Fighting for his family: Cinderella Man

Cinderella Man is being labeled a “boxing movie,” but there are really only two kinds of films that warrant such classification: training films that offer instruction to those wishing to learn the sport, and filmed accounts of a particular fight. Cinderella Man is neither. It’s not a boxing movie, but the story of a man whose prowess in the ring saved his family from poverty and gave hope to a country when hope was in short supply.

In the late 1920s, James J. Braddock enjoyed a successful career as a professional boxer, winning fight after fight with his powerful right hook, but like millions of other Americans, he was left broke after the stock market crash of 1929. Ironically, his boxing skills also deserted him at this time. After injuring his right hand in one fight, Braddock seeks work on the docks where he develops a mean left hook that will serve him well several years later. But with little work available even for unskilled laborers, even that means of support is hard to come by. Unable to care for his wife and their three children, Braddock swallows his pride and applies for government relief.

“I have to believe that when things are bad, I can change them,” he says.

Braddock’s luck does change when he’s picked as a last minute substitute for a fight at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Defying all the odds, Braddock wins in a third round knockout, and goes on to win several more fights before challenging Max Baer for the title of heavyweight champion of the world. Baer is as prosperous as Braddock is poor, and as played by Craig Bierko, the champ carries himself with all the bravado one might expect from a fighter who killed two men in the ring.

Director Ron Howard stages some marvelous boxing sequences, and the final bout is a brilliantly edited, sometimes brutal affair, but Cinderella Man always emphasizes Braddock the family man more than the fighter. When his son steals a salami, it matters not to Braddock that the family is barely subsisting on meals consisting of little more than fried bologna. He takes the boy to the butcher so he can return the stolen meal and apologize for his theft. He doesn’t discipline his son, but does tell him that stealing is always wrong, no matter how desperate the need. And Braddock has desperate needs, indeed. When the press, who have labeled him the “Cinderella Man” because of his amazing comeback, asks him to explain the turnaround in his fortunes, he explains that he now knows what he’s fighting for: “Milk.”

It may not be his intent, but Braddock is also fighting for the people. For millions of souls battered by the depression, he’s a folk-hero, a man whose incredible rise gives them hope that they, too, can beat the odds.

Director Howard beats the odds, too, by making this story work without relying on overly sentimental touches. Thomas Newman’s lovely score provides just the right touch. It accompanies the action without attempting to force emotions from the audience that the story doesn’t summon itself. Howard’s team also recreates depression era America believably. The atmosphere is suitably grim, but it’s scenes of the Braddocks’ having to water down their milk and of Braddock, with hat in hand, asking for handouts from his more affluent acquaintances that really hit home, as does Braddock’s visible guilt at having to break a promise not to send his children away to live with relatives better able to provide for them.

The performances hit home, as well. As Braddock, it’s not surprising that Russell Crowe is utterly believable in the boxing ring, but he’s equally superb at portraying Braddock the husband and father. This is a thoroughly decent man, and Crowe never fails to make him likeable. Renee Zellweger is one of the few contemporary actresses who looks right at home in the era depicted, and she excels as Braddock’s wife, Mae, so worried that her husband may die in the ring at the hands of the fearsome Baer that she refuses to even listen to the fight on the radio. Zellweger shows, as she did in Chicago and Cold Mountain, that no other actress is as effective in period pieces. Paul Giamatti, most recently seen in Sideways, is well-suited to period pieces, too, and as Braddock’s loyal manager, brings to mind such beloved character actors of the ‘30s as Frank McHugh and Allen Jenkins.

“Boxing movies” rarely fare well at the box-office, and Cinderella Man has not had the real life Braddock’s luck in America. But like I said, this is not a “boxing movie,” but a heartfelt account of one man’s struggle to beat overwhelming odds. He succeeds, and so does the movie. Cinderella Man is Ron Howard’s finest film to date, and one of the best films of the year.

Originally published at Paris Woman Journal

© 2005 Brian W. Fairbanks


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Frost/Nixon: History reimagined

The 37th president, Richard M. Nixon, struck me as a man who mourned even as he celebrated victory. David Frost, the British talk show host, was more a pursuer of pleasure. These two unlikely combatants met in 1977 for a series of televised interviews, the first that Nixon granted following his August 9, 1974 resignation from the presidency. The event became the basis for a play, then a 2008 movie directed by Ron Howard. Frost/Nixon earned several Oscar nominations, including best picture and best actor for Frank Langella (who lost to Sean Penn of Milk). It’s a surprisingly riveting drama about two men in search of redemption. Nixon resigned in disgrace to avoid impeachment, and Frost’s talk show, syndicated throughout the U.S., had been cancelled and the host reduced to emceeing a show on Australian TV. Frost, eager to reclaim the success he once enjoyed in America, sets out to scoop the news media that regards him as a lightweight, a “performer” rather than a journalist, by convincing Nixon to agree to a series of sit-down interviews.

