The problem with allowing government to fund your industry is that government is then allowed to call the shots. So it was with The Federal Theater Project, a Works Progress Administration (WPA) program of the FDR administration during the Great Depression. Cradle Will Rock, a 1999 movie written and directed by Mr. Susan Sarandon (aka Tim Robbins), is the “mostly” true story of the play by the same name, a left-leaning musical drama trying desperately to make its debut on Broadway in 1936. (Thanks to jonquil for the recommendation.) The play was directed by Orson Welles, played by Angus Macfadyen (Robert the Bruce in Braveheart). Macfadyen does a decent enough job, yet having just seen Christian McKay’s Welles in Me and Orson Welles, the bar had been, for me, unfortunately set just a bit too high. McKay was amazing. But whereas Me and Orson Welles was a swing and a miss for me, Cradle Will Rock, though not a home run, was at least a double off the, what else?, left field wall.
Of course “left” back in those days wasn’t easy to pin down. Merely belonging to a union was cause enough for concern and could get you investigated by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The Committee was, technically, a couple years away from forming, but we see the roots of it here. Communism was feared and the worst thing you could be accused of was being a “red”. According to the film, “Cradle Will Rock” (the play), became a victim of government funding cutbacks mainly, so it is suggested, because of its socialist, pro-union themes. In reality, the play was simply an innocent victim of government funding cutbacks. No matter. The end result is the same: Welles, locked out of his theater venue, moves the play to another theater, announcing to the crowd of waiting ticket holders that the venue has been moved about 20 blocks. But, in truth, it was non-union actors and musicians that ultimately performed the play.
This apparently doesn’t make for the morality play Robbins is seeking, however, so we have a little playing fast and loose with the facts. And it mostly works. The communist witch hunt that began in those days and continued through the McCarthy hearings is a disgraceful part of American history. The movie elicits sympathy on that score, though it comes dangerously close to going overboard, getting downright preachy at times. It is at its best when it shows the behind-the-scenes chaos of a play struggling to get airborne with Welles at the controls.
There are subplots aplenty, including Susan Sarandon playing the part of Mussolini mistress Margherita Sarfatti, cajoling a leader of the U.S. steel industry to help fund Mussolini’s war effort, Diego Rivera (Ruben Blades) being hired by Nelson Rockefeller (John Cusack) to paint a mural in Rockefeller Center (the mural turns out to be a socialist allegory, to Rockefeller’s great dismay), and a Vaudevillian ventriloquist (Bill Murray for some comic relief) literally watching the death of his art form. It all adds up to a huge statement about freedom of speech and the hypocrisy of the power structure of the times. It’s a decent enough point, but a statement that at times I felt was being beaten over my head.
Still, the film was entertaining, if a bit long (it seemed most of the play in question was actually presented to us towards the end of the movie, adding about fifteen superfluous minutes), and as a period piece it works well. And the cast, including Vanessa Redgrave, Hank Azaria, Jack Black, and John Turturro, in addition to those previously mentioned, was stellar. The moral, however, had me scratching my head a bit. Robbins seems to be surprised and disappointed that people will provide money for the arts (whether it’s private as in the case of Rockefeller, or public as in the case of the WPA), and then actually expect to have a say in the final result of the spending. Why is that a surprise?
7.5/10