#21: The Grapes of Wrath

Okay, so I'm living in Monterey County, CA, home of world famous Nobel Prize winning author John Steinbeck, and I'm realizing that I have no concept of what he wrote, or why. (My literary ignorance is a little embarrassing - I skipped AP English in high school because I was going to major in Computer Science in college, and, yes, I was quite lazy my senior year.) So, I figure that this is a perfect opportunity to familiarize myself with a renowned author's work, as well as take another movie off my AFI list.

Going into the movie, I had a very vague notion of what to expect, plot wise. There's dust, depression, hardship, and some farmers. Other than that (and the 7 Oscar nominations and 2 wins from the DVD case) I really didn't know what the next two hours would hold. I was eager to educate myself, (yes, reading the book is something I plan to do) and come away with some appreciation of Steinbeck's work.

So, after the movie I can honestly say that it was not what I had expected.  I don't think that I had a clear mental picture I had in my head for the film, but for whatever reason, I think that I had pictured it taking place in the 1800's - even though I knew that it was a depression era story.  That is to say that it was much more modern than I had expected.  The movie itself was very well done and holds up well over time.  A lot of movies from the 40's and 50's end up coming across as very corny: corny acting with very dated dialogue. The Grapes of Wrath, however avoided that, for the most part.

The story was very good - the hardships of the Joad family as they are forced, by a combination of bad weather and farming modernization, to leave their Oklahoma sharecropped farm in search of work and a better life in California. As I learned a bit later, Oklahoma had the highest rate of tenant farmers and, when the system began to fall apart, there was a large scale migration of people to California looking for work. The movie follows the family as they travel, detailing the hardships on the road as well as the ones they face in California. Desperate for work, they fall victim to a farmer's strikebreaking scheme, as well as face distrust and incivility in the many migrant camps which they stay in during their travels.

The movie had many poignant scenes, most revolving around human dignity, or the loss thereof. The diner where Pa buys bread; the treatment and lack of information at the strike; the shot woman at the transient camp; when they reach the government camp in California and are treated fairly.

I found it to be a very thought provoking movie. While it was a story, in every sense of the word, I also saw it as a historical piece, a quasi-documentary made by people who had lived through and could remember the Great Depression. I don't know that a film made in modern times would be able to capture some of the same feelings that a film made so close to the source time period could.  It brought to mind the unity that America experienced after 9/11.  It's a shame that it takes disasters like these to bring the country together as one.

#15: Star Wars

This is a tough movie to write about, since, to me, it is the movie, so I'm going to take a slightly different angle for Star Wars. The world certainly doesn't need another rehash or review of Star Wars, as it has become so ingrained in our culture that you'd be hard pressed to find someone who didn't at least have a passing knowledge of Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and their adventures among the stars. In addition to that, a quick trip into any Wal-Mart can attest to the legacy of commercialization that Star Wars has given us. I don't feel the need to analyze those things, so instead I'm going to write about what Star Wars means to me, and my personal memories surrounding the movie.

To begin, I honestly cannot remember a time in my life without Star Wars. My earliest memory as a child was seeing The Empire Strikes Back at the King of Prussia mall near Philadelphia. I have a vivid visual memory of two things: the moment the wampa bursts onto the screen, and how the theater looked from the parking lot. These memories illustrate that Star Wars has always been a part of my life. Probably more than anything else, it shaped my early life and stimulated the growth of my imagination. Because of the merchandising throughout the 80s, it's difficult to separate the actual movie from the toys that were a ubiquitous part of my childhood. For that reason, I'm just going to focus on the latest incarnation of the film.

I remember when the original Star Wars was re-released in theaters as part of the "special editions" of the trilogy. It was the spring of 1997, and I was still a plebe (freshman) at West Point. We were not yet allowed to have stereos or listen to music (though we'd all discovered the new phenomenon of "mp3s"). I was in my room on this particular day, when I suddenly heard the wonderful sound of the Star Wars theme. I quickly left my room and discovered that the Yuks (sophomores) across the hall had purchased the soundtrack! They felt pity on me and left their door ajar so that I could sit on the floor and listen to the music. I've seen Star Wars so many times that I was able to close my eyes and watch the movie in my head while listening to the soundtrack. It was a moment of perfect solace in an otherwise hectic and stressful time.

I knew, at that point, that I had to see the new release, at any cost. Fortunately, while restricted, we were not completely forbidden from traveling our first year. I happened to have at least one weekend pass that semester, so I used it to visit my parents. The first day that I was home, I immediately saw the Special Edition. It was an amazing experience, and one that I wanted to repeat. The following day I drove to the mall and saw it again. It was – again – an amazing experience. After the movie, I got into my car to head home, but never made it out of the parking lot. I didn't want the emotional high to end, so I looped around the parking lot, re-parked the car, and went back into the mall to see the movie a second time. I can honestly say that that day, away from the rigors and pressures of my first year at West Point, was a magical day that will always hold a special place in my memory. For one amazing afternoon I could forget about the stresses of life and be a part of a grand adventure, far, far away.

The final time that I saw the Special Edition on the big screen was back at West Point, at our cadet AAFES theater. It was a packed house, since most of the two underclasses had not seen it. I had gone with a group of friends from my company, and I was the only one who'd previously seen it. I was excited, one to see it again, but also to see how other people would react to it. I was, once more, blown away by seeing my absolute favorite movie in the theater again, but thoroughly disappointed by what went on around me. The people I'd gone with, while nominally Star Wars fans, were bored and actually didn't like the movie. I was shocked, to say the least. I knew that they wouldn't have the minute familiarity with the movie that I did to pick out each and every new digital detail. (Heck, I even noticed things as insignificant as the view out of the door of Luke's garage when he was cleaning R2-D2 and C-3PO!) I wasn't ready for their general apathy at seeing Star Wars in the theater.

In retrospect, some of the sour feelings may have come from the general exhaustion that all plebes live with at West Point. Some of these same friends would, two years later, be watching a 9+ hour marathon of the original trilogy with me, in order to get ready for the release of Episode I...which I saw on opening night...in costume... But that's a story for another time, on another blog.