"The sun and winds wrote the most tragic chapter in American agriculture."
The Plow That Broke the Plains is a 1936 documentary short film written and directed by Pare Lorentz.
This 25-minute short was a work of the federal government, as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program. The film is a history of white settlement of the Great Plains, from 1880 when "the Indian" was "cleared out" to the 1930s and the devastation of the Dust Bowl. Lorentz's film caused a fair bit of controversy by pinning the blame of the Dust Bowl squarely on the farmers themselves, farming having led to the destruction of the Plains grassland and the devastating loss of topsoil when drought killed the wheat crops.
Tropes:
- Arc Words: Variations on "A country of high winds, and sun...and of little rain."
- Blade-of-Grass Cut: Many close-ups of wheat growing in the field. This serves to contrast with the devastated land shown at the end of the film.
- Deadly Dust Storm: The most famous Real Life example, as the Dust Bowl devastates the plains. The film is a 1936 documentary short that recounts the history of the Great Plains and how over-farming led to the Dust Bowl. The latter portion of the film in which the dust storms wipe out everything is quite harrowing.
- Desert Skull: One is shown to demonstrate how the Great Plains were becoming desert.
- Determined Homesteader: The early part about the settlement of the Great Plains depicts a generic homesteader farming his crops in the face of drought and water shortage.
- Downer Ending: The version without the epilogue certainly is this, as the people of the plains flee in desperation to the west coast while the plains lie abandoned, choked in dust.
- Match Cut: Tanks in World War I are matched with reapers barreling across the plains as the narrator barks that "Wheat will win the war!"
- Narrator: Delivers an unconventional narration track that is closer to free verse poetry
. - "Ray of Hope" Ending: The original version of this film included an epilogue in which the Resettlement Administration helped displaced farmers find new places to live. In reality, the planned communities and work camps never got very far, and the Plains were greatly de-populated and farming became largely agribusiness.
- Re-Cut: There are a couple of versions of this film out there. One has the bleak Downer Ending, while another has an epilogue in which the Resettlement Administration is shown finding new places to live for displaced farmers in planned communities.
- Spinning Paper: The papers don't spin, but otherwise this trope is played straight as the post-war farming boom that led to the Dust Bowl is illustrated with fliers from developers, encouraging more farming.
