December 10, 1999 | Even if you know nothing about the historical facts that support its fanciful fictions, Tim Robbins’ Cradle Will Rock crackles with more than enough energy and immediacy to grab your attention and excite your senses. But if you do know something about the real-life people and events that figure prominently in Robbins’ extravaganza, you’re even better able to appreciate the audacity of the film’s ambition, and the distinctiveness of its execution.
Set in New York during the 1930s, this panoramic ensemble drama unfolds like Ragtime as re-imagined by Robert Altman, with additional dialogue by Woody Allen. Credit Robbins for writing a screenplay of uncommon depth, range and wit. But give him even greater praise for combining elaborate showmanship with an urgent sense of purpose in presenting what he promises, in the opening credits, is “a (mostly) true story.”
The title refers to the legendary agitprop musical – a furiously sincere fable about the courage of striking workers and the corruption of wealthy exploiters — composed by Marc Blitzstein (Hank Azaria). Robbins’ magnum opus begins in the fall of 1936, a period he deftly encapsulates in a clever prologue: While a homeless waif (Emily Watson) rises from her sleeping place in the back of a movie theater, a newsreel provides expository details. Out in the real world, we quickly discover, discontent have-nots are unsettling the powerful have-lots – including publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst (John Carpenter) – by organizing strikes very much like the one in Blitzstein’s epic. Which, of course, is one reason why The Cradle Will Rock (the movie title inexplicably ditches the “the”) is considered to be, at best, a dicey commercial prospect.
Blitzstein is promised a world premiere production by two rising superstars – Orson Welles (Angus Macfadyen), a temperamental young director, and John Houseman (Cary Elwes), his producer and stabilizing influence – of the Federal Theater Project, an agency of the Works Project Administration. (Grinning gleefully, Welles appraises “Cradle” as an act of provocation: “It will piss off the right people.”) The homeless waif winds up cast in the show, along with a handsome but essentially humorless union activist (Jamey Sheridan) and an immigrant actor (John Turturro) whose Radical Left politics place him at odds with his fascist-sympathizing family.
Unfortunately, the show may not go on, thanks to budget cutbacks, political pressures — and Congressional investigators who see Red when they view the WPA’s theatrical activities. (Truth is stranger, and funnier, than fiction: A scene in which a Congressman questions whether Shakespeare was a Communist is lifted verbatim from the Congressional Record.) Despite the best efforts of WPA theater chief Hallie Flanagan (Cherry Jones), the plug is pulled, the theater is padlocked – and armed soldiers are placed outside the front door. Undeterred, Welles and company slip in through the back door, to plot strategy. All of which leads to an inspiring and exhilarating grand finale that is all the more satisfying for being (mostly) true.
Robbins places the backstage drama of the Cradle premiere at the center of his movie. But this compelling storyline is just one of the threads that he weaves into a vibrant tapestry of art and commerce, idealism and pragmatism, compromise and conviction. While the giddy wife (Vanessa Redgrave) of a stuffy millionaire (Philip Baker Hall) patronizes a dubious “composer” (Paul Giamatti) of indeterminate ancestry, Nelson Rockefeller (John Cusack) hires radical artist Diego Rivera (Ruben Blades) to create a lavish mural in Rockefeller Center – then goes ballistic when Diego includes an iconographic rendition of Karl Marx. Meanwhile, fascist propagandist Margherita Sarfatti (Susan Sarandon) raises money for Mussolini by selling art masterpieces to Manhattan millionaires.
Cradle Will Rock is most wobbly during stretches of fuzzily-conceived subplot about a stridently anti-communist WPA clerk (Joan Cusack) and a second-rate Vaudeville ventriloquist (Bill Murray). Neither character is sufficiently developed – though Murray does have a few funny moments as the ventriloquist coaches two untalented protégés — and their relationship doesn’t really add up to much. But don’t worry: They’re never around for very long. And besides, there’s so much else going on.
