We as American have endured some of the most horrific moments during the last century that would have led to our demise. It is through creativity and arts that one can know the facts about that crisis. WWI was one of the many influences to the rapid economic growth in this great country at the beginning of the 20th century, but it also resulted in some of the most horrendous crisis in the 1920s. The Great Depression of the 1920s following the Allies inability to repay what they owed us almost collapsed the economy with the high unemployment rates testament to the state of the economy at the time.
We took a long time to get back to our earlier states, but the efforts by President Roosevelt’s to improve the situation was affected by the drought that led to the Dust Bowl that would cripple our agricultural sector 1 . President Roosevelt and his government have in the last few years used the New Deal programs to end the Depression and the Dust Bowl. The programs include the Resettlement Administration (RA) that is aimed at improving the use of the agricultural land and help reduce poverty in the country. The RA and the Farm Security Administration (FSA) are bound to intervene the declining production of food and the degradation of the Great Plains by educating the public on the best ways to conserve the environment and help preserve the grasslands that in the last two decades have been turning to a deserts. We all know that Roosevelt or should I say “Fireside Chats” for is excellent use of the media to convince the public that he is working day and night to improve their lives. He has a charming and creative way to sway the masses to support his ideas even when they do not concur with our beliefs.
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I have worked as a journalist for the past ten years and needed to get as deep as possible to how the government chose Lorentz for the production of “The Plow that Broke the Plains.” Lorentz has built a reputation as film critic which has limited his friends in the commercial film production industry. During the previous interview I had with him it was clear that he is convinced that following the Haze Act; fictional film are merely entertainment thus Hollywood and other commercial films have nothing to offer to the society other than entertainment. He claimed that Hollywood is only interested in building their films on the stars who are paid lots of money for their expensive films that have little or no educative features. He believes that use of photographs and narrations are all it takes to produce an educative film that would help change the world. These are some of the claims that made it impossible for Hollywood to help him produce the documentary that would feature the causes of Dust Bowl 2 . Washington, FSA, and RA agreed to finance the film that would focus on environmental conservation by addressing the problems caused by the massive cultivation that increased soil erosion in the Great Plains 3 . The documentary has faced multiple challenges such as financial constraints during its shooting, and the theatre for its viewing after its completion. The film is out and it had been two months before the Lorentz’s documentary is able to be viewed in any theatre with Hollywood owning most of the theatres. I have heard some refer to the film to be one of the many government propagandas but other people have applauded “The Plow” as an excellent film that has depicted the evils of over-cultivation and mechanization in the agricultural sector. Given the different reviews by those who have viewed Lorentz’s film “The Plow that Broke the Plains” I took it upon myself to view it and make my judgment rather than rely on biased notions that maybe influenced by political orientations or friendship or enmity of the reviews towards Lorentz. We all know that Lorentz is a critic of the fictional movies and has no experience in film production, his claim that he would do better than the likes of Hollywood is a step too far but I had to see to believe. I am liberal and open-minded therefore I believe I will make the best judgment on the film and its role in the socio-cultural and political leaning of this great nation.
Summary and Analysis
I stayed true and visited the theatre to review and analyze the documentary. This is a summary about the film that I jotted down. Lorentz’s documentary is a 25-minute film a white and black motion film that begins with a prologue that informs the audience on the story about the Great Plains and how it turned from grassland to an arid desert. The preamble states that the over 400 million acres of land that ranges from Texas to the Canadian Panhandle 4 . The images used in the paper were retrieved from http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html and the documentary.
The land was once an appealing land following the government taking it from the native Indians and the buffalos. It provides the chronicles of the processes from the grassland being used for cattle herding as depicted below.
The cattle increment led to the railway construction that would make the West accessible to the entire nation. It is also important to note that the narrator describes the land as having minimum rains and being land that the people leave 200 miles away from the rivers. The construction of the railway brought the world to the plains. As the images are shown, and the narrator goes silent, three melodies of traditional cowboy songs are heard. The three songs are “I Ride an Old Paint,” “Git Along Little Dogies” and “The Cowboy’s Lament.” The songs create conflict between cowboy’s blamelessness and penitence thus challenging the purely romantic association for the views and the listeners 5 .
