Theatrical Adaptation

Sit down! You're rocking the cradle! - Lauren's tenth meditation

Out of all the films we’ve watched this semester, I think that I have enjoyed Cradle Will Rock the most. As I said in last week’s meditation, I have always been fascinated with the time period the movie was set in, the Great Depression. I’ve found some facts online about the movie that I think are interesting.
I had never heard of Cradle Will Rock before this class, but it received many nominations and awards when it came out in 1999. It was nominated for a Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival. Emily Watson was nominated for the British Supporting Actress of the Year award at the London Critics Circle Film Awards in 2001. It was also nominated in 2000 for the Best Ensemble Cast Performance at the Online Film Critics Society Awards. Bill Murray was nominated for the Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Comedy or Musical, in 2000 at the Satellite Awards.
At the Istanbul International Film Festival in 2000, Cradle Will Rock won the People’s Choice Award in the International Competition. In 1999, director Tim Robbins won a Special Achievement in Filmmaking award from the National Board of Review, USA. The movie also won two awards at Sitges – Cataloniain International Film Festival in 2000 for Best Film and Best Director.
In the first scene we see where Olive is sleeping in the theater, we see that it is supposed to be Fall 1936, but the movie in the background says that Italy is about to invade Ethiopia. Not only did this invasion place in October 1935, Ethiopia was still known as Abyssinia at this time. The three other most noticeable places where the historical timeline has been changed for dramatic purposes is the fact that the Rockefeller mural was destroyed in February 1934; the first performance of The Cradle Will Rock took place in June of 1937; and Hallie Flanagan testified in front of Congress in December of 1938.
The final piece of information that I found interesting was the business aspect of Cradle Will Rock. The estimated budget for the movie was $32,000,000. The opening weekend of the movie in the US in December of 1999 yielded $93,988.
Not only is Cradle Will Rock a good movie, it is also an interesting movie in what it deals with and all the details behind it. Wikipedia.com said, “While the original production of The Cradle Will Rock was stated to be ‘The most exciting evening of theater this New York generation has seen’ (MacLeish, Cole 2000), many critics did not feel the same about Robbins’ reproduction of the event for film.”
I, for one, did enjoy the movie very much. Was it as earth shattering and ground breaking as the original play? No, but it was still well done.

Citations
“Internet Movie Database”. 7 Nov 2006.
“Wikipedia”. 7 Nov 2006.

posted by Anonymous @ 7:59 PM