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| Director: D.W. Griffith Length: 13:50 minutes |
“A Corner in Wheat”
is the first real “serious” film discussed so far on this blog, dealing with
the effects of monopolies and magnates during the Progressive period. “Serious”, yes, but owing to its length (and
to hindsight) it is still a bit simplistic.
The story is like something I might have read in middle school for an
assignment. Still, even if I prefer a
movie about submarines and flying beds, there’s something to be said for taking
a more sober approach to filmmaking.
The director of
this was D.W. Griffith, a newcomer who probably made few if any movies after
this, didn’t significantly impact the film industry, was soon forgotten, and definitely never made a 3-hour epic film lionizing the Ku Klux Klan. Of
course that’s all assumption and speculation on my part—I don’t have time to
research the filmographies of each and every director on my list—and if it turns
out I’m mistaken on any of those points, I’ll be sure to get back to you.
“A Corner in Wheat”
begins with a poor wheat farmer somewhere in Iowa or Nebraska or shit I dunno,
making the rounds on his field sowing the seeds for next season’s crop. It then cuts to a scene of a wealthy fatcat,
and it’s here that I see my very first intertitle! I was wondering when they were going to show
up. The intertitle introduces the fatcat
as “The Wheat King”, who sends his cronies to “The Wheat Pit” (the stock
exchange) to buy up all the stocks of grain.
Having cornered the
world’s market, he doubles the price of flour, which means the poor folks can’t
afford bread. But karma eventually
catches up to him, and the Wheat King slips and falls into a literal wheat pit
and is drowned by the avalanche of wheat.
Oh man, the symbolism. By the
way, I don’t know how many of my dear readers have spent much time around grain
elevators, but take my word for it—it’s one of the most unpleasant ways I can
think of to die.
The story is pretty
simple and the theme is not very riveting, at least for people of my generation
who didn’t grow up during the Cold War and so weren’t taught that anything less
than absolute unregulated tyconic hypercapitalism inevitably leads to socialism
which leads to slavery and/or atheism.
Nevertheless, Griffith does some interesting things here, such as giving
the fatcat and the stock exchange these pretentious wheat-based titles despite
neither of them having anything to do with wheat... but that is probably taken
from the book this movie’s based on, now that I think about it.
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