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Teaching and Learning Resource (TLR)

1. Title

Environmental Analysis of Films Part 2: Case Study of The Grapes of Wrath

2. Keywords

Environment, nature, films, media messages, representation.

3. Introduction

In an article on hazard perception and behaviour, Diana Liverman and Douglas Sherman write that “many people must obtain images of natural hazards from sources other than personal experience” (1). Amongst the sources they identify are novels and films which, unlike broadcast news programmes and newspapers, “provide us with fictional accounts of disaster.” They go on to discuss the popularity of such fictional accounts (which seems not to have diminished in the years since the article was first published), and their possible social implications - with reference to a large number of well-known films and novels from the 1970s and 80s. The authors approach these questions primarily as geographers “concerned with perception and response to natural hazards” who “consider popular culture, as expressed in novels and movies, as a potentially significant source of information about disaster.” However, for those with an interest in environmental issues, their article raises questions not just about the portrayal of natural hazards, but also of the environment/nature more generally. And for those with an interest in environmental sociology, it raises questions not just about the provision of ‘information’ (as a form of public education), but also about the social and environmental significance of what is portrayed. Thus, one might ask:

• What images of the environment/nature do people ‘obtain’ from films?
• What do the images tell us about the people/organisations who produce films, and the social context within which the films are produced?
• What effects do the images have on the people who consume films, and on society more generally? (2)

4. Aim

The TLR is the second in a set of two TLRs concerned with representations of the environment/nature in films. The aim of this second TLR is to develop the students’ abilities to undertake detailed analyses of such representations by means of a case study of John Ford’s 1940 classic film, The Grapes of Wrath.

5. Learning outcomes

After using this TLR, students should:

• be able to undertake detailed analyses of the environmental content of films - focusing, for example, on messages about what the environment is really like, relationships between humans and the environment, assumptions concerning environmental value and understandings of environmental ‘problems’.
• be able to make an informed contribution to debates about the social and environmental significance of film-making.

6. Pre-requisites

Students should already have some experience of analysing ‘messages’ about the environment/nature in films; and, in particular, they should have examined the ways in which such messages may change from moment-to-moment within films, as well as varying from film-to-film. Where this is lacking, the following TLR could be used prior to this one:

• Environmental Analysis of films Part 1: Exploring the Diversity

Ideally students should have some knowledge of ‘environmental values’, and some ability to analyse the value content of texts. Where this is lacking, the following TLRs could be used prior to this one:

• Introduction to Personal Environmental Values
• Approaches in Environmental Ethics
• Guidelines for the Analysis of Environmental Values in Texts

The TLR does not assume or require any specialist knowledge of film-making or film studies (including semiotics and structuralism). However, if a class contains students who do have such knowledge, their informed contributions should be encouraged.

7. How to use TLR

The TLR has been designed to be used with a class of up to about 20 students broadly as follows.

i) Introduce the TLR, reviewing the nature of the content, the aims and learning outcomes, and the way in which the TLR will be used.

ii) Invite the students to make notes on how they might begin to approach the environmental analysis of films. This could be handled as an all-class discussion, or an exercise for individual or small group work.

iii) Inform the students that they are going to be asked to undertake an exercise involving the environmental analysis of the first 20 minutes or so of the film, The Grapes of Wrath (see Section 9 - Stimulus Material), and give them a brief introduction to the film. Give each student a copy of the Briefing Sheet (see Appendix A), instruct them to read it, and check that they have understood it.

iv) Show the first 20 minutes or so of the film, asking the students to make notes on the environmental content of the film with reference to the points identified in the Briefing Sheet.

v) Conduct an all class discussion on the environmental content of the film (a set of Tutor Notes is provided in Appendix B).

vi) Conclude the session with a more general discussion of any important issues that have arisen during the course of the session. Issues that could be discussed include: the extent to which the film conveys one or more key ‘messages’ concerning the environment; the extent to which the film reinforces or challenges messages conveyed by other films with which the students are familiar; the value (eg educational, cultural, ecological) of critiquing films from an environmental perspective.

