A rush of liberation wind
Cradle Will Rock
Written and directed by Tim Robbins
With Vanessa Redgrave, Philip Baker Hall, Susan Sarandon and Ruben Blades
Review by Max Lane
Cradle Will Rock, written and directed by Tim Robbins, is not just a breath of fresh air compared to the Roman circus-like parade of Hollywood "entertainment" produced to help people escape the banality of life under capitalism. It is a great rush of liberating wind from the storms of the class struggle in the United States in the 1930s. The underlying theme is the relationship between class power, art and the individual.
There are two stories linked through the character of Countess La Grange (Vanessa Redgrave), art and theatre patron and rebellious wife of steel capitalist Grey Mathers (Philip Baker Hall). One deals with the machinations of Mathers, media tycoon Randolph Hearst and Nelson Rockefeller (John Cusack) as they plot to raise money for Hitler and Mussolini in the lead-up to World War II.
The trade in great European paintings is a means by which they launder money, with the help of Mussolini's cultural representative in the US, Margherita Sarfatti (Susan Sarandon).
The capitalists are portrayed with great humour but merciless reality. Especially wonderful is the account of Nelson Rockefeller's contracting of the revolutionary painter Diego Rivera (Ruben Blades) to paint a mural for the main foyer of the Rockefeller Building in New York, and Rockefeller's reaction as the communist mural unfolds on the walls of his temple to capitalism (this actually happened four years before Cradle Will Rock was set).
The second, richer and larger, story is of the lives and struggles of the actors, directors, producers, writers and office workers in the Federal Theatre Project. The FTP was part of the "make-work" policies of the Roosevelt administration in response to the Great Depression.
It brought live theatre to a quarter of the US population. When the government realised that performances were presenting left-wing views, Roosevelt closed the FTP down by banning plays and even deploying troops.
As US Congress begins its witch-hunt against Communists in the FTP and the FTP's head, Hallie Flanagan (Cherry Jones), an FTP theatre group produces a musical, Cradle Will Rock, by Communist playwright Marc Blitzstein (Hank Azaria).
Blitzstein's musical is an inspiring account of a union organising drive and the capitalists' reaction in Steeltown, USA. The play is produced by eccentric John Houseman (Cary Elwes) and directed by the even more eccentric young Orson Welles (Angus McFadyen).
The film's story revolves around what the play means to the actors, economically as well as politically. The actors are portrayed as workers as well as creative people.
Emily Watson's and John Turturro's wonderful performances, as they struggle with playing the leads in Blitzstein's play, combined with the depiction of Houseman and Welles, paint a rich portrait of artistic and political life.
Writer, producer, director and the actors deliver great performances as they face the government's axe. Roosevelt becomes even more frightened as the play mirrors the great steelworkers' strikes happening at the time.
The actors, and even the self-centred Welles, shine in their rebellion compared to the slinking retreat of union hack and actor John Adair (Jamey Sheridan), and the sad and lonely surrender and betrayal of ventriloquist Tommy Crickshaw (Bill Murray).
The film pays great attention to detail — from the expressions on the faces of every character to the psychological and political differences between liberals, anti-Stalinist communists, communists inside and outside the Communist Party, union bureaucrats and people just becoming political.
Cradle Will Rock features many of the songs and music of the original Blitzstein play. It is a film for which every left organisation should plan a group booking when it arrives in Australia.