Cinderella Man Worksheet

Cinderella Man is a flim based on the rise of World Championship boxer James Braddock. Braddock's life was affected heavily by the great depression, and the film does well to show this. The film also does a good job of chronicling the life of the everyday man during the great depression. This essay aims to discuss the role of the stock market crash in the beginning of the great depression, the effects of the depression on the life of the everyday man, and the effects of the depression on the life of James J Braddock and his family.

This paper was prepared for Introduction to Film History, Module 1 Homework Assignment, taught by Professor Stephanie Sandifer.

Cinderella Man came out in the year 2005, it is a non fiction movie directed by Ron Howard. It is based on the story of a boxer during the Depression, James J. Braddock. Braddock had to over come many adversities such as the economical and societal conditions. Another adversity he had to overcome was living in the Depression and all the things that go along with that. Braddock’s character traits shown in the movie are all important and appropriate due to the harshness of those times.

Boxing, an official sanctioned sport in the early 20th century, is a sport that is known as one of the most violent and physically demanding sports on the earth. Professional boxers that get paid to fight must be in top shape in order to preform at the highest level. Being a professional boxer is a tough life. Boxers train hard for many months leading up to one fight and either win, lose, knock out the opponent or even get knocked out. The sport has been around for centuries, but has most recently taken off over the last 100 years. It is a multibillion dollar industry with fighters taking home hundreds of thousands of dollars if not even millions of dollars for big matches. In his novel Papa Jack, Roberts tells the story of the famous African American boxer Jack Johnson. He details the boxers rise to fame and fortune and his downward spiral that would soon follow. In Papa Jack, Roberts displays life of a professional boxer through firsthand accounts with events that happened during Johnson’s life and shows how boxing not only influenced his life but also how he influenced the African American community.

The main plot of the story starts with a successful boxer in the roaring twenties. James J. Braddock fought his way to becoming the best-known boxer ever. He is a very well known boxer in his day. The Great Depression takes a toll on everyone in the country. James has lost pretty much everything he worked his life for. This did not stop James from trying his best to provide for his family and even got the chance to fight in the ring once again. This has become the best comeback in the face of great hardships. He never gave up to shoot for his goal to beat the best-known boxer at the time, Max Baer. No matter how hard it was back home he fought his best to get his life back. He then got the nickname of “The Cinderella Man” for his comeback

The documentary, “Unforgivable Blackness” directed by Ken Burns casts light on the extraordinary life story of legendary boxer Jack Johnson. The documentary is about the barriers Jack Johnson had to overcome to satisfy his hunger for becoming the best and living “The American Dream.” Johnson had humble beginnings in Galveston, Texas and it was in those beginnings that glimpses of his bright future were slowly but surely beginning to show. Through out his life, he showed independence, relentlessness, ability to improvise, call attention to himself and get around rules meaning to tie him down. Jack Johnson was a self made man who had the drive to go forward and achieve what he wanted to achieve

The movie Cinderella Man is a biographical film of boxer James J. Braddock that illustrates his struggle through the Great Depression. Movies often exaggerate the suffering of the Great Depression or just gloss over it, but Cinderella Man accurately shows the prevailing attitude of the time through the facial expressions of the actors and the obstacles they overcome. In the film, the people on the street and in the crowd in the boxing arenas appear worried and never smile. The only time that people appear happy is while watching the excitement of a boxing match. This shows how important sporting events like boxing were to a public which had very little to cheer about. In a time when few people had television sets in their houses, listening to a boxing match on the radio let people imagine the fights through their own interpretations in their heads. The movie correctly shows how boxing was a temporary shelter from the suffering for many.

Cinderella Man is a famous, nonfiction film that was directed by Ron Howard and produced in 2005. The timing of the production of this film can strike as interesting, and maybe even odd; this is because the film begins in the times of the roaring 20’s, when the United States experienced a peak in economic successes. However, the 20’s is not the only developed time period, rather, it is the 30’s that most of the action in the film protagonists’ story will take place. Jim Braddock, a well known, wealthy, married man takes the lead position to show audiences the first-hand impact that the Great Depression had on families of all backgrounds. Braddock's riches-to-rags-to-riches story has inspired the value behind family and hard work and brought hope to his neighbors and fans who found themselves also struggling to find work and pay their bills during one of the greatest the economic downturns in history.

