Cross Creek (film)
Encyclopedia
Cross Creek is a 1983 film starring Mary Steenburgen
as The Yearling
author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
. The film is directed by Martin Ritt
and is based, in part, on Rawlings' 1942 memoir, Cross Creek.
State, aspiring author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Steenburgen) advises her husband that her last book was rejected by a publisher, and she has bought an orange grove
in Florida
and is leaving him to go there. She drives to the nearest town alone, and arrives in time for her car to die. Local resident Norton Baskin (Peter Coyote
) takes her the rest of the distance to a dilapidated and overgrown cabin attached to an even more overgrown orange grove. Despite Baskin's (and her own) doubts, she stays and begins to fix up the property.
The local residents of "the Creek" begin to interact with her. Marsh Turner (Rip Torn
) comes around with his daughter Ellie (Dana Hill
), a teenage girl who keeps a deer fawn as a pet she has named Flag. A black woman, Geechee (Alfre Woodard
), arrives and offers to work for her, despite the fact that Rawlings insists she cannot pay her much. The grove languishes below her expectations and Rawlings writes another novel, hoping to get it published. A very young married couple arrives to inhabit a cabin on Rawlings' property. The woman is very pregnant and they both reject Rawlings' attempts to help them.
Rawlings employs the assistance of a few of the Creek residents, Geechee and Baskin, to unblock a vital irrigation vein for her grove, and it begins to improve. The young couple has their child. Ellie's deer grows older and escapes her pen, and Marsh foretells that the deer will have to be killed for eating all their food. Geechee's husband comes to stay with her after being released from prison, and Rawlings offers him a place to work in her grove, but he refuses and Rawlings asks him to leave.
Even though her husband drinks and gambles, Geechee goes to leave with him, and Rawlings admits she will be sad to see Geechee leave, after Geechee demands to know why Rawlings would allow a friend to make such a mistake. Geechee decides to stay after all after telling Rawlings that she should learn how to treat her friends better.
Rawlings submits her novel, a gothic romance, to Max Perkins, and it is rejected again. He writes her in return to tell her to write him stories about the people she describes so well in her letters, instead of the popular English governess stories she has been writing. She does so immediately, beginning with telling the story of the young married couple (eventually becoming "Jacob's Ladder," published in Scribner's Magazine
in 1931).
During a visit to the Turner's home on Ellie's 14th birthday, Flag escapes his pen once more and Marsh is forced to shoot him after he has eaten the family's vegetables. Ellie screams at him in hatred, and Marsh goes on a bender
, goes into town and attracts the attention of the sheriff. The sheriff finds Marsh drinking moonshine
with a shotgun across his lap, and demands the gun. When Marsh offers it to him, the sheriff shoots him (the story eventually becoming the basis for The Yearling
).
Max Perkins (Malcolm McDowell
, uncredited) visits and accepts her story (Jacob's Ladder) upon reading it. Baskin asks Rawlings to marry him, which she accepts after much hesitation about her independence. Rawlings realizes her profound attachment to the land at Cross Creek.
nominations:
It was also entered into the 1983 Cannes Film Festival
.
Mary Steenburgen
Mary Nell Steenburgen is an American actress. She is best known for playing the role of Lynda Dummar in Jonathan Demme's Melvin and Howard, which earned her an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.-Early life:...
as The Yearling
The Yearling
The Yearling is a 1946 Technicolor family film drama made by MGM. It was directed by Clarence Brown and produced by Sidney Franklin. The screenplay was by Paul Osborn and John Lee Mahin , adapted from the novel of the same name by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings...
author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was an American author who lived in rural Florida and wrote novels with rural themes and settings. Her best known work, The Yearling, about a boy who adopts an orphaned fawn, won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1939 and was later made into a movie, also known as The...
. The film is directed by Martin Ritt
Martin Ritt
Martin Ritt was an American director, actor, and playwright who worked in both film and theater. He was born in New York City.-Early career and influences:...
and is based, in part, on Rawlings' 1942 memoir, Cross Creek.
