joys, angers and sorrows in ordinary life, and guide people to continuously realize their own values.
When such a work comes out, it is impossible for us to say that it is rubbish anyway. And only those who don't care what they are, they will speak wildly, saying that because there are garbage audiences, there are garbage movies.
Finally, let me use "Grapes of Wrath" to slap those capitalist running dogs "artists" angrily in the face!
View more about The Grapes of Wrath reviews