Cinderella’s story is undoubtedly the most popular fairy tale all over the world. Her fairy tale is one of the best read and emotion filled story that we all enjoyed as young and adults. In Elizabeth Pantajja’s analysis, Cinderella’s story still continues to evoke emotions but not as a love story but a contradiction of what we some of us believe. Pantajja chose Cinderella’s story to enlighten the readers that being good and piety are not the reason for Cinderella’s envious fairy tale. The author’s criticism and forthright analysis through her use of pathos, ethos, and logos made the readers doubt Cinderella’s character and question the real reason behind her marrying the prince. Pantajja claims that

The 1930s were known for many things, one of the biggest being the movement from silent films to “talkies” which is what the first films with script and other sound effects were called. When film was first being produced everything had to be acted out with no sound, meaning there was no music, talking, laugh track, nothing. While there were people who excelled at acting in silent films, not many were able to make the transition to talkies easily. However the ones who did, flourished. One such star was Will Rogers. He was a ranch hand, rodeo rider, vaudeville performer, film star, columnist and author, radio personality, pioneer of aviation, tireless master of ceremonies, friend to presidents, and unofficial ambassador of good will under

Cinderella Man was an incredibly magnificent and uplifting film that followed the life of the “Bulldog”, later entitled “Cinderella Man”, starring Russell Crowe as James J. Braddock, the American heavyweight boxer. Primarily, Cinderella Man embodies strength and willpower as once-undefeated heavyweight fighter, Braddock’s loses started to rapidly accumulate, so bad that he was released from his boxing contract and was merciless impeded from fighting. Correspondingly, deprived of work the bulldog began to undertake hard labor during the Great Depression to counterbalance myriad bills and overdue payments. Moreover, Braddock and his wife Mae together had three children to nourish. Correspondingly, years later, Joe Gould played by Paul Giamatti, was Braddock’s old boxing manager and contracted him one last concluding fight, which he won. Hence, the Bulldog started to train again and James J. Braddock was reborn after countless winning comebacks. Ultimately, Jimmy undergoes a fairy tale rise from a poor local fighter to the heavyweight-boxing champion of the world.

This movie took place September 25. 1933 which was four years into the Great Depression. The first impression I got was he was a happy man, was rich and made enough money from wrestling, I was wrong. His family included a wife, a daughter, and two sons. They lived in a run down apartment and didn't have enough money to pay for bills and there milk payment was past due. The daughter, Ariel woke up one morning and wanted breakfast she ate and was still hungry the father convinced her he was full and gave her his breakfast. I could tell by the time this movie is based on because of the music, there clothing, and the style of the town. The father, Jim was trying to get a job and there was many men at the fence trying to

East meets West when Rocky takes on a vicious Soviet fighter who literally killed his last opponent! Sylvester Stallone writes,

     “Raging Bull” (1980) is not a so much a film about boxing but more of a story about a psychotically jealous, sexually insecure borderline homosexual, caged animal of a man, who encourages pain and suffering in his life as almost a form of reparation. Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece of a film drags you down into the seedy filth stenched world of former middleweight boxing champion Jake “The Bronx Bull” LaMotta. Masterfully he paints the picture of a beast whose sole drive is not boxing but an insatiable obsessive jealously over his wife and his fear of his own underling sexuality. The movie broke new ground with its brutal unadulterated no-holds-bard look at the vicious sport of boxing by bringing the camera

Perhaps Johnson’s most famous title defense was against former heavyweight champion Jim Jeffries in 1910. Jeffries had been retired for six years and had refused to fight Johnson before Jeffries retirement. The battle was labeled the “Fight of the Century” with a crowd of over 20,000 in attendance. Johnson’s eventual victory in the 15th round led to riots throughout the country as the last of the “Great White Hopes” had failed to salvage the title.