In 1992, Tim Robbins played the lead role in a Robert Altman film called 'The Player', a film about an egotistical film producer in contemporary Hollywood; a man who was forced to face a reality check as a somewhat disgruntled situation closed in on him. With 1999's Cradle Will Rock, Robbins returns to the territory that sees people in the entertainment business struggling to lead the lives they would desperately like to. Only this time, he is directing a film about a group of people that do not so much need a reality check and to go through a blender of facing the repercussions one brings upon one's self, as much as he directs a bunch of characters trying to survive as the Great Depression consumes everything around it and desperation threatens creeps in.
Like The Player, Cradle Will Rock opens up with a wonderful long take in a theatre, detailing the necessary surroundings; the sorts of people the film will be spending time with and gets across a general feel for the era in which it's set by having a news reel play in the background. It's a slow and deliberate opening, hovering and focusing on one individual as they lie there, back stage; capturing what will follow: a hovering and a focusing on people within an industry the stereotypical image of which might be glitz, glamour and riches. These people are just trying to get by.
Cradle Will Rock is set amongst those in the theatrical business in 1930s America, as opposed to the film industry in the 1990s. While systematically looking at art-forms and the want for some to censor art within this world, director Robbins paints a wonderful canvas of the class system within this time and how different struggles affect each and every one of the different layers of life. The film is often quite funny, even surrealistic in its gags, but it never trivialises the bigger picture of the situation and nor does it exploit those struggling for means of entertainment even though they are working within the boundaries of an entertainment medium.
Amongst the all star cast is Marc Blitzstein (Azaria), a deep thinking and spiritual piano player desperately looking for inspiration and a tune to nail to his upcoming musical entitled Cradle Will Rock, the very piece everyone will come together and find solace with. We also get a steady turn from Bill Murray, as he plays Tommy Crickshaw, an ageing puppeteer who is tied to two young protégés. Then there is Angus Macfadyen's wonderfully eccentric portrayal of Orson Welles, as a young and energetic director so desperately trying to succeed in completing a play with his producer John Houseman (Elwes). On another equilibrium, John Cusak's Nelson Rockefeller gets into all sorts of bother with a Mexican artist that paints a wonderful mosaic on the wall of Rockefeller's theatre only to refuse removing Lenin's face he has included. Robbins effortlessly taps into the growing fears of Communism at the time but additionally finds time to present an argument on censorship without taking sides.
Cradle Will Rock is essentially a feel-good piece. Its title suggests potential disaster, an ominous event about to occur, particularly if we think back to what follows 'cradle will rock' in the popular rhyme. To give away whether things come crashing down or not is a spoiler of sorts if you're not familiar with how the real 1937 events eventually transpired. Each character is given enough time for us to be able to resonate with them. The film is concerned with different aspects of certain artists and their fields. Blitzstein's face and hands as he plays the piano are given more attention than anything else as he goes through all the emotions in trying to write his musical. This is accompanied by the very sporadic and energetic Welles, whose body language and hand all-over-the-place-hand-gestures gets across most of the urgency in regards to his respective situation. Further still, the Mexican artist that paints Rockefeller's wall, as well as Tommy Crickshaw, use their tired and experienced hands to carve a living out of what are, essentially, art forms in themselves; those being painting and ventriloquy.
The Mexican artist's painting forces the film to raise some interesting issues. Rockefeller wishes to censor the inclusion of Lenin so as not to confuse onlookers; so as not to force contextual analysis of why the head might be there. It is a tampering of art, something that echoes what drives the final third which is a cancellation of the show and the stopping of an art-form from playing out in its true form. This oppositional reading idea is hit upon a second time in the film when a newspaper reads what seems to be a harmless children's play about beavers, in an entirely different fashion. Thankfully, common sense prevails and something transpires; an event that the old phrase 'the show must go on' could well have derived from.
