Post by london777 on Jun 16, 2017 22:32:44 GMT
Cradle Will Rock (1999) dir: Tim Robbins
About the arts during the Depression and especially the Federal Theater Program. This was a scheme to provide work for starving actors and other personnel. The makers of this movie must have been inspired by that because there are 104 actors named in the credits list plus another 30 odd identified by IMDb but uncredited.
Spiderwort's comments inspired me to dust off the DVD and re-watch it last night. It is certainly entertaining and value for money (you can buy a copy from you-know-where for around US$6 incl. p&p) but is not very integrated as a film.
I think it tries to cover too much ground. Robbins may have thought he would not get another chance to attack all his devils so threw everything into the pot.
Rivera's work for Rockefeller would make a film in itself and was not WPA funded so that important sub-plot could have been omitted.
Bliztstein's life would occupy another movie (his biography is the longest ever published on any American composer, so no shortage of material there).
Collaboration with fascism and nazism by prominent capitalists is too important a story to be amusingly lampooned as here, so could have been omitted too (but would be a great topic for a film nowadays if anyone has the balls).
On the hand, elements that are central to the story are inadequately covered. Welles and Houseman are sketchily, and I would guess unfairly, portrayed: Welles as a frantic dilettante and Houseman as a wryly amused aesthete.
Also I think Robbins might have been concerned about boring the public with a dusty political tract, so he has bent over backwards to keep things lively, even frenzied - too much so in parts. A sub-plot with Bill Murray as our old friend, the puppet-master being taken over by his puppet, and his infatuation with a HUAC snitch is unbelievable and a distraction.
All this frenetic energy does throw into relief the part played by Cherry Jones as Hallie Flanagan, the real-life heroine of the Federal Theater Project. She is the always unflappable, resourceful and optimistic still center of the whole shebang. I was not familiar with the charming but authoritative Ms Jones and I was unsurprised to learn that she is a very distinguished stage actress in the US.
Another weakness is that Robbins tip-toes round the issue of whether his characters are communists. Of course such circumspection would have been necessary in the thirties, but have things not moved on in the sixty-odd years since? The fact is that many, if not most, of the principals were communists or ardent fellow-travelers, but Robbins still fudges this. He endorses what they do, but not what they were, when the two were inseparable.
Among all these real historical characters, one of the leads is a fictional character representing all the thousands of unknown American theater workers helped by the scheme. The odd thing is that she is not played by an American but by (the very English) Emily Watson, and was not a theater worker but a vagrant who wangled her way onto the payroll by sleeping with the union representative, thus denying a place to someone more eligible. On top of this she suddenly becomes one of the stars of the play within the film, a tired trope from those 1930s musicals.
I have pointed out some possible blemishes but still strongly recommend this film.
If you see it, let me have your view of the final frames. A mock funeral procession to lament the imminent shutting down of the FTP by the reactionaries sets off in the gloomy streets of Depression Era New York and we follow it into the dazzling neon wonders of today's Broadway.
What was Robbins doing here? Saluting the FTP for keeping the theater tradition alive? Or contrasting the revolutionary theater of the activists with the vacuous commercial rubbish that comprises 95% of today's Broadway (and Hollywood)?
About the arts during the Depression and especially the Federal Theater Program. This was a scheme to provide work for starving actors and other personnel. The makers of this movie must have been inspired by that because there are 104 actors named in the credits list plus another 30 odd identified by IMDb but uncredited.
Yes, this one was about a program that was part of the WPA, which I wrote about in my post to Mr. Dacron. I haven't seen this film, so I can't comment on it. But I can say that I have such a profound gratitude for the WPA and all its subsidiary units that put so many people to work during the Depression and payed artists to create wonderful art.
As for the the credit list in The Cradle Will Rock, that is impressive and is, no doubt, the result of Tim Robbins' dedication to the theme of the project. I really need to see it one of these days.
As for the the credit list in The Cradle Will Rock, that is impressive and is, no doubt, the result of Tim Robbins' dedication to the theme of the project. I really need to see it one of these days.
I think it tries to cover too much ground. Robbins may have thought he would not get another chance to attack all his devils so threw everything into the pot.
Rivera's work for Rockefeller would make a film in itself and was not WPA funded so that important sub-plot could have been omitted.
Bliztstein's life would occupy another movie (his biography is the longest ever published on any American composer, so no shortage of material there).
Collaboration with fascism and nazism by prominent capitalists is too important a story to be amusingly lampooned as here, so could have been omitted too (but would be a great topic for a film nowadays if anyone has the balls).
On the hand, elements that are central to the story are inadequately covered. Welles and Houseman are sketchily, and I would guess unfairly, portrayed: Welles as a frantic dilettante and Houseman as a wryly amused aesthete.
Also I think Robbins might have been concerned about boring the public with a dusty political tract, so he has bent over backwards to keep things lively, even frenzied - too much so in parts. A sub-plot with Bill Murray as our old friend, the puppet-master being taken over by his puppet, and his infatuation with a HUAC snitch is unbelievable and a distraction.
All this frenetic energy does throw into relief the part played by Cherry Jones as Hallie Flanagan, the real-life heroine of the Federal Theater Project. She is the always unflappable, resourceful and optimistic still center of the whole shebang. I was not familiar with the charming but authoritative Ms Jones and I was unsurprised to learn that she is a very distinguished stage actress in the US.
Another weakness is that Robbins tip-toes round the issue of whether his characters are communists. Of course such circumspection would have been necessary in the thirties, but have things not moved on in the sixty-odd years since? The fact is that many, if not most, of the principals were communists or ardent fellow-travelers, but Robbins still fudges this. He endorses what they do, but not what they were, when the two were inseparable.
Among all these real historical characters, one of the leads is a fictional character representing all the thousands of unknown American theater workers helped by the scheme. The odd thing is that she is not played by an American but by (the very English) Emily Watson, and was not a theater worker but a vagrant who wangled her way onto the payroll by sleeping with the union representative, thus denying a place to someone more eligible. On top of this she suddenly becomes one of the stars of the play within the film, a tired trope from those 1930s musicals.
I have pointed out some possible blemishes but still strongly recommend this film.
If you see it, let me have your view of the final frames. A mock funeral procession to lament the imminent shutting down of the FTP by the reactionaries sets off in the gloomy streets of Depression Era New York and we follow it into the dazzling neon wonders of today's Broadway.
What was Robbins doing here? Saluting the FTP for keeping the theater tradition alive? Or contrasting the revolutionary theater of the activists with the vacuous commercial rubbish that comprises 95% of today's Broadway (and Hollywood)?