Cradle Will Rock
| Cradle Will Rock | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Tim Robbins |
| Produced by | Tim Robbins |
| Written by | Tim Robbins |
| Starring |
Hank Azaria Ruben Blades Joan Cusack John Cusack Cary Elwes Angus Macfadyen Bill Murray Vanessa Redgrave Susan Sarandon John Turturro Emily Watson |
| Music by | David Robbins |
| Cinematography | Jean Yves Escoffier |
| Edited by | Geraldine Peroni |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Buena Vista Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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132 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English Italian |
| Budget | $36 million |
| Box office | $2,986,932 |
Cradle Will Rock is a 1999 American historical drama film written, produced and directed by Tim Robbins. The story fictionalizes the true events that surrounded the development of the 1937 musical The Cradle Will Rock by Marc Blitzstein; it adapts history to create an account of the original production, bringing in other stories of the time to produce a social commentary on the role of art and power in the 1930s, particularly amidst the struggles of the labor movement at the time and the corresponding appeal of socialism and communism among many intellectuals, artists and working-class people in the same period.
The film is not based on Orson Welles's script The Cradle Will Rock, which was to be an autobiographical account of the play's production. It went into pre-production in 1983 with Rupert Everett on board to play Welles before the backers pulled out and the production collapsed. The film lost an estimated $33,000,000 dollars.
At the height of the Great Depression, aspiring singer Olive Stanton (Emily Watson) dreams of getting a job as an actress with the Federal Theater Project (FTP). Playwright Marc Blitzstein (Hank Azaria) is working on his new musical, The Cradle Will Rock, but lacks the inspiration to finish it. While attending a public protest, he is visited by two imaginary figures representing his late wife and the famed German playwright Bertolt Brecht. They encourage him to make the play more relevant to the times rather than an abstract concept.
At the same time, the FTP faces increasing pressure from the federal government, which has begun investigating alleged leftist infiltration of American society through the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The WPA, faced with the threat of losing its budget, cuts funding for all FTP productions, lays off thousands of workers, and orders all ongoing projects, including The Cradle Will Rock, to cease their activities. The local unions for the musicians and actors refuse to let them perform without federal approval, forcing the show to close.
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