Scott-101
This film depicts the true story of a communist play staged by Orson Welles and Jon Houseman (anyone familiar with the Mercury Theater, Citizen Kane, or the Oscar-winning Paper Chase performance will know of these two historic figures) that ran afoul of the government for its Communist leanings. Stories about Diego Rivera's controversial mural at New York's Rockefeller Center (home of Saturday Night Live/The Today Show) and a ventriloquist played by Bill Murray are juxtaposed alongside the main storyline though they don't exactly intersect. It's kind of curious.The film's main accomplishments are it's frenetic pace and it's juggling of multiple story lines. There's a lot of energy from scene to scene even as the focus jumps. As (what I presume is) a homage to Orson Welles himself, Robbins introduces characters with long and graceful tracking shots and never lets the camera get bored. His film covers a wide tapestry of struggling artists in the Great Depression (even moving history a little to allow Rivera and Welles/Houseman to collide) and shines a light on the forces that drive them. Some are hungry to make a statement, some are hungry to be creative, some are hungry for social standing and many are literally hungry.The film boasts a great number of top-name actors including the Tenacious (Kyle Gass and Jack Black) before they were famous, both Cusack siblings, great character actors Philip Baker Hall and Paul Giamatti, Susan Sarandon, Bill Murray, Hank Azaria, Cary Elwes and Emily Watson.Emily Watson, in particular, is a diamond in the rough here. Oozing pathos and emotion, she's a modern-day Ruby Keillor in 42nd Street. She's at the center of the movie's most impressive tracking shot: A woman in poverty who squats in a movie theater wakes up in the morning as the newsreel runs through a projecter and runs out of the theater before she gets in trouble. Similar, Hank Azaria as the songwriter behind the play displays a lot of nuance. Bill Murray does a typical deadpan Bill Murray but it feels oddly appropriate. If anything, Tim Robbis deserves credit for catering to his star's strengths.
Gordon-11
This film is about a pro-union play being blocked by the American government from being played.Maybe I am not familiar with the history and the background of these events, I find "Cradle Will Rock" incredibly confusing. I suppose there are many metaphors in the film too, but unfortunately I did not get them, so a lot of the story is lost for me. I did not understand the Bill Murray's abandonment of the puppet and the subsequent funeral. I am sure there is a lot of significance but I have no idea what it is. In addition, I find the several subplots (Bill Murray's puppets, Joan Cusack's hearing, John Cusack having his building lobby decorated) unconnected and poorly intertwined. If "Cradle Will Rock" is just about the play being suppressed and the fight to continue it, I guess I may understand and enjoy it.
blanche-2
A wonderful, large cast recreates the story behind "The Cradle Will Rock" in this 1999 film, written and directed by Tim Robbins and starring Hank Azaria, Ruben Blades, Joan Cusack, John Cusack, Bill Murray, Cherry Jones, John Turturro, Vanessa Redgrave, Susan Sarandon, Jamey Sheridan, Gretchen Mol, Emily Watson, Bob Balaban - etc.Before the Depression and the turbulence of the 1930s, plays focused on the upper class. Everyone talked like Katharine Hepburn and people wore beautiful clothes. In the 1930s, the working man began to have a voice with the works of William Sarayoan, Clifford Odets, and Maxwell Anderson, among others. During the Depression, FDR started the WPA, and the Federal Theatre Project was one of its programs. "The Cradle Will Rock" is a leftist labor musical by Marc Blitzstein that is chosen by Hallie Flanagan, head of the FTP, to premiere at the Maxine Elliott Theater in New York. The politics of the FTP come under question, the theater is locked, and the actors are forbidden to appear on stage.Orson Welles finds another theater for the production, and the story of the opening night performance, spontaneously performed by the cast from the audience as Blitzstein sat up on stage and played, was thought to be one of the most exciting moments in theater history by those who were there.Robbins focuses on the controversy surrounding the musical but also on several other important events. Maybe, in the end, it is too much content, but fascinating nonetheless. Diego Rivera, an avowed Communist, played by Ruben Blades, is hired by Nelson Rockefeller (John Cusak) to paint a mural at Rockefeller Center. Rockefeller, however, doesn't like the revolutionary tone of the mural. One of the actors, played by John Turturro, has to deal with a family that supports Mussolini's Black Shirts.Marc Blitzstein, in focusing on a prostitute in "The Cradle Will Rock," asks us who the real prostitutes are, and Robbins shows us in his depictions of Rockefeller, Hearst, and the Senate committee before which Hallie Flanagan testifies, the thin and sometimes nonexistent line between art and politics.The performances are terrific. Just about everyone is a standout, with John Turturro in an especially showy role as a man who wants to demonstrate principles and ethics to his children. Ruben Blades and Corina Katt Ayala could have been Rivera and Frida Kahlo, the resemblance is so strong. Vanessa Redgrave is excellent as Countess LaGrange, a wealthy woman who gets caught up in the proceedings. The gifted Broadway star Cherry Jones gives another strong performance as Hallie Flanagan, and Emily Watson is marvelous as Olive Stanton. The minute I heard the vocal rhythm of Angus Macfadyen, I knew he was playing Orson Welles. He does a beautiful job, as does Susan Sarandon as Margherita Sarfatti, Mussolini's ex-mistress who came to the U.S. to sell Mussolini to the American people via William Randolph Hearst's newspapers.Well worth seeing, and the period is well worth reading about.