Plot
In 1928 in New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
State, aspiring author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Steenburgen) advises her husband that her last book was rejected by a publisher, and she has bought an orange grove
Orange Grove
-Music:* Orange Grove , a Dutch/Antillean reggae band-Australia:* Orange Grove, Western Australia* The Orange Grove affair, a political scandal-United States:...
in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
and is leaving him to go there. She drives to the nearest town alone, and arrives in time for her car to die. Local resident Norton Baskin (Peter Coyote
Peter Coyote
Peter Coyote is an American actor, author, director, screenwriter and narrator of films, theatre, television and audio books. His voice work includes narrating the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics and Apple's iPad campaign. He has also served as on-camera co-host of the 2000 Oscar...
) takes her the rest of the distance to a dilapidated and overgrown cabin attached to an even more overgrown orange grove. Despite Baskin's (and her own) doubts, she stays and begins to fix up the property.
The local residents of "the Creek" begin to interact with her. Marsh Turner (Rip Torn
Rip Torn
Elmore Rual "Rip" Torn, Jr. , is an American actor of stage, screen and television.Torn received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1983 film Cross Creek. His work includes the role of Artie, the producer, on The Larry Sanders Show, for which he was nominated...
) comes around with his daughter Ellie (Dana Hill
Dana Hill
Dana Hill was an American actress and voice actor with a raspy voice and childlike appearance, which allowed her to play adolescent roles into her 30s...
), a teenage girl who keeps a deer fawn as a pet she has named Flag. A black woman, Geechee (Alfre Woodard
Alfre Woodard
Alfre Ette Woodard is an American film, stage, and television actress. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and Grammy Awards, 17 times for Emmy Awards , and has also won a Golden Globe and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.She is known for her role in films such as Cross Creek, Miss...
), arrives and offers to work for her, despite the fact that Rawlings insists she cannot pay her much. The grove languishes below her expectations and Rawlings writes another novel, hoping to get it published. A very young married couple arrives to inhabit a cabin on Rawlings' property. The woman is very pregnant and they both reject Rawlings' attempts to help them.
Rawlings employs the assistance of a few of the Creek residents, Geechee and Baskin, to unblock a vital irrigation vein for her grove, and it begins to improve. The young couple has their child. Ellie's deer grows older and escapes her pen, and Marsh foretells that the deer will have to be killed for eating all their food. Geechee's husband comes to stay with her after being released from prison, and Rawlings offers him a place to work in her grove, but he refuses and Rawlings asks him to leave.
Even though her husband drinks and gambles, Geechee goes to leave with him, and Rawlings admits she will be sad to see Geechee leave, after Geechee demands to know why Rawlings would allow a friend to make such a mistake. Geechee decides to stay after all after telling Rawlings that she should learn how to treat her friends better.
Rawlings submits her novel, a gothic romance, to Max Perkins, and it is rejected again. He writes her in return to tell her to write him stories about the people she describes so well in her letters, instead of the popular English governess stories she has been writing. She does so immediately, beginning with telling the story of the young married couple (eventually becoming "Jacob's Ladder," published in Scribner's Magazine
Scribner's Magazine
Scribner's Magazine was an American periodical published by the publishing house of Charles Scribner's Sons from January 1887 to May 1939. Scribner's Magazine was the second magazine out of the "Scribner's" firm, after the publication of Scribner's Monthly...
in 1931).
During a visit to the Turner's home on Ellie's 14th birthday, Flag escapes his pen once more and Marsh is forced to shoot him after he has eaten the family's vegetables. Ellie screams at him in hatred, and Marsh goes on a bender
Binge drinking
Binge drinking or heavy episodic drinking is the modern epithet for drinking alcoholic beverages with the primary intention of becoming intoxicated by heavy consumption of alcohol over a short period of time. It is a kind of purposeful drinking style that is popular in several countries worldwide,...
, goes into town and attracts the attention of the sheriff. The sheriff finds Marsh drinking moonshine
Moonshine
Moonshine is an illegally produced distilled beverage...
with a shotgun across his lap, and demands the gun. When Marsh offers it to him, the sheriff shoots him (the story eventually becoming the basis for The Yearling
The Yearling
The Yearling is a 1946 Technicolor family film drama made by MGM. It was directed by Clarence Brown and produced by Sidney Franklin. The screenplay was by Paul Osborn and John Lee Mahin , adapted from the novel of the same name by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings...