Cradle Will Rock is a brilliantly acted and wonderfully directed film, with a distinct energy and applied assurance on Tim Robbins' behalf – it is a shame he has only very few directing credits following this project. The film is an homage, of sorts, to theatre; set at a time when it was becoming second-fiddle to cinema barely years after the introduction of sound on screen. The rousing and affirming finale rounds off what is, essentially, a rousing and affirming film about a play depicting harsh realities of life, but never underplaying them.
Like The Player, Cradle Will Rock opens up with a wonderful long take in a theatre, detailing the necessary surroundings; the sorts of people the film will be spending time with and gets across a general feel for the era in which it's set by having a news reel play in the background. It's a slow and deliberate opening, hovering and focusing on one individual as they lie there, back stage; capturing what will follow: a hovering and a focusing on people within an industry the stereotypical image of which might be glitz, glamour and riches. These people are just trying to get by.
Cradle Will Rock is set amongst those in the theatrical business in 1930s America, as opposed to the film industry in the 1990s. While systematically looking at art-forms and the want for some to censor art within this world, director Robbins paints a wonderful canvas of the class system within this time and how different struggles affect each and every one of the different layers of life. The film is often quite funny, even surrealistic in its gags, but it never trivialises the bigger picture of the situation and nor does it exploit those struggling for means of entertainment even though they are working within the boundaries of an entertainment medium.
Amongst the all star cast is Marc Blitzstein (Azaria), a deep thinking and spiritual piano player desperately looking for inspiration and a tune to nail to his upcoming musical entitled Cradle Will Rock, the very piece everyone will come together and find solace with. We also get a steady turn from Bill Murray, as he plays Tommy Crickshaw, an ageing puppeteer who is tied to two young protégés. Then there is Angus Macfadyen's wonderfully eccentric portrayal of Orson Welles, as a young and energetic director so desperately trying to succeed in completing a play with his producer John Houseman (Elwes). On another equilibrium, John Cusak's Nelson Rockefeller gets into all sorts of bother with a Mexican artist that paints a wonderful mosaic on the wall of Rockefeller's theatre only to refuse removing Lenin's face he has included. Robbins effortlessly taps into the growing fears of Communism at the time but additionally finds time to present an argument on censorship without taking sides.
Cradle Will Rock is essentially a feel-good piece. Its title suggests potential disaster, an ominous event about to occur, particularly if we think back to what follows 'cradle will rock' in the popular rhyme. To give away whether things come crashing down or not is a spoiler of sorts if you're not familiar with how the real 1937 events eventually transpired. Each character is given enough time for us to be able to resonate with them. The film is concerned with different aspects of certain artists and their fields. Blitzstein's face and hands as he plays the piano are given more attention than anything else as he goes through all the emotions in trying to write his musical. This is accompanied by the very sporadic and energetic Welles, whose body language and hand all-over-the-place-hand-gestures gets across most of the urgency in regards to his respective situation. Further still, the Mexican artist that paints Rockefeller's wall, as well as Tommy Crickshaw, use their tired and experienced hands to carve a living out of what are, essentially, art forms in themselves; those being painting and ventriloquy.
The Mexican artist's painting forces the film to raise some interesting issues. Rockefeller wishes to censor the inclusion of Lenin so as not to confuse onlookers; so as not to force contextual analysis of why the head might be there. It is a tampering of art, something that echoes what drives the final third which is a cancellation of the show and the stopping of an art-form from playing out in its true form. This oppositional reading idea is hit upon a second time in the film when a newspaper reads what seems to be a harmless children's play about beavers, in an entirely different fashion. Thankfully, common sense prevails and something transpires; an event that the old phrase 'the show must go on' could well have derived from.
Cradle Will Rock is a brilliantly acted and wonderfully directed film, with a distinct energy and applied assurance on Tim Robbins' behalf – it is a shame he has only very few directing credits following this project. The film is an homage, of sorts, to theatre; set at a time when it was becoming second-fiddle to cinema barely years after the introduction of sound on screen. The rousing and affirming finale rounds off what is, essentially, a rousing and affirming film about a play depicting harsh realities of life, but never underplaying them.