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The Great Depression |
In the movie, Cinderella Man, certain
things were added to the film, and things were kept the same, in order to
dramatize the life of someone living in the 1930’s. Even things were changed
about James Braddock’s, also known as Cinderella Man, life that would make the
viewers feel sorrier for him and to portray the life during those times as
terrible.
The first thing that the film makers
changed was the age of his children. They did this mainly so when James was going
through such a hard time, the viewer would not only feel bad for him, but they
would also feel bad for the three young, innocent children. When they oldest
son stole in the movie, it was used as a way to depict how hard times were.
Families were going through so much poverty and were not being able to feed
their families during this time. In the movie, at the time that the boy stole,
the family was not in their worst shape, but the boy stole because he thought
he could do something to help his family.
Some things that were in the movie that
were not changed about James’ life help to depict how life was during the 1930’s.
When James went to go get work in the movie he would have to stand at a gate
and get chosen for the job. This was actually the case during the 1930’s. Many
men that went to find work did not get the job and for men that got the job one
day were not guaranteed the job the next day. It was very hard to find work
during these times because so many people needed work to support their family
but the businesses did not have a place for all of them so sometimes people
would go long times without it. When James went to get money during one part of
the movie, he was very embarrassed. People did not want other people to know
that they needed help because they were not able to produce the money. James
was looking around the whole time he was in there getting money and continued
to look around even after he had gotten the money and was leaving. The woman
behind the counter said that she never thought she would see him in there. She
said this because she was obviously friends of the family. This is a way of showing
the viewers that it was embarrassing and people thought of themselves as
failures if they had to go borrow money. Another part of the movie that
depicted how much people need the money was when he took the fight. When James
first got the offer he knew he had to because he had to get the money so he
would not think of himself as a failure. He took the fight even though he was
known as a joke in the boxing ring. In the movie that was not the outspoken reason
for why he took the fight but it was an underlying reason and as the viewer I
could tell on his face how embarrassed he was when he had to go borrow the
money. He was also very embarrassed when he had to go into the room with the
people that had turned him away from boxing and ask them for money. This was
seen as a brave thing to do because back them it would have been basically
saying that he knew he was a failure and could not get the money for his family
himself so he had to go and ask other people to give him donations so he could
support his family. During the movie, at one point James was not able to care
for his kids because he was not getting enough work so his wife decided to send
them to her dad’s house until they got their feet under them. This was the
reason that James went to borrow the money because to him, once his kids left,
he felt as though he had reached rock bottom and he was going to do anything in
his power to get them back. It was just another example that showed how much
the people were struggling and how willing they were to do anything they could
to get out of that situation.
There were many other examples that
showed the viewer what life was like in the 1930’s. Life was rough and it was
very hard on many of the people that lived through it. The poverty hurt a lot of
people and even caused some families to be torn apart, like James Braddock’s. In
the end he was lucky and got out of the poverty but like I learned, not
everyone was as lucky as him.
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