Cradle Will Rock Summary
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Tim Robbins
Genres: Drama
Rating:
The sometimes rocky relationship between art and politics in America in the 1930s -- as well as the gulf between the wealthy and the struggling -- sets the stage for Tim_Robbins' ambitious comedy-drama Cradle Will Rock. Pulling together a variety of threads from actual events, Robbins examines the lives and ambitions of a variety of creative mavericks and figures of power. Orson_Welles (Angus_Macfadyen) and John_Houseman (Cary_Elwes) are working with Marc_Bliztstein (Hank_Azaria) to stage the latter's leftist musical "The Cradle Will Rock" for the WPA-funded Federal Theater Project. After Congress cuts funding for the embattled Federal Theater over the perceived leftist slant of their presentations, the project is canceled on the day of its premier. Welles and his cast respond by marching 21 blocks from the theater where the show was to open to another venue where, in deference to Actors Equity regulations, they perform the entire show from the audience. A member of Welles' cast, Aldo Silvano (John_Turturro), is a dedicated actor from Italy who is trying to resolve his attitudes about his family, who loyally support Mussolini, to Silvano's disgust. Meanwhile, El Duce's former mistress, Margherita Sarfatti (Susan_Sarandon), is consorting with industrial tycoon Gray Mathers (Philip_Baker_Hall) -- whose wife, Contesse LaGrange (Vanessa_Redgrave) is a friend and supporter of Welles' project. Elsewhere, Nelson_Rockefeller (John_Cusack) has hired expatriot Mexican artist Diego Rivera (Ruben_Blades) to create a mural for his projected Rockefeller Center, but the two are soon locking horns over their different views on art, politics and the work at hand. And a ventriloquist fallen on hard times, Tommy Crickshaw (Bill_Murray), finds himself trying to teach both comedy and speaking without lip movements to a pair of would-be performers at a WPA-backed vaudeville house. William Randolph Hearst (John_Carpenter), Marion_Davies (Gretchen_Mol), Frida Kahlo (Corina_Katt), and Olive Stanton (Emily_Watson) are also woven into the tapestry of this historical epic, which premiered at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. Mark Deming, Rovi
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