Cinderella Man

Cultural values play a major part in �Cinderella Man’ the biography of James Braddock, directed by Ron Howard. The way Howard uses setting plat characters and sound help to show how glum and dark the 1930s Depression was in New Jersey. All these filmic techniques work to describe and illustrate what it was really like in the Great Depression This allows the viewer and audience to put themselves in the characters’ shoes and experience the hardships New Jersey faced. The cultural values that James Braddock had were, mate ship (went to look for his missing neighbor), never give up attitude to (life, boxing and family) and always give back (gave his money back to the dole when he made his money back).

Ron Howard used setting extensively to help describe what the 1930s was like. He used techniques like low lighting to add a dark and depressed feel and dirty, trashed streets adding to the rundown, depressed feel. Scenes such as were James and his eldest son were walking back from the butcher the streets where dark and dirty which gave a sad feel to the already emotional scene. The other setting Howard uses is the boxing ring to enhance meaning and feeling as if you where sitting there. He does this by darkening out the crowd and lighting up the ring, this puts your eyes off the crowd and onto the ring. An example of this was the opening scene where all you can see is the brightly lit ring.

The plot is used extensively to help show the cultural values of James Braddock. He starts off a well off boxer who is successful and ends up as an average guy on the street. The ways James picked himself up from such a big fall is truly amassing. This shows how you can have so much and just one thing can make you lose everything. The director also tries hard to show the desperation and misery of poverty. An example of this was James sending his children away because he couldn’t afford to feed them.

The attitudes Ron Howard gives the characters are very important to �Cinderella Man’ as they show the typical New Jersey working class man, the typical

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