The changes occur drastically with fences being built and the plow is used to plow the dry soil and the farmer touching the soil to show it is fertile but dry. The war provided an initiative for the growth of wheat production, and in the backstage, there are calls for the increased production of the wheat for the allies since the price is high. The government provides initiatives and land grants to help the increased productivity of the wheat. Mechanization helped plow the entire grassland and growing the produce 6 . The industrialization and the government move to ensure the West was an appealing land for the foreigners and other people led to the following advertisements.
The initiatives increased farming with lots of wheat being produced. However, it made the land bare for the hot sun and strong winds that brew the top fertile soils causing the Dust Bowl.
The soil could no longer conserve the rainfall even after the high falls before the drought. The image of the boy below depicts the changing environment calls for change in the mode of farming.
The strong wind and the drying up of land as depicted in below was associated with the capitalist overproduction on the area with the mechanization of agriculture playing a vital role in the saddening view of the environment. The drought and human activities led to the disaster hence the machinery left in the fields as shown below.
The above depictions show that the environment has deteriorated to the worst possible scenarios hence the final words and images of the people left with no food and water moving to a refugee camp. The narrator claims that the people having no other wish and hope but to feed their families. The people have nothing to do in the West but move away from the West.
The above summary demonstrates the situation from the 1880s or the beginning of the Grid Era that saw the mechanization of agriculture and to the great depression and the Dust Bowl drought that would result in havoc among the farmers. I investigated to understand the reason for the choice of pictures, scenes and the blame being deflected to mechanization whereas the people and government used the machines. I believed that greed and failures of the system was key to perpetuating the environmental destruction. Machinery provided an easier way to plough the land but the government advertised the West and called for more wheat production without anticipating the problems that the high profits would influence our lives.
I sort after Lorentz, who claimed that the film faced lots of challenges during its initial stages with the fact that it was his first film and he misappropriated the budget. The previous budget was about $6,000, however, the final costs to $19,260 thus making him pay for the increased costs. He even stated that most of the financing was made by his wife and thought the government would refund it later after selling the film but that was not the case as the government offered the films for free. He believed that taking photographs and letting the images speak for themselves thus chose a team consisting of Strand, Hurwitz, and Steiner with Virgil Thomson composing the score 7 . The crew noted that Lorentz’s script was shot thus took their shooting notes, but Lorentz rejected their views. He stated that the crew was convinced that the documentary was supposed to show the environmental degradation was caused by the capitalist and human greed. The team was focused on depicting that the system was broken and greed towards profits was the primary cause of the disaster was to blame, but Lorentz was adamant that nature and to some extent the capitalist need for benefits turned the grassland towards aridity.
He also recounted the problem of airing the film was due to his past as a critic, Hollywood and other fictional or commercial film producers were against showing the film of its government ties which made it difficult for the film to reach the intended audience. Lorentz and the FSA advertised the movie as “the picture they dared us to show” and the Modern Art sponsorship that led to the showing at Mayflower Hotel in Washington led to the over 3000 shows around the country. The willingness by the government to distribute the film for free led to one of the largest viewings of about 100,000 by 1940s 8 . Hollywood and other companies who had earlier claimed that the film was too long for a Newsreel and too short for a feature screened the film in their theatres without any issues. The successes of the film in the social and historical significance that it was taught in schools make the film’s worth for this review and determination about its socio-political contexts.
Proponents of the Documentary
When analyzing the film I recalled Webb’s 1931 recount of the Great Plains and the revolution that used machines to plow the land was the cause of the devastating issues that caused the Dust Bowl 9 . Webb had claimed that the grass helped preserve the moisture that kept the continuity of life in the Great Plains. The grass also prevented the blowing of the soil that the agriculture interfered with and caused the states depicted in the film. I concur to proponents referring to the documentary as a progression of Webb’s account on environmental degradation that needed to be taught to the public if the change was to be made and conservative farming was adopted. It came as a shock to me after learning that George Earle, a Republican-turned-New Deal Democrat, supported the attitude towards mechanization of farming techniques and viewed the plows as Frankenstein Monster that destroyed the public 10 .
