Films Critiquing Social Scene of Their Era
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King Vidor's film The Crowd (1928) and John Ford's film The Grapes of Wrath (1939) were made in different eras a decade apart. The first is a silent film made during the later years of that form of filmmaking, and the second was produced in the post-Depression era of America when the effects of the Depression were still felt. The films each use strong imagery and filmic techniques to tell their respective stories and also to enhance their thematic content, in both cases a critique of the social scene of their eras. The Crowd appears to be a deceptively simple story which is all the more powerful for the way it hides its manipulation of technique, and the film appeals to audiences primarily on the strength of its characterizations and its human problems. The Grapes of Wrath is a more panoramic view of a period in American history that focuses on one family as a representation of an entire class, and the film is affecting both for its human characters and for the photographic power with which their story is presented.The film industry was just that--an industry--by the early 1920s, and the methods of production and distribution were set by the end of that decade. At the same time, while audience growth had been considerable, the studios sought new ways of attracting audiences, making use of the new two-strip technicolor process for special movies, and trying to develop a method of synchronizing sound and picture leading to a new era in filmmaking. By the time The Crowd
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theater. The two laugh at the clown performing on stage, and the camera begins in a close two-shot in which we see only these two people. The camera then slowly pulls back to reveal the crowd of which these two are a part, the audience in the theater. Vidor universalizes his message with such simple movements, linking the two main characters with all of humanity and asserting that the themes of the film apply to everyone.
This is not an image that only appears at the end of the film, of course, and throughout these two characters are seen both as individuals and as part of a larger crowd. John works in an office and sits at a desk, one of dozens in a large room, each with a man just like John working at it. John's ambition is to escape from the crowd, to lift himself to greater heights, but like many people he lacks the talent to accomplish this. Vidor asserts that there is no shame in being part of the crowd.
Vidor's film is a low-key production compared to the melodrama common in the silent film of his time, meaning that Vidor tries to be more realistic and to avoid the heroic gestures and contrived plots of most films of the time. Vidor was known for his ability with actors and for working in a style that was realisti
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1667
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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