The Plow That Broke the Plains

Dir. Pare Lorentz, 1936, 25 min.

A Government-sponsored documentary, Pare Lorentz won praise and wide recognition for using sensitive photography, dramatic editing and a beautiful score by composer Virgil Thomson to illuminate a local problem of national importance – the challenges faced by wheat farmers and cattle ranchers in the Great Plains. As the film climaxes in a vivid portrait of the record drought that produced the dust bowl and the plight of the "blown out, baked and broke" people who felt its impact, it becomes clear that a new master of the documentary form has found his voice.