The above photo is used in the documentary but was derived from Arthur Rothstein photo of an abandoned plow in 1936 that intended to depict the devastation the plow had caused but used to symbolize the apocalyptic destruction 11 . It was evident at the time that the film had few proponents, but its use as an archive for American History makes it change the dynamics of using audio-visual and photographs to send the intended message. The film is still used in the learning institution to depict the Dust Bowl with great success. An interview with Mrs. Duke, Texan, stated that the film was excellent in describing the problems that faced the Great Plain by not choosing a strongly liberal stance as most people thought it would do. However, the lack of accommodating issues such as pneumonia that one of the major problems the Dust Bowl caused to the community but apart from that minor issue, she praised Lorentz’s work of depicting the truth about the situation. The government advertisements in the bid to resettle people to the West for the needed wheat production at the expense of the environment 12 . The degradation of the environment by the human activities influenced by the natural climate change resulted in the environment reacting to the demise of the society. Poverty, hunger, and despair are evident in the final minutes of the documentary depicting the impacts of soil erosion.
Opposing Reviews on the Film
The fact that the film was financed by the government made it easier for critics to argue that Lorentz’s film was nothing more than government propaganda. Interviews with different critics of the film claimed that the film was one of the many ways that Roosevelt’s government used to manipulate people through the depictions. Historians such as MacCann argued that the film was biased and lacked the radical stance to either support or defy the capitalist notions. He explains that the film claiming that the land had no rivers and almost no rainfall is vaguely based on the expansion of firming 13 . Other critics viewed the refugee camps at the end of the film as a depiction of Roosevelt’s socialist-leaning that intended to resettle the farmers and employ non-capitalist methods. Radicals in the Republican were vocal in arguing that the RA and FSA that had financed the documentary were supported the unconstitutional resettlement enforced by Roosevelt.
The allegations of the illegal scope of the New Deal was made clear after the Supreme Court ruled that the Triple-A that was the backbone of the New Deal agricultural relief was unconstitutional thus making most of the programs under the New Deal illegal. Texas among most of the other viewers such as Snyder agreed that the film was government propaganda that only focused on the problems rather than provides any solution. The lack of solutions in the film as Snyder stated depicts the inability of the government to solve the issues facing the people. Socialist and capitalists were the bases of the concepts with most of the team claiming that human greed and the flaws in the economic system was to blame for the disaster and that the government should choose a Russian based method to curb the calamities 14 .
Interviews with political leaders that opposed the Roosevelt’s government and policing were adamant that the ending of the film as a depiction of the rehabilitation efforts of the government to be socialist and differing with our capitalist economic system that is focused on maximizing the economy rather than the welfare of the public 15 . Roosevelt reign and political ideologies have being opposed by most of the most vocal and influential people this time which has made the film gain more negative reviews compared to the positive reviews. The team argues that the most of the critics either from the right or left wing were focused on terming the documentary as leaning either towards capitalism or socialism, however I noted that Lorentz patriotism played a role in being hated and adored by people from both sides.
Conclusion
The political magnitude of the 1930s was high, and the drought following a depression made it complicated. Roosevelt, a darling to the media used his role in empowering media and establishing the RA and FSA which used the film to gain public backing for their strategies. The strategies were made unconstitutional following the ruling of the Supreme Court. The failures to provide solutions to the discussed problems makes the film lack its credibility as a way to inform the society and offer solutions. The film minor eras such as depicting the Great Plains as having no water source which is false may have resulted in more critics, but the film is informative and has lots of the meaningful information. Its failure to base the degradation of the land with capitalism and greed makes it easier to prove the film was government propaganda that intended to show the government excellent and justified intentions but failed because it did not provide any solutions to the problems.
Bibliography
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"Farm Security Administration/Office Of War Information Black-And-White Negatives - About This Collection - Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (Library Of Congress)". 2018. Memory.Loc.Gov . Accessed March 13. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html.
Gregg, Sara M. 2015. "From Breadbasket To Dust Bowl: Rural Credit, The World War I Plow-Up, And The Transformation Of American Agriculture". Great Plains Quarterly 35 (2): 129-166. doi:10.1353/gpq.2015.0025.
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Lorentz, Pare. 1936. The Plow That Broke The Plains . Film. Accessed March 13. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arRmz4kUisE
Lorentz, Pare. 1992. FDR's Moviemaker: Memoirs & Scripts. Reno : University of Nevada Press.
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United States. 1936. "The plow that broke the plains": a documentary musical movie . Washington, D.C.: Resettlement Administration.
Webb, Walter Prescott. 1931. The Great Plains . Boston: Ginn and Company.
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