Ruby Liang (ruby_fff) "Cross Creek" the 1983 Martin Ritt film tells the story of feisty author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, how she came to be attached to Cross Creek in Alachua County, Florida. The script by Dalene Young, based on Rawlings' own memoirs, along with engaging music by Leonard Rosenman, do at times seem like a Hallmark TV movie, yet a Martin Ritt film is never without poignancy, contrasting elements of conflicts and choice decisions. Thought-provoking drama, emotional highs and lows, not forgetting dashes of humor (be it in brief exchanges between key characters, or bemused scenes that'd elicit a smile from you) and jolting dark moments that's part of living - it's a Ritt movie, alright.What a talented cast assembled: the Alfre Woodard's Geechie scenes opposite Miss Rawlings, played by Mary Steenburgen, gave us the exceptional camaraderie rare at such time and place of the '40s; the confrontational yet congenial Rip Torn's Marsh Turner encounters could be heart-wrenching at times and whimsical at another; the tender and vulnerable segments with Dana Hill's portrayal of 14-year old Ellie Turner facing her Pa (Rip Torn) over the keeping of the fawn (the yearling) are memorable; the simultaneously comfortable and contradictory feelings when Marjorie and Peter Coyote's Norton Baskin meet at their varying circumstantial moments - what a treat to watch their facial expressions and sensitive performances. The nuance acting did not stop with the four key roles, as the supporting cast that included Paul (Ike Eisenmann), Mrs. Turner (Joanna Miles), Tim's wife (Toni Hudson - the scene of Marjorie visiting her and the new baby did momentarily remind me of the 1979 w-d Victor Nunez' small gem of the film "Gal Young 'Un"), the Turner children, however small the role may be, had made "Cross Creek" whole.The opening credits included a frame thanking Mr. Norton Baskin (Rawling's second husband who survived Marjorie by 44 years till 1997) for his assistance in the preparation and production of the film. In the 17-minute featurette "Cross Creek: A Look Back with Mary Steenburgen" on the DVD (distributed 2002 by Anchor Bay Entertainment and Studio Canal), when asked if the film was true in depicting Rawlings at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival, Baskin responded favorably, "it's as close as you can get." We see the various moods and aspects of Marjorie, be it tempestuous, headstrong, or sheer charming, especially when the subject is food and cooking.And it is absolutely true, "Cross Creek" the film wouldn't have been (existed) if not for cinematographer John A. Alonzo's supremely enchanting camera-work. The bayou marsh vegetation scenes, the trees and reflections in the waters, the sky and clouds mirrored in the river surface, the natural nature scenes that are very much Cross Creek's own in the rain, wind and sun - we are blessed by Alonzo's cinematic artistry and craftsmanship. Excerpt quoting of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings': "Who owns Cross Creek? The earth may be borrowed, not bought; may be used, not owned; it gives itself in response to love and tenderness, offers its seasonal flowering and fruiting." This is a guarantee of worthwhile viewing, indeed. As Mary Steenburgen pointed out in her featurette on the DVD, "Cross Creek" the film included a 'bonus' 20-second cameo appearance of Norton Baskin in person at the beginning (about 7 minutes into the film) - catch it if you can.

