FILM 1701 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: John Steinbeck, Farm Security Administration, Charley Grapewin
12 Apr 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Key words from the western: landscape, freedom, emptiness, frontier, borders and boundaries, conflict, civilization vs wilderness, old world vs new world, east vs west, law and order, politics of space, moral geography, peace-keeping, development. The western is a foundational tale or creation myth which tells us something about the social and cultural values at work. The populist-agrarian films picks up the narrative of the western but in the next phase after the frontier has been settled. Where small outposts and territories become farming communities/towns. The grapes of wrath: directed by john ford, based his film on the book by john steinbeck. Steinbeck won the nobel prize of literature for the novel american people caught in the depression crisis: the dust bowl era (dust storms the devastated the prairie territories) black blizzards that reduced visibility to about one yard. Fsa (farm security administration: striker had 4 photographers working with him to document the depression - arthur.
