Andy posted a speech on the Socialist Unity site by Barack Obama to a conference of union members. Forward to 2.40 in this clip to see where his speech writers nicked the best bit from. It’s beautiful.
The Grapes Of Wrath – the bit Obama plagiarised
Andy posted a speech on the Socialist Unity site by Barack Obama to a conference of union members. Forward to 2.40 in this clip to see where his speech writers nicked the best bit from. It’s beautiful.
1–2 minutes
7 responses to “The Grapes Of Wrath – the bit Obama plagiarised”
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What is interesting is that both John Ford and Jimmy Stewart had distinctly right of centre politics.
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Er, it’s Henry Fonda.
As for John Ford and his friend John Wayne I’ve often felt that their politics were misunderstood rather than right wing.
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Yeah, I didn’t play the clip, and had misremembered it as Stewart.
I think Ford’s politics are complex, but certainly right wing.
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By any modern standards John Ford was on the right. However he described himself as a socialist several times – something few Americans on the right would consciously do then or today. He also spoke out in defence of liberal directors like Dore Schary who were being witch-hunted out of the Director’s Guild during the McCarthy era. By doing so he effectively stopped De Mille and the other ultra right-wingers in their tracks because no one could accuse him of being unpatriotic.
Although Ford’s films contain a racism that was almost endemic to the period they also show a genuine concern for and belief in humanity. Nor should his attempts to address his own previous shortcomings be forgotten. Cheyenne Autumn and Sergeant Rutledge are not great films but they clearly say that Native Americans were done a great injustice and that Black soldiers were heroes.
Ford was not a socialist but a populist and humanist who believed in the sentiments expressed in Steinbeck’s novel and put them on the screen. Grapes of Wrath’s uplifting finale, which is Ford’s sole major change to the material, is socialist in sentiment though – “We’ve taken a beating but that’s what makes us tough…We can take a licking but we can’t be beat….We’re the people and we’ll go on forever” – or to express it another way – “The people united can never be defeated”!
Great directors like great writers transcend their personal politics in their art.
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And then of course there was his film The Informer set during the Irish War of Independence in which he unequivocally sympathised with the revolutionaries.
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Yeah Liam ,
He also directed the less well known “Plough and the Stars” and the comedy/drama “the Rising of the Moon” (both sympathetic to the Irish struggle) and included a sympathetic IRA character in “The Quiet Man”. Not to mention all those songs by the Sons of the Pioneers in his Westerns – “The Bold Fenian Men” etc. His form on the Irish question is impeccable.
I’d add that I’ve always found the end of “The Searchers”, which some view as perhaps his greatest film, very uplifting. John Wayne, playing a demonstrably racist and unrepentant Confederate, character who throughout the film has stated his intent to kill his niece (because she has been defiled by marriage to a Commanche), is suddenly redeemed, by lifting her up and saying, “Let’s go home Debbie”.
I’ve always found it incredibly moving as it demonstrates the characters’, Ford’s, and our own, common humanity but then I’m an old sentimentalist.
All the Best,
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It’s a very affecting ending that’s true but the final shot of Wayne walking out the door probably represents him turning his back on the reunited family. Still I’ve already watched it 20 times and will probably watch it another 20, as sure as the turning of the earth.
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Liam redux 
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