Special Events 2018 / Cradle Will Rock / USA 1999
In New York in the late 1930s, when America is haunted by the spectre of communism and workers’ unrest, Orson Welles tries to put on a leftist musical on Broadway, but the production is eventually banned by the authorities. The history of the controversial play is just one part of this story about the inevitable conflict between politics and art.
The Federal Theatre Project was set up during the Great Depression as part of the New Deal’s social and economic reforms. It was intended as a relief measure to employ actors, writers, directors and other stage artists, but it also became a platform for new ideas before its funding was cancelled due to the left-wing political tone of some of its productions. The film focuses on preparations for a stage production of The Cradle Will Rock and asks two fundamental questions: To what extent are we prepared to make compromises in order to survive? And at what point do these compromises become immoral? The same questions are raised by the musical’s author Marc Blitzstein, FTP director Hallie Flanagan, and also Diego Rivera, the Mexican painter creating a giant fresco for John Rockefeller.
Nikola Paggio
132 min / Color, Blu-ray
Director Tim Robbins
/ Screenplay Tim Robbins
/ Dir. of Photography Jean Yves Escoffier
/ Music David Robbins
/ Editor Geraldine Peroni
/ Art Director Richard Hoover, Peter Rogness, Troy Sizemore
/ Producer Lydia Dean Pilcher, Jon Kilik, Tim Robbins
/ Production Cradle Productions Inc.
/ Coproduction Havoc, Touchstone Pictures
/ Cast Hank Azaria, Joan Cusack, John Cusack, Bill Murray,
/ Sales Park Circus Group
Tim Robbins (b. 1958, West Covina, California, USA). Selected filmography: Bob Roberts (1992), Dead Man Walking (1995), Cradle Will Rock (1999), Embedded (2005, taped stage play), Possible Side Effects (2009, TV film), City of Lies (2018)
Park Circus Group
15 Woodside Crescent, G37UL, Glasgow
United Kingdom
Phone: +44 141 332 2175
E-mail: [email protected]
Tim Robbins
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