The TLR requires about 90 minutes of class time, including the 20-25 minutes required to show the film.

8. Instructions to students

As directed by tutor.

9. Stimulus Material

The TLR has been designed to be used with John Ford’s classic 1940 film, The Grapes of Wrath (20th Century Fox) (3). This film has the advantage of being widely available for purchase and hire; and of containing, within the first 20 minutes or so, material that is rich for the kind of environmental analysis proposed here. However, it should in principle be possible to use a wide variety of films with the TLR - chosen, for example, according to local availability, relevance to the students’ programme of study, or student/tutor interest.

10. Degree stage

The TLR has been designed to be used at degree stage two or three.

11. Resource requirements

The TLR requires facilities for viewing a video recording of a film.

12. Preparation

No preparation is required for this TLR.

13. Links with other TLRs

This TLR has been designed as part of a set of two TLRs concerned with representations of the environment/nature in films:

1. Environmental Analysis of Films Part 1: Exploring the Diversity
2. Environmental Analysis of Films Part 2: Case Study of Grapes of Wrath

The second of these TLRs can be used independently of the first, provided that the students satisfy the pre-requisites (see Section 6), or as a follow-up to it.

More generally, the aims and/or learning outcomes of this TLR are related to those of other TLRs listed in the following 'thematic cluster':

• Environment and the mass media

14. Follow-up activities

See Section 15 - Recommended reading and Section 13 - Links with other TLRs.

15. Recommended reading

For students who wish to learn more about the analysis of films, the following (non-environmental) introductory texts are recommended:

• Braudy, L and Cohen M (1998) Film Theory and Criticism. Oxford University Press.
• Perkins, VF (1993) Film as Film: Understanding and Judging Movies. De Capo Press.

For students who wish to deepen their knowledge of the representations of the environment/nature in the mass media more generally, the following texts are recommended:

• Anderson, A (1997) Media, Culture and the Environment. UCL Press, London. [Provides an accessible cultural analysis of news media coverage of environmental issues set within a context of pressure-group politics and the environmental lobby.]
• Burgess, J and Gold, J (eds) (1985) Geography, the Media and Popular Culture. London: Croom Helm. [See especially Chapter 4: Natural Hazards in Novels and Films: Implications for Hazard Perception and Behaviour (pp. 86-95) by Diana Liverman and Douglas Sherman.]
• Chapman, G et al (1997) Environmentalism and the Mass Media. The North-South Divide. Routledge, London. [Analyses the effect of cultural, political and religious context on the interplay of media coverage and public opinion / knowledge by means of a comparative study of the United Kingdom and India.]
• Gauntlett, D (1996) Video Critical. Children, the Environment and Media Power. University of Luton Press. [Provides a detailed investigation of the influence of television on children’s perception of the environment, based in part on an ethnographic study in which schoolchildren were invited to make their own videos about the environment.]
• Hansen, A (ed) (1993) The Mass Media and Environmental Issues. Leicester University Press. [Provides a collection of eleven papers on diverse aspects of media (especially news media) coverage of environmental issues.]
• Hochman, J (1998) Green Cultural Studies. Nature in Film, Novel, and Theory. University of Idaho Press. [Includes detailed textual readings of the films, The Silence of the Lambs, Deliverance and Daughters of the Dust.]

