Film
Bristol Radical Film Festival: Cradle Will Rock
- Director
- Tim Robbins
- Certificate
- 15
- Running Time
- 134 mins
The true story behind this slice of American theatrical history is so remarkable that it virtually sustains writer/producer/director Tim Robbins‘s enjoyably rambling 1999 film for over two hours. Sadly, Robbins’s engaging ensemble piece too often meanders off into sub-plots that, while fleshing out the sense of period, do little to move things along. Fortunately, the climax is a remarkable coup de theatre, in which the entire cast of the eponymous left-wing play – their theatre having been closed down by government censors – marches up Broadway to an alternative venue.
Embroidering the facts a little, Robbins’s fictionalised screenplay uses wide-eyed street waif Olive Stanton (Emily Watson) to introduce us to the turbulent world of government-subsidised left-wing theatre, a sector that flourished under Franklin D Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’. There are incidental pleasures aplenty, including supporting performances by Susan Sarandon as a ‘cultural emissary’ to Mussolini, and Bill Murray as an insecure, alcoholic ventriloquist lured into betrayal by his unrequited love for Joan Cusack‘s anti-Communist bureaucrat. It’s solid, adult entertainment with a political sting in the tail, and an excellent screening choice by the Bristol Radical Film Festival. Go here for tickets.
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