screenman I actually saw this movie at a cinema. At the time, I was working shifts and went there during a matinée on a hot summer day when I couldn't sleep. The cinema was air-conditioned.It was an early multi-screen complex and I somehow got into the wrong venue. I had intended to doze through something else. But as things transpired, there would be no sleeping. Shortly after the wrong movie began, I was additionally disconcerted by a group of female cleaners who came in and used it as their social club. I was the only other person there, and it is a measure of the movie's appeal that they habitually expected the place to be empty and asked me if I minded their presence. I didn't.Within about half an hour, the cleaners' conversation proved to be more interesting than the entertainment I had paid for.This movie oozed out of the screen with the cheesiness of very stale mayonnaise. The kind that has little dark, hairy, tufts growing on the surface. I particularly remember my senses being assaulted by strident cords of music that would blare out with very little warning, and even less meaning. The cleaners provided an anticipatory cue by putting their fingers in their ears.It was about some city bird going to live in the sticks amongst a load a backwood folk, putting them straight but at the same time being taught a moral lesson or two herself. Like you do. A sort of 'journey of discovery'. There was a sententious smugness about the whole production. In particular, the leading actress had an irritating habit of staring at every hick with a kind of intense beatific compassion, as if she herself were the patron-saint of thickies.And I believe at some stage she wrote a book.Long before the end, I had become fascinated by one of the cleaner's hushed and breathy tails of sexual impropriety.One suspects that there are some to whom sitting quietly for a couple of hours and not having to think, constitutes a meditation. The best that I can say is that I would not want to share their salad.I have never seen this movie advertised as showing on television, which surprises me. It is just the sort of pap that is screened in the afternoon to punish the unemployed for not having jobs.If you ever work shifts, be sure to get into the right theatre. Or hope for some cleaning ladies.

bandw This biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (author of "The Yearling") covers her early career from her move to the rural Florida town of Cross Creek until she found her voice as an author and began being published.I felt Mary Steenburgen was miscast. To survive the hardships that Rawlings had to overcome in getting her dilapidated house in order and turning her orange grove into a successful operation would imply that she was a pretty tough woman, both physically and mentally. When we see Steenburgen pitching in to clear tree roots and logs from a waterway she moves and acts more like a demure woman who would be more comfortable in fashionable society, and when she expresses anger one does not feel daunted by it in the least - it's like she is just reading her lines. Steenburgen's slight performance is unfortunate since the entire supporting cast is quite good and Rip Torn is magnificent in his portrayal of Marsh Turner, a feisty and colorful local. Torn breaths such life into the formidable but kindly Turner that I found myself just waiting out the times between his appearances. A woman of equal power to match Turner (as I am sure the real Rawlings must have been) would have raised this film above the average. Someone like Kathyrn Hepburn or Judi Dench would have been good for this part. The photography of rural 1930s Florida and the lush bayous was well done, as were the period details of dress and autos. There are memorable and touching scenes, like the one where Rawlings' housekeeper Geegee (Alfre in a fine performance) comes close to leaving. And the scenes involving the yearling in this movie are tremendously more powerful than they were in the movie "The Yearling."Why certain real life facts were altered that would have made the story more believable and interesting is puzzling. In the movie we have Steenburgen announcing at an upscale New York party, seemingly out of nowhere, that she is going to move to Florida to manage an orange grove and, if her husband does not want to come with her, then that's the end of the marriage. In truth she purchased the land using an inheritance from her mother and her husband moved there with her. In short order her husband decided he could not take it and went back to New York.All in all I did not get a feeling that I got to know the real Rawlings and, for that matter, the person Steenburgen was playing did not seem real to me.

cwkoller5 No, I don't think Cross Creek will ever be put up there with Kane or Casablanca, but for some reason I made a connection with this movie the first time I saw it 20 years ago, and it remains one of my favorite films even today.Every creative person goes through the struggle to find their voice, and Cross Creek is about a city-bred writer who runs away to the country to live an ascetic life with her typewriter. She expects her isolation and alienation to "prod the muses" but instead finds these new people and this new land to draw her in until they and it become the soul of her writing.The natural, understated tone of the film allowed for a human resonance I've rarely seen in mainstream Hollywood fare. And while Mary Steenburgen and Peter Coyote are perfectly fine, Rip Torn and Alfre Woodard's performances absolutely floored me. They respectively brought Marsh Turner and Geechee to life with such abandon and clarity, it's some of the finest acting I've witnessed on film, period.I revisit Cross Creek every few years and it always holds up stylistically (Leonard Rosenman's score is timeless). Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings symbolizes America itself, in my opinion, so concerned with pleasing its own, yet progressively exposed to a foreign world that ultimately will shape its real identity.It's a universally human story and, like I said before, I really connect with this little film, and appreciate Director Martin Ritt's courage in making it the way he did. I can't guarantee that others will necessarily feel the same way, but I always recommend Cross Creek to friends, be they creatives or not.