The Plow That Broke The Plains
...elgians! Wheat for the French! Wheat at any price… Wheat will win the war! The narration repeats the need of wheat in the world. It stresses how important the farmers were to the war cause. During this narration a military march is played. The audience understands this tune and can relate to it because they remember the war. It bring out emotion in people because it hits close to home. The images on the screen are of an army of tanks and an army of tractors. This juxtaposition really brings the war efforts of the farmers into plain view. The audience now knows that these people are not lazy. These people are working very hard to help out their country and feels that these people are good people. The only problem with this is when the war ended the need for food ended. The farmers were now overproducing. “By 1933 the old grass lands had become the new wheat lands… a hundred million acres… two hundred million acres… more wheat!” The music is continuing getting faster and images are speeding up. Shots of factories and fields are shown. A ticker tape is being juxtaposed against harvesting wheat. The pace picks up and images are flying by. Suddenly the ticker tape crashes. “A country without rivers… without streams… with little rain… once again the rains held off and the sun baked the earth.” The audience now understands the present problem, the depression and the dust bowl. Images of broken machinery and the dry dead earth flood in. They see people who live in the dustbowl and how their children are being affected by it. They feel bad for these people because they worked so hard and now they have nothing to show for it. Lorentz has the audience’s attention and now they are fully educated. Lorentz inserts the “fix” to this problem. The narration tells about the government’s efforts in helping the farmers. Images of new farming communities are on the screen along with ...