# Cradle Will Rock (1999)

### reviewed by
Scott Renshaw

CRADLE WILL ROCK (Touchstone) Starring: Hank Azaria, Emily Watson, John Turturro, Angus Macfayden, Bill Murray, Joan Cusack, Cherry Jones, Cary Elwes, John Cusack, Vanessa Redgrave, Philip Baker Hall, Ruben Blades, Susan Sarandon, Jamey Sheridan. Screenplay: Tim Robbins. Producers: Jon Kilik, Lydia Dean Pilcher and Tim Robbins. Director: Tim Robbins. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, nudity, adult themes) Running Time: 132 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.

CRADLE WILL ROCK is a tapestry of American social activism in the 1930s ... and a fairly tattered one, at that. Beginning in the fall of 1936, Tim Robbins' fact-based drama introduces us to the Federal Theatre Project, a W.P.A. sub-division dedicated to employing America's artists for the low-cost entertainment of America's Depression-era masses. Among the works funded by the project is "The Cradle Will Rock," a pro-union musical written by Marc Blitzstein (Hank Azaria) and staged by the ever-feuding tandem of producer John Houseman (Cary Elwes) and director Orson Welles (Angus Macfayden). According to Congressman Martin Dies (Harris Yulin), it's also too typical of the left-leaning tendencies of the arts community. When Congress abruptly declares a moratorium on all Federal Theatre Project activities, the F.T.P.'s director Hallie Flanagan (Cherry Jones) attempts to set things straight politically. Meanwhile, Welles and company decide on a more direct course of action.

The F.T.P. controversy and the staging of "The Cradle Will Rock" is the central story of CRADLE WILL ROCK, but it's far from the only one. Sub-plots follow "Cradle" cast members like Aldo Silvano (John Turturro), who turns his back on his pro-Fascist Italy family, and Olive Stanton (Emily Watson), a homeless aspiring singer. There are glimpses into the glittering lives of the industrialists whose efforts supported Italy and Germany prior to the war, including Nelson Rockefeller (John Cusack) and steel magnate Grey Mathers (Philip Baker Hall). There is a tale of Rockefeller's battle with artist Diego Rivera (Ruben Blades) over the mural Rivera has been commissioned to create in the new Rockefeller Center. And there are stories of anti-Communist whistle-blowers like W.P.A. clerk Hazel Huffman (Joan Cusack) and ventriloquist Tommy Crickshaw (Bill Murray).

If that seems like a lot to digest, it is. Robbins' sprawling narrative attempts to approach the era's growing class unrest from every possible angle, and in so doing can't quite do justice to any of them. Olive and Aldo are walking representations of the virtuous poor more than they are actual characters; their counterparts in Mathers and William Randolph Hearst (John Carpenter) are cackling industrialists who sit around counting their money (quite literally, in one scene). Characters with the potential to develop into something intriguing and complex -- like Margherita Sarfatti (Susan Sarandon), a Jewish propagandist for Mussolini -- barely get enough screen time for you to remember who they are. In a cinematic season where epic running times are epidemic, CRADLE WILL ROCK clocks in at a meager-by-comparison 132 minutes, not nearly enough time to render all its stories fully.

It's a shame, too, because CRADLE WILL ROCK often shows flashes of the compelling film that might have been. Robbins has real visual flair as a director, including a great scene-setting opening Steadicam shot and Blitzstein's sleep-deprived creation of "Cradle" (accompanied by hallucinatory inspirations for its staging and commentary from his muse Bertolt Brecht. Vanessa Redgrave has a juicy role as Mathers' "socially conscious" wife, who gets a rebellious thrill out of watching a "Negro production of 'Macbeth,'" or helping Welles' pirate performance of "Cradle." And there's the theater group, with Macfayden chewing scenery as the egotistical Welles and Elwes his effective foil as Houseman. Robbins says in the press notes that he originally set out to do a film just about the staging of "Cradle," before other storylines presented themselves. You can't help but wish he had stayed more focused.

In this era of fuming over the National Endowment for the Arts and its support of "questionable" works, CRADLE WILL ROCK's themes are certainly still timely. Robbins' sympathies are clearly with the social activists, but, as he did in DEAD MAN WALKING, he shows a willingness to explore the other side with some semblance of an open mind (if earnest, misguided namer of names Hazel falls into that category). The problem with CRADLE WILL ROCK isn't politics, though, but a reach exceeding Robbins' grasp. He has so little time to spend exploring any of his stories that he never delves into questions of what an artist sacrifices when he accepts patronage, or examines the irony of "The Cradle Will Rock" being sabotaged as much by the entertainers' unions as by the government. As an overview history lesson, CRADLE WILL ROCK has much to recommend it. As a film, it's too cursory a glance at too complex an issue.

         On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 La Internation-ills:  5.

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