Appendix A

Environmental Analysis of Films Part 2: Case Study of The Grapes of Wrath

Briefing Sheet

Introduction to analysing films

Films can be analysed in a variety of ways - and from a variety of theoretical perspectives. However, for the purposes of this exercise, no specialist knowledge (eg of semiotics or structuralism) is required. Rather, you will be asked to undertake a provisional analysis of the first 20 minutes of the film, The Grapes of Wrath, based largely on your own, more or less immediate impressions of the film. This will involve consideration of both the denotative (explicit/literal) content of the film and its connotative (implicit) content. In reflecting on the connotative content, you might find it helpful to consider the ways in which meanings are signified by technical aspects of film direction and editing such as:

• camera angle/perspective
• closure/ending of the movie
• colour/light/lighting
• juxtaposition/sequencing of images
• long/short shots (including close-ups and panoramas)
• metaphor/symbol
• soundtrack
• tracking shots (especially with a hand-held camera)
• the weather

Analysing ‘messages’ about the environment/nature

The environment/nature (broadly defined) features in many - if not most - films in some way or other. However, the way in which it features may vary greatly from film-to-film and within films (4). Consequently, films may carry quite diverse ‘messages’ about the environment/nature. Thus, there is more to the environmental analysis of films than deciding whether or not a film is ‘environmental’, or whether it is pro- or anti-environment. For the purposes of this exercise, you will be asked to think about what messages the film contains in relation to the following:

• definitions of what count as environmental ‘problems’; the nature, extent, causes and implications of those problems; the most appropriate responses to them; and the location of responsibility for initiating and implementing those responses.
• ways in which the environment/nature is valued - including whether it is valued negatively (eg as a source of danger to be avoided, managed or destroyed) or positively (eg as a place of refuge/freedom); the importance attached to different kinds of human-based or instrumental value (eg aesthetic, cultural, economic/ development, educational, heritage, medicinal, scientific, spiritual value); whether non-human entities (eg individual organisms, species, habitats, ecosystems) are assumed to have intrinsic value and how these relate in importance to the different kinds of instrumental value; whether the interests in future generations (humans and/or non-humans) are taken into account and, if so, the basis on which this is done.
• ways in which humans interact with the environment/nature - including whether humans are part of, or apart from, the environment/nature.
• what the environment/nature is really like - including whether environmental ‘systems’ are fundamentally robust or fragile; whether nature is seen as being in some sense fundamentally good or bad.
• ways in which the above are situated in relation to wider cultural, economic, political, social values (concerning, for example, consumerism, economic growth/development, the nature and role of ‘the market’, individual liberty/responsibility, lifestyles, private/public decision making, the nature and role of the state).

