This complex movie is mostly a success. Just the amazing cast alone is enough to enjoy watching it (though, I admit in contrast, an amazing cast wasn't enough to make Mystery Men worth even spitting on). Just look: Hank Azaria, Rubén Blades, Joan and John Cusack, Cary Elwes, Bill Murray, Vanessa Redgrave, Susan Sarandon, John Turturro, Emily Watson, and other interesting folks like John Carpenter (yes, that John Carpenter—as William Randolph Hearst!), Philip Baker Hall, Bob Balaban, Cherry Jones, Angus MacFadyen...

The cast is mostly excellent, though I do wonder what kind of strange Italian accent Susan was using. Emily was good, but boy does she creep me out. It's that combination of giant forehead, huge, piercing eyes, and mousy demeanor. Joan does a nice dramatic turn here, as does Bill Murray, continuing his interesting career makeover (see Rushmore). Cary is very funny, playing the fey twit John Houseman against his dashing good looks. Vanessa is charming and very amusing as Countess LaGrange, who finds dabbling with the little people an extraordinary adventure. John Cusack is solid but boring, but then again he's playing Nelson Rockefeller. Cherry is an unflappable, cheer-worthy Hallie Flanagan, head of the WPA's Federal Theater program. I loved watching her enthusiasm, intelligence, and unflappability. John Turturro pulls some very nice moments out of his almost cliché immigrant actor character. Angus is an over-the-top, egomaniacal Orson Welles. Hank is a noble but unintriguing writer (he does a good job, though the character's lost in the muddle).

The story itself involves the Great Depression, unions, biased government hearings, monopolistic business magnates, communist scares, police brutality, artistic censorship, struggling artists, successful artists, rich people, poor people, Hitler, Mussolini, foreign barter, underhanded financial deals...

If you're getting the feeling that Cradle Will Rock is a big, sprawling movie, bingo to you. Grab yourself a prize. The movie was like the painting Diego Rivera (Rubén) creates for Rockerfeller's lobby: teeming, busy, colorful, and political. What's most fun about the movie is being whisked, without knowledge of where you're going, around this world of the '30s that Tim Robbins has created. Tim wrote and directed Cradle, and he weaves a fascinating if inaccurate tapestry. (To his credit, the movie does reveal it is mostly based on a true tale.) While the events in the movie are staged to happen all within an 8-month period, the real-life events happened sometimes years apart. (I thank Marcy for letting me know this.) But who cares? I mean besides historians? Tim is out to make a point, and to distill some of the themes of the '30s, a tumultuous time for America. Tim succeeds in evoking a particular mood, a feeling about the era and about the types of people who shaped it. He shows us the free-living artists who challenge convention, and the stiff-shirted scaredy cats who find convention to their benefit and attack those who question it. Like Tim himself, the movie wears its politics on its sleeve, so it may prove annoying for some people. But Tim doesn't come at things completely one-sided. For instance, he may seem very pro-union throughout most of the film, but (and SKIP THIS if you don't want to know any details) he certainly isn't slavish to the union line, as the actors at the end of the movie defy their union laws to perform Marc Blitzstein's (Hank) pro-union musical, called Cradle Will Rock. Cradle Will Rock (the movie) is really about art and who controls it and how it should be free. (Skip ahead again to avoid spoilers.) There's a nice juxtaposition in the movie right near the end. Thanks to cutbacks by the government, Blitzstein's play—produced by John Houseman and directed by Orson—is not allowed to go up, and the theater is locked and guarded by government troops. Orson and John, being rebellious sorts, decide to stage the play anyway. A small revolution of art springs up as the company tries to secure another theater. Eventually, the actors and musicians learn their unions will not allow them to perform, and Marc is convinced by Orson and John to perform his musical alone, on stage with only a piano and his own voice. Word has gotten out that Marc's play has made the government nervous, so as the theater troupe marches to their new venue, they are followed by a huge throng of people eager to see the play, no matter how it's presented. Of course, in the end, the show goes on, the actors and musicians jumping in despite their union laws, and the audience goes wild. The artists have taken control of their art, and the results are a success.

While this is going on, the movie cross-cuts to Rockefeller, Hearst, and steel tycoon Gray Mathers (Philip) discussing how they will create a new standard for art, a standard that takes the politics and controversy out of it. The big wigs discuss art not for art's sake but for their own. They want art that is abstract shapes and colors, non-challenging, something they can control with their wealth, fabricating markets using funds they provide.

So two camps want to control art: the artists themselves, and the people who fund the art. Who wins? The final shot of the movie makes it clear who Tim thinks has won. He's mostly right, of course, as anyone who's watched TV or seen a big-budget movie knows. There is still a subculture to art, and it is from this subculture that trends seem to bloom quite often. I suppose the sad part is the truly creative stuff is still rare, is still labeled subculture, while the money men decide what the general public gets to see. Tim also suggests that, if our government were to support the arts more than it does (through the NEA, PBS, NPR, or other even more "artsy" programs), then some truly unique, creative, and perhaps challenging works would be born.

Cradle Will Rock is a fascinating study of this question of art, government, politics, and the lives of people on both sides of the fence. However, the movie is much too scattered to be completely satisfying. Tim has a lot to say and strings together his themes very well, but I think the sheer magnitude of the movie keeps you at a distance. I wasn't emotionally charged when the Cradle Will Rock theater company finally performed the play. I was pleased, but not enough to cheer or anything. The film was like an entertaining lesson. I learned some stuff, saw some great fimmaking (notice that long, long, long opening shot—very impressive!), and enjoyed the teeming mess of colorful and amusing characters. Cradle is a very good movie, but I can't call it one of my favorites. It is an entertaining movie that makes you think a little about the nature of freedom in America, and how even today we're having to put up with people who feel they need to control art to keep our country pure. Scary.

—Steve

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