The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) poster
1936 · new-deal · environment · poetic

The Plow That Broke the Plains

Directed by Pare Lorentz25m1936
ElsewhereIMDb6.2757TMDB5.915
  • sombre
  • measured
Movie DNA

Sombre, measured, measured new-deal / environment, grounded in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, measured.

How every film is hand-scored →

A documentary about what happened to the Great Plains of the United States and Canada when uncontrolled farming destroyed the soil and led to the Dust Bowl.

Our read · The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) reads as a sombre, measured, grounded new-deal · environment · poetic entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook.

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The shape of The Plow That Broke the Plains

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want a short powerful documentary on how overfarming created the Dust Bowl.

ends unsettlingit stays with yousteady all the waygrips from the openattention 3/5breezes by
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around

Skip it tonightYou want narrative fiction or modern entertainment over historical education.

If The Plow That Broke the Plains is your film
DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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