I didn't see this discussed anywhere else so I wanted to share this with you all. I just recently got around to watching The Dust Bowl documentary (yes, all 4 hours of it) from which - as you may know - excerpts were taken for use in the movie. The documentary was extremely interesting and I highly recommend it. I was excited to discover many details beyond the basics that the movie's premise was inspired by. The similarities are startling, and unless one has seen the documentary one will probably have no clue. Here are some things that Nolan borrowed and/or was inspired by, beyond the movie's basic premise and its real life parallels:
The opening shots of the corn blowing are almost exactly the same as a shot in the documentary of wheat blowing.
At least one young baby died and was buried in a back yard as was Jesse in the movie.
One family was split up (specifically a father and a daughter, funnily enough) and when the daughter, along with her mother, departed their farm to get hospital treatment and the father stayed behind, the man said "I don't know if/when I will see you again". Also, said farmer stayed behind to look after the farm as Tom did in the movie whilst his wife and daughter were set to get medical treatment. The father was indeed reunited with his daughter but not until she received life-saving surgery to drain her lungs.
The sand falling from the ceiling (and leaving piles on the floor) in the movie is eerily reminiscent to what actually happened. One lady recalled how she was sat at the table eating dinner and dirt began to trickle down from above like water (presumably from a gap or crack she said) and it would leave a little pile on the table.
The shots of folk packing up their belongings and jumping onto the backs of trucks is depicted in the same way in both movie and documentary.
Those are some of the main points off the top of my head, but I am sure there are more. I just found the similarities really interesting and hope you will too, and I had no idea until seeing the documentary. I actually learned the history of the Dust Bowl as well, which I had no in-depth knowledge of either beforehand.
The opening shots of the corn blowing are almost exactly the same as a shot in the documentary of wheat blowing.
At least one young baby died and was buried in a back yard as was Jesse in the movie.
One family was split up (specifically a father and a daughter, funnily enough) and when the daughter, along with her mother, departed their farm to get hospital treatment and the father stayed behind, the man said "I don't know if/when I will see you again". Also, said farmer stayed behind to look after the farm as Tom did in the movie whilst his wife and daughter were set to get medical treatment. The father was indeed reunited with his daughter but not until she received life-saving surgery to drain her lungs.
The sand falling from the ceiling (and leaving piles on the floor) in the movie is eerily reminiscent to what actually happened. One lady recalled how she was sat at the table eating dinner and dirt began to trickle down from above like water (presumably from a gap or crack she said) and it would leave a little pile on the table.
The shots of folk packing up their belongings and jumping onto the backs of trucks is depicted in the same way in both movie and documentary.
Those are some of the main points off the top of my head, but I am sure there are more. I just found the similarities really interesting and hope you will too, and I had no idea until seeing the documentary. I actually learned the history of the Dust Bowl as well, which I had no in-depth knowledge of either beforehand.