Money talks, and it was money that got Nixon talking at first - $600,000 that Frost had to dig into his own pocket to provide since sponsors looked askance at both Frost, a British talk show host with no real experience in hard news, and Nixon, who a majority of the American people had not forgiven for Watergate. The fact that Frost paid Nixon was also controversial. The supposedly more respectable news outfits complained of “checkbook journalism,” but since CBS had offered Nixon exactly half of what Nixon received from Frost, the English “performer” was probably correct when he dismissed their complaints as jealousy. Once Nixon had agreed to what his agent, Irving “Swifty” Lazar, believed would be a “big wet kiss. This guy’ll be so grateful to be getting it at all, he’ll pitch puffballs all night and pay a half million dollars for the privilege,” Frost attempted to sell the shows to the American TV networks, none of which expressed interest. Fact is, Frost was a lightweight.

“Success in America is unlike success anywhere else,” he tells his producer. “You know, there’s a restaurant in New York called Sardi’s. Ordinary mortals can’t get a table.” When Frost had a talk show in America, “the place was my canteen.”

Frost is not content to be a success in his native Britain. Having conquered America once, he needs to conquer it again. Nixon, on the other hand, has his own selfish motives. He wants to regain the respect he once enjoyed on the world stage. Nixon calls the interviews a “challenge to a duel.” Frost initially denies it’s a duel, but knows that Nixon’s sizing up of the deal is accurate. It’s a duel and only one can win. Nixon keeps the upper hand throughout most of the sessions, and the journalists whose services Frost enlisted to help him in preparing the questions regard the interview as a failure and an embarrassment until the finale when Nixon loses his cool and expresses his view that if “the president does it, that means it’s not illegal. That’s what I believe.”

I’ve always had a certain admiration for Nixon. The fact that he was forced from office suggested to me that he was less a villain than a victim. Like John Kennedy, he must have been in the way of powerful forces and had to be removed. Plus, Nixon had a persecution complex. In a late night phone conversation, Nixon rambles on to Frost that both were looked down on by snobby elites and their subsequent careers were motivated by a desire for revenge: “No matter how many awards or column inches are written about you or how high the elected office is for me, it’s still not enough. We still feel like the little man, the loser they told us we were a hundred times.” Frost reluctantly admits that Nixon is right. Both are “looking for a way back into the sun, into the limelight, back onto the winner’s podium. Because we could feel it slipping away. We were headed, both of us, for the dirt, a place that snobs always told us we’d end up. Face in the dust, humiliated all the more for having tried so pitifully hard.”
Nixon, his rage fueled by alcohol, say “To hell with that!,” then vows to “show those bums. We’re gonna make them choke on our continued success, our continued headlines, our continued awards, and power and glory! We are gonna make those motherfuckers choke!” He then asks Frost if he’s right. “You are,” Frost says, but adds “Only one of us can win.”

Drama requires that only one of these duelists emerge triumphant, and the writer, Peter Morgan, throws the spoils to Frost who, we are told at the film’s conclusion, “continues to work as a TV presenter and news interviewer,” whereas Nixon, who died in 1994, never escaped controversy” and “remained largely absent from official state functions.”

Frost’s costly gamble certainly paid off. The interviews, syndicated to local television stations in the spring of 1977, were a big success, and earned cover stories in Time, Newsweek, and TV Guide.

Nixon did not win the redemption he sought, but he remains a towering figure in American politics. It was Bill Clinton who did much to bring Nixon back into the limelight, inviting him to the White House and soliciting his advice. It was Clinton, who, speaking at Nixon’s funeral, said it was time to judge the man on his complete record, not only on Watergate. One wonders what Nixon would have thought about Clinton’s own scandal during the second term of his presidency. Nixon was threatened with impeachment, but stepped down before Congress could take that action. Clinton was impeached, but refused to resign in an act of defiance that one would have expected from Nixon.

Frost/Nixon is probably Ron Howard’s best film. The performances are excellent throughout with Michael Sheen nailing David Frost. He captures the man’s rather smarmy charm, as well as his voice and tendency to sometimes swallow his words. Frank Langella has the greater challenge. Few presidents are as recognizable or as quirky as Nixon. There’s those prominent jowels, the widow’s peak hairline, and the hunched shoulders. It’s not an easy role to play, but Langella meets the challenge and makes Nixon real.

Brian W. Fairbanks

© 2010 Brian W. Fairbanks


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