Appendix B

Environmental Analysis of Films Part 2: Case Study of The Grapes of Wrath

Tutor Notes

1. Directed by John Ford (20th Century Fox, 1940)
2. Based on 1939 novel by John Steinbeck.
3. Set in period of ‘Great Depression’ in 1930s. Tells story of Joads - family of Oklahoma ‘share-cropping’ farmers. Joads driven off land by “natural disasters and economic changes”. Family migrate to California where they hope to find “plenty of work” and “high wages” working as fruit pickers. Various trials en route, including death of grandparents. Situation in California turns out to be much worse than expected: fierce competition for work, low wages, poor working conditions. Tom Joad becomes involved with unions as labour organiser, ends up killing a man and, eventually, having to flee. Film ends pessimistically: California is not the land of milk and honey.
4. Going to watch first 20-25 mins. Students to make notes on film using suggestions on handout.
5. Opening text: ‘Dust bowl’ described as area of (naturally) low rainfall. Also told that Joads are having to leave Oklahoma due to “natural disasters and economic changes”.
6. Opening scene: Empty, flat, rural landscape. Hot dry sunny day. Superficially, nothing is amiss. But why is man walking? Where is he going? What is he going to find?
7. Interaction with truck driver: “No riders allowed”. Establishes conflict between bosses (“heels”) and ordinary people (“good guys”). Sets tone for rest of film.
8. Meeting with ex-preacher - who has “lost the call”, “lost the spirit”; who “ain’t sure of things” - because “it’s all gone anyway”. Paints picture of social change. Shift from old to new way of life (more below). But it’s not just change: it’s change for the worse. Another theme of the film.
9. Tom smashes bottle. Vandal!
10. Cut to clouds: Weather “fixing to do something”. Wind storm coming. Darkness (signifier of evil?). Sense of foreboding.
11. Arrive at Joad’s farm. Noone there. Sense of dereliction and decay.
12. Find Muley Graves - who tells them Joads were given “notice to get off”; but not just them: “everybody’s got to get off” and everybody’s “going to California”. Establishes that this is not an isolated incident but a major social problem.
13. Why? (i) Dusters (winds) are “blowing the land away”, “blowing the crops away”. Hence, natural disaster. (ii) Shawnee Land and Cattle Company is replacing small farms run by tenant share-croppers (who are being evicted) with large farms operated by few people with tractors. Hence, economic changes. Also, scene tells us that shift from old to new way of life is actually shift from pre-industrial to industrial society. So, suggestion that industrialism is blame?
14. Issue addressed in flashback scene: Who is responsible for moving people off the land? It “ain’t nobody” - it’s the company. But it’s not the company’s fault because it’s only doing what the bank tells it to do. And it’s not the local (Tulsa) bank’s fault because it’s only following instructions which come “from the East”. Local farmers “just want to know who’s to blame” but no single person can be blamed. Decision-making and responsibility have become de-personalised and dispersed throughout the entire national (and, these days, global?) ‘system’.
15. Muley talks about being born, living, working and dying on the land. Suggests that people are a part of the land: in some sense, part of nature. But now people are being moved off the land, and have to move in search of employment. They are separated from the land: apart from nature. This sense of separation is reinforced by shots of ‘cats’ (caterpillar tractors): huge machines that drive right over (literally destroy) the old, small farms. They (symbol of industrial society) turn neighbours against each other: they portray industrial society as de-personalised and inhuman.
16. Shift from old to new is depicted as inevitable. “There weren’t a thing in the world I could do about it”. Resistance is not just futile - it is impossible. Which again problematises the idea that there is anyone to blame.
17. History, tradition, the past, people’s preferences count for nought and are swept aside. All in the name of ‘progress’ - inevitable, economic progress.
18. Arrival of superintendent: symbol of new order.
19. Values: No sense in either pre-industrial or industrial society that environment/ nature has intrinsic value - only instrumental value. However, in pre-industrial society, the land ‘has’ a wide range of social, economic and cultural values whereas in industrial society, economic values are paramount.
20. ‘Problems’: Shown as being caused by combination of “natural” and “economic” processes. Ordinary people depicted as ‘good’ and blame-free. Companies shown as ‘bad’ and, in some sense, blameworthy. Unions (later in film) portrayed in positive light. Also a suggestion that government has responsibility for ensuring well-being of workers - and people more generally. Socialist / Communist stance? Does not really establish the unsustainable nature of both the old and the new ways of farming. (New ways heavily dependent on irrigation and chemicals.)

(1) Natural Hazards in Novels and Films: Implications for Hazard Perception and Behaviour. In Burgess, J and Gold, J (eds) Geography, the Media and Popular Culture (London: Croom Helm, 1985).

(2) There is, of course, much debate concerning the relationship between fiction and behaviour, most notoriously in the context of the alleged effects on children of television violence. (Put very crudely, does art imitate life or vice versa?) For a (highly!) critical review of research on media effects in general, see David Gauntlett’s Moving Experiences: Understanding Television’s Influences and Effects (London: John Libbey, 1995). For a detailed investigation of the influence of television on children’s perception of the environment, see Gauntlett’s Video Critical: Children, the Environment and Media Power (University of Luton Press, 1996).

(3) I would like to acknowledge that the idea of using The Grapes of Wrath (but not the nature of the suggested analysis) came from an exercise devised by John Gold, George Revill and Martin Haigh at Oxford Brookes University. For an account of the original exercise, see the authors’ Interpreting the Dust Bowl: teaching environmental philosophy through film, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 20(2), 1996, pp. 209-21.

(4) It is important that students are discouraged from making simplistic judgements about the messages conveyed by films. These may change, sometimes quite dramatically (eg from ‘nature as refuge’ to ‘nature as threat’), from moment to moment within a single film, as well as varying from one film to another.