May 1, 2015
When someone thinks about the 1930s, one of the first thought that pops in their head is the Great Depression. Which makes sense, because it is one of the biggest events in American history. There are many ways people got through these depressing, dark times, and one of the best stories regarding an uplifting story is the boxing career of James J. Braddock. The movie, Cinderella Man, is written about Braddock, which is such an inspirational story to tell, but I think the movie does a much better job helping the audience understand what the Great Depression was really like for these people.
The great thing about this movie, is that the director and creators went to great lengths to make it historically accurate. One example of this is how Max Baer has the star of David on his boxing shorts in the movie, which could have been a small thing the creators could have left out. If they had left it out, it is almost certain that nobody would have noticed it, but because they were trying to be as accurate as possible, they put it in the film. They also depicted the Hoovervilles very well in the movie. The shacks the people lived in, made out of scraps and wood from anything they could find was very similar to the ones in real life. The work Braddock did on the dock was also depicted accurately, based on how they chose the workers, and what kind of work they would be doing on the dock. The creators of the film also took the time to research the dates of all the fights, which is important to the argument that they cared enough about the actual facts. These are only a few things that helped shape my understanding for the Great Depression, because they were so factual in the process of making this film.
There were very few things that made the story not so accurate. Perhaps the most important one was how they portrayed Baer. They portrayed Baer as being a bad kind of guy, being rude to Braddock and his wife, and emphasizing the killing of two men in the ring. There is no evidence that Baer ever acted like he did towards Braddock and his wife. There is also evidence to show that he did kill a man in the ring, but what the directors failed to show was how Baer felt about the death. He was extremely depressed after he killed the man, and even gave the family of the dead boxer a lot of money. These seem to be events that were added to the movie as a dramatic effect, which I do not blame the director for. It made the story so much more emotional and made us side with Braddock easier. These events that were manipulated in the movie were a small price to pay to make the story more interesting and heartfelt for the audience. It also seemed to be that the false information had little or nothing to do with the Great Depression, which is why it is almost completely accurate regarding the facts about that time period.
Overall, the truths and historical accuracies far outweigh the embellishments and fake stories. The way the Great Depression was depicted was very accurate, with few scenes that had false information. It was quite an informative movie for these reasons, and was able to teach me personally, as much as a textbook.
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