Cradle Will Rock

New York, 1937. The Federal Theatre Project is putting unemployed actors and technicians to work with government money. Marc Blitzstein writes a pro-union musical, Orson Welles directs it and John Houseman produces. On opening night the government cuts the funding, padlocks the theatre, and the union forbids the actors to appear on stage. The company walks the audience twenty blocks, and in another hall hired at the last minute the performers stand up from their seats and play their parts from the auditorium while Blitzstein plays the piano alone on stage. Around that night the film adds other lines: Diego Rivera painting a mural at Rockefeller Center, a dealer selling pictures to Mussolini, and a committee hunting communists. All of it meets in one question: who pays for art and what do they want in return. Tim Robbins wrote and directed. The cast includes Hank Azaria, Cherry Jones, Angus Macfadyen, John Cusack, Joan Cusack, Bill Murray, John Turturro, Susan Sarandon, Vanessa Redgrave and Ruben Blades. The premise is real: both the play and that night are on the historical record. The film competed for the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Who it is for: anyone who likes the history of political theatre and period films with large ensembles. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a single story. The narrative has many strands, some characters are drawn crudely, and the film often states its point outright.