O Poder Vai Dançar

This is definately Tim Robbins best (directed) film yet. He brings a number of characters together to tell the story of the 1930's. In particular, Orson Wells and his broadway production that caused a controversy and some other things. Though it take liberties in history (that sounds weird), it comes out in the end as good entertainment from an exceptional actor/writer/director/producer. All star cast includes John and Joan Cusack, Ruben Blades, Hank Azaria, Tim Robbins (uncredited), Emily Watson, Susan Sarandon, Paul Giamatti, Angus MacFaden as Orson Wells (in a breakthrough performance) and Bill Murray in a wonderful role as a puppeteer. A+

Cradle Will Rock has everything I like in a movie - great characters, humor, suspense, depth, and music. The many subplots are woven together in perfect balance, leaving you wanting more of everything at the end, even though the film is over two hours.

The acting is excellent all around, especially Cherry Jones' portrayal of Hallie Flanagan, the head of the Federal Theater. Ruben Blades and Angus MacFadyen give us Diego Rivera and Orson Welles, respectively, and do not disappoint. It's rare to see so many charismatic, likeable people in a movie with a real story. There is no one star of the film - everyone is sharing the spotlight equally. Tim Robbins has really done a magnificent job of putting all the pieces in the right places.

And perhaps best of all, this is a film with real controversy - one that will get you thinking about art and politics and unions and the influence of money on everything. Cradle Will Rock is such an ambitious piece of work, it could have failed in so many different ways, and yet it succeeds on every level. Check it out.

While it was fun seeing "Cradle Will Rock" with my mother-in-law who had some memories of the time period, I also did a huge paper on the WPA Arts Projects in graduate school (I recommend Jerry Mangione's book on the Federal Writer's Project as a good introduction) and am quite familiar with the personalities and facts involved so was curious to see it as a docudrama.

But we plus my parents felt the film was too agit-prop and the 20% of it that's over-the-top (aw come on, Hearst -- "Citizen Kane" foreshadowing, Rockefeller and a steel magnate at a Versailles costume party at the climax?) weakens the historical telling of a confluence of happenings -- the strangulation of the Federal Theater Project as a precursor victim to McCarthyism through the Dies Committee (including actual testimony wherein Christopher Marlowe was accused of being a Commie, as were the classic Greek dramatists) and Nelson Rockefeller's benighted sponsorship and then destruction of the Diego Rivera murals at Rockefeller Center.

Effectively written and directed by Tim Robbins is how passionately political the artists were, not as "card carrying Communists" per se, but as committed anti-Fascists and unionists in every aspect of their personal lives--as equally committed as they were to the magic of the theater as a communication device.

It does go over the top (including Susan Sarandon as an elegant Jewish courier to Mussolini selling stolen Old Masters), it is effective to show how TPTB were sympathetic to and profited from alliances with the fascists and how much they hated That Cripple in the White House.

Amidst the politics, the art for art's sake oversize egos of John Houseman and Orson Welles are also well portrayed, if a shade as buffoons compared to the grimness of everyone else around them, most of whom needed these WPA jobs to keep from starving (there's a toss away line that barely explains that FDR had to throw the Theater Project to the wolves in order to save his whole alphabet soup of programs for the vast majority).

It's also a bit over the top in painting those who testified at the Committee as probably crazy, but who knows. The Vanessa Redgrave character is silly but I guess it's making a point that Radical Chic is not new.

The climax of the factual occurrence, the one and only original performance of Marc Blitzstein's "ThreePenny Opera"-inspired political musical "Cradle Will Rock" is a delightful recreation, and from what I've read, true to the real story. This is definitely a very un-1990's story.

(Additional recommended background reading: "Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century" by Michael Denning (Verso, 1998, 556 pages)

(originally written 1/2/2000)

I was fortunate enough to attend a special screening of "Cradle Will Rock" with producer/assistant director Allan F. Nicholls, a man of remarkable resume (he worked with Robert Altman several times and therefore, knows what makes a great ensemble drama). Tim Robbins' ode to theater, the passion for arts (acting, in particular), freedom of speech and the price you have to pay for believing and living for it (art vs. politics), is an underrated mosaic of some very exquisite personalities (Orson Welles, Nelson Rockefeller, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, John Houseman, Hazel Huffman, among others) that are, one way or another, involved with a musical play that's about to be closed down for being "communist", in 1936's New York. Nicholls (who has a cameo as George Zorn) said that most of the actors worked almost for free, out of friendship for Robbins and love for theater, and that "Cradle Will Rock"'s poor reception at the box-office/critics, is the main reason why Robbins hasn't directed another movie since then. That's a shame, since this is even better than his previous directorial efforts ("Bob Roberts" and "Dead Man Walking"), which were much easier films. It's true you have to know at least a little bit about the people portrayed here in order to fully appreciate/understand the film, and movies like this don't usually become blockbusters, but the fact that "Cradle Will Rock" was ignored altogether and seems quite forgotten is really sad. The ensemble cast is one of the best I've ever seen - Emily Watson, Bill Murray, Vanessa Redgrave, Joan Cusack, Cherry Jones, John Turturro, Susan Sarandon, John Cusack, Cary Elwes, Angus Macfadyen, Paul Giamatti, Bob Balaban, Hank Azaria, Jack Black, Philip Baker Hall, among others - and the screenplay is Altmanesque tapestry at its best. Hopefully, this film will be discovered in a not so distant future, and get the acclaim it deserves. 10/10.

Tim Robbins creates a brilliant social commentary in the same in-your-face style as "Bob Roberts". I adore the statements Robbins makes about social politics, as well as the problems with the idea of "art for art's sake". He lyrically tells the story of the struggle of performing and visual artists around the Depression era, choosing between their art and their livelihood--a struggle that is universal for artists through the expanse of time. The concept of this film is a breakthrough for the big screen, since Hollywood seems to be the capital of "selling out". The comments on artistic integrity are strong and literally moving in the acting of an amazing cast, as well as the way in which the story is edited to David Robbins' beautiful score. The entire film is simply poetic. This film is truly a masterpiece to any artist, or to anyone who knows what it like to compromise your values to survive.