Apart from his movie work and long-lasting relationship with Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins may be best known as an unrepentant Hollywood leftist with a touch of the provocateur. When he isn't starring in hits like Shawshank Redemption, he's directing political satires like Bob Roberts or using his platform as an Oscar presenter to rail against perceived injustice.
That explains why he was attracted to the true story of the abortive stage production of Orson Welles' rabble-rousing 1936 leftist musical The Cradle Will Rock.
The setting is fascinating. America is still reeling from the Depression. Germany is threatening war abroad, and U.S. industrialists are busy supplying the Nazis, not only with raw materials such as oil and steel but also with money. To defend themselves against crass exploitation, workers form unions, shutting down many industries.
In this tense climate, wunderkind Welles (Angus Macfadyen) is trying to mount an elaborate production of a work by leftist Marc Blitzstein (Hank Azaria). The play examines the increasingly strained relationship between rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots. And it promises insurrection.
Ironically, it's funded by the Federal Theatre Project, an offshoot of FDR's Works Progress Administration. When right-wing politicians realize it isn't in their best interests to fund subversive art, they threaten to cut funding, which essentially stymies production.
At the same time, the issue of censorship plays out off-Broadway as young industrialist Nelson Rockefeller (John Cusack) hires famed Mexican artist Diego Rivera (Ruben Blades) to paint a mural for Rockefeller Centre. The work he produces is laced with lacerating social criticism. And when Rockefeller tries to intercede, the battle lines between art and commerce are drawn.
Other characters are also forced to choose sides, including:
Countess La Grange (Vanessa Redgrave), the wife of an industrialist (Philip Baker Hall). She becomes a stalwart supporter of the arts, though the political nature of the material eludes her.
Olive Stanton (Emily Watson), an impoverished actress who gets a job with the Federal Theatre Project and enjoys a brief, dramatic moment in the sun playing Blitzstein's working-class heroine.
Margherita Sarfatti (Susan Sarandon), a fascist sympathizer who makes money for Mussolini by selling purloined masterpieces to American industrialists.
Hallie Flanagan (Cherry Jones), the head of the WPA Theatre, who is forced to defend the project from the Dies Committee in Washington, a precursor to Joe McCarthy's witch-hunting House Un-American Activities Committee.
Hazel Huffman (Joan Cusack), a WPA clerk who testifies about the political nature of the WPA and unknowingly helps to dismantle it.
Aldo Silvano (John Turturro), a poor actor faced with a huge ethical dilemma when threatened with expulsion from the theatre union if he acts in Welles' play.
Tommy Crickshaw (Bill Murray), an alcoholic ventriloquist who sides with Hazel in her efforts to rid the WPA of "reds," only to be rewarded with contempt and a cold shoulder.
Some of the threads of this tapestry hold together better than others. The debate played out by Rockefeller and Rivera is a funny, full-bodied piece by itself. The scenes involving Welles are often riotous and funny.
But Olive's story and her ill-fated romance with a unionist (Jamey Sheridan) pile pathos on pathos. And playing the hard-luck ventriloquist, Murray's work goes from good to bad to worse.
Still, the film's few weaknesses shouldn't distract from the fact that Robbins -- who wrote and directed -- has pulled off something of a miracle by making a politically charged epic in an apolitical era.
(This film is rated AA)
More Movie Reviews
