Jake Teachey
May 1, 2015
In Class Cinderella Man Write
Lawson US History
I pledge
“The movie, Cinderella Man, takes place during the
Great Depression, but it ultimately does a much better job of telling us an
emotional and inspirational “fairy tale” about one man than it does exposing audiences
to the facts about the Great Depression as it was experienced by most
Americans.
The movie Cinderella man is a historically accurate
representation of what American had to undergo during The Great Depression, but
has multiple alterations in the story of James J. Braddock’s life. Many critics have analyzed the historical
accuracy of the film, and all of them came to a unanimous decision that the
film is historically accurate, aside from a few miniscule details. These
details have only been altered in the film to strengthen the plot, and overall
understanding of how hard the depression was on families all through out the
United States.
The first, and most interesting
historically accurate fact about the film was that over 15 million people
around the nation were unemployed. The director made a very interesting and
powerful choice on how to portray this fact in the movie. If you were to watch
closely enough during the beginning of the movie you see Braddock walking down
the street, and then the camera quickly pans onto the ground to zoom in on the
local paper with headlines “record 15 million out
of work”. I think this is a great way of
showing this, and tying in the factual side of the movie, it provides facts
without drowning you in them.
This movie was not all factually
correct, and one of the most vivid examples of this is the portrayal of Max
Baer. In the movie it portrays Max Baer as a ruthless fighter exhibiting
inappropriate behavior. In real life Max Baer was nothing like this. He was a
much more caring human being, and was not out just to break peoples necks. In
the movie they also made it seem like Baer had killed 2 people in the boxing
ring, but in reality he only killed one. I think the director added the second
person into the story mainly to make the viewer not like Baer that much more.
Another way the director attempted to make the viewer dislike Baer was by
altering the Star of David that he so proudly wore. I think the director
changed this star from such a vivid white on red background to more of a dark
red on slightly lighter red background to not let the viewer really notice it.
I think the director feared if the viewer were to see the star it would weaken
his story because then Baer may of not been such an antagonist because he was
simply fighting for a cause.
Another place of inaccuracy in the
film pertaining to Braddock’s life is the scene
when Jims son has his birth day, and Braddock’s friend come up drunk and angry at the world. What is
interesting is Braddock’s wife, Mae, later
wrote in a biography that one day Jim came to the church and had seem to of
been completely “broken down”. It is interesting that the directors chose to swap
Braddock out with his friend in this scene, and I think this is because he did
not want the viewers to see Braddock in such a negative type of way, he wanted
Braddock to be the role model, and to not have any negative sides about him.
Ron Howard (director) wanted Braddock to be a person that America could look up
to.
Overall this entire movie is solid
representations of how hard times were in America, but not so much about the
representation of Braddock’s actual life. That
being said I do still agree with the changes that the director made, because it
added depth and strength to the story line. If he would of kept everything
exactly how it was in real life it would not of been as exciting, and enticing.
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thank you.
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