A true story of politics and art in the 1930s U.S., focusing on a leftist musical drama and attempts to stop its production.
Writer/Director: Tim Robbins
Stars: Hank Azaria, Rubén Blades, Joan Cusack, John Cusack, Cary Elwes, Bill Murray, Vanessa Redgrave, Susan Sarandon.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0150216/
disc included in set recently arrived
16 songs in the Soundtrack, 7 Written by Marc Blitzstein (1905–1964), who also wrote the successful '54 translation of Mack the Knife.
Had I not previously rated this 6 (from my Netflix ratings), I might give this a 5 today.
I find this cluttered with too many extra characters and plotlines. While we see the chaotic attempt of Orson Welles and John Houseman to put on the titular play, we also see the WPA's theatre division being examined by Congress (Senate?) for Communist influence/productions, Nelson Rockefeller unhappy with Diego Rivera's mural featuring Stalin in the lobby of the new Rockefeller Center, Wm. Randolph Hearst and a fictitious industrialist buying art treasures from Mussolini's agent, and a struggling ventriloquist employed to teach his craft to 2 hacks. These things are loosely tied together by characters who intersect the plots. The titular play involves pro-labor sentiment, so the big theme here is the clash of art and politics, but I stand by my initial wording: cluttered.
Dir. TR did not appear in the film.
Rated 6.9 (8,440)
Touchstone & more, dir. Robbins; 6-