).
Max Perkins (Malcolm McDowell
Malcolm McDowell
Malcolm McDowell is an English actor with a career spanning over forty years.McDowell is principally known for his roles in the controversial films If...., O Lucky Man!, A Clockwork Orange and Caligula...
, uncredited) visits and accepts her story (Jacob's Ladder) upon reading it. Baskin asks Rawlings to marry him, which she accepts after much hesitation about her independence. Rawlings realizes her profound attachment to the land at Cross Creek.
Cast
- Mary SteenburgenMary SteenburgenMary Nell Steenburgen is an American actress. She is best known for playing the role of Lynda Dummar in Jonathan Demme's Melvin and Howard, which earned her an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.-Early life:...
- Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - Rip TornRip TornElmore Rual "Rip" Torn, Jr. , is an American actor of stage, screen and television.Torn received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1983 film Cross Creek. His work includes the role of Artie, the producer, on The Larry Sanders Show, for which he was nominated...
- Marsh Turner - Peter CoyotePeter CoyotePeter Coyote is an American actor, author, director, screenwriter and narrator of films, theatre, television and audio books. His voice work includes narrating the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics and Apple's iPad campaign. He has also served as on-camera co-host of the 2000 Oscar...
- Norton Baskin - Dana HillDana HillDana Hill was an American actress and voice actor with a raspy voice and childlike appearance, which allowed her to play adolescent roles into her 30s...
- Ellie Turner - Alfre WoodardAlfre WoodardAlfre Ette Woodard is an American film, stage, and television actress. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and Grammy Awards, 17 times for Emmy Awards , and has also won a Golden Globe and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.She is known for her role in films such as Cross Creek, Miss...
- Geechee - Joanna MilesJoanna MilesJoanna Miles is an American actress.Miles was born in Nice, France, the daughter of Jeanne Miles, an American painter, and Johannes Schiefer, a French painter art curator. She immigrated to the United States, and was naturalized a citizen, in 1941...
- Mrs. Turner - Ike EisenmannIke EisenmannIke Eisenmann is an American actor, voice actor, producer, and sound-effects specialist who has been active in the entertainment industry since he was a preteen.-Career:...
- Paul - Cary GuffeyCary GuffeyCary Guffey is a former American child actor. He is best remembered for his debut in the role of Barry Guiler in the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind .-Biography:...
- Floyd Turner - Toni HudsonToni HudsonToni Hudson is an American actress, who has appeared in films and on television. Her first role was in the daytime soap opera Capitol. Her best known part was in the 1985 film Just One of the Guys as Denise....
- Tim's Wife - Bo Rucker - Leroy
- Jay O. SandersJay O. SandersJay Olcutt Sanders is an American character actor.Sanders was born in Austin, Texas, to Phyllis Rae and James Olcutt Sanders. He is noted for playing Mob lawyer character Steven Kordo in the 1986–88 NBC detective series Crime Story...
- Charles Rawlings - John Hammond - Tim
- Tommy Alford - Postal Clerk
- Norton Baskin - Man in the Rocking Chair
- Terrence Gehr - Store Keeper
Awards
The film received four Academy AwardAcademy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
nominations:
- Best Supporting ActorAcademy Award for Best Supporting ActorPerformance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
(Rip TornRip TornElmore Rual "Rip" Torn, Jr. , is an American actor of stage, screen and television.Torn received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1983 film Cross Creek. His work includes the role of Artie, the producer, on The Larry Sanders Show, for which he was nominated...
) - Best Supporting ActressAcademy Award for Best Supporting ActressPerformance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
(Alfre WoodardAlfre WoodardAlfre Ette Woodard is an American film, stage, and television actress. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and Grammy Awards, 17 times for Emmy Awards , and has also won a Golden Globe and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.She is known for her role in films such as Cross Creek, Miss...
) - Best Costume Design
- Best Music, Original Score
It was also entered into the 1983 Cannes Film Festival
1983 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :*William Styron *Henri Alekan *Yvonne Baby *Sergei Bondarchuk *Youssef Chahine *Souleymane Cissé *Gilbert de Goldschmidt *Mariangela Melato *Karel Reisz...
.