Reds (1981)

One of few

I first saw this within a month of its release in 1981-1982 (came out over 1981 holidays.)

When the video was released in the 80s, I was thankful.

After watching it about every month, and more now, I have no doubt Reds is up there with Last Tango in Paris, The Third Man, The Maltese Falcon. In short it might be on many critics' list of Ten Best Films ever.

I do not overestimate. Everything is perfect. July 8, 2008

The most nuanced, detailed, politically sophisticated movie on the Russian Revolution ever

I'm an undergraduate in history at Harvard, and I've studied the Russian Revolution with some degree of depth, but all the books in the world could never succeed in doing what "Reds" did for me, which was truly to give me a feeling for what it FELT like to experience those events. The political atmosphere, the material environments, all of these are meticulously (and rather accurately) reproduced, and all of this is combined with a compelling narrative propelled by difficult personal and political choices that the main characters must make.

(Examples: Support Woodrow Wilson or not? Struggle for the revolution in the USA or Russia? Concerning the Russian workers, whether going on strike will be a betrayal of their Russian soldiers and American allies, or whether that would be a comradely gesture that would set an example and ignite revolution around the whole world? Accept the Bolshevik rationalizations for their dictatorial ways, or reject the Bolsheviks? Etc. The movie doesn't just pose such questions; the movie shows how ordinary people (soldiers, workers), as well as the main characters, wrestled with these questions, and the window into this history that the movie provides is simply fascinating.)

That's what truly makes the movie work: the detail and sophistication given to the intricate political questions. For these, the movie does not prescribe normative answers, only a view to how these particular characters responded. I really do not understand the reviews arguing that "Reds" glorifies communism or the Soviet Union. Reds includes plenty of hard-hitting skepticism and criticism of communism and the Soviet Union from the likes of Emma Goldman, Jack Nicholson's O'Neill, and some of the documentary-style witnesses. It would have been much easier to make a movie that hammers a single, unified message into the viewer, but "Reds" doesn't do that. Throughout, the movie constantly confronts the characters and viewers with tough questions: was the revolution worth it? Are Reed and Bryant deluding themselves, as O'Neill claims? Which comes first, revolution or love? Are they mutually exclusive? What does it take for a person like Reed to balance between being an objective journalist, a creative artist, a partisan for his true political feelings, and a lover to his wife? Questions like these (that the film never definitely tries to solve for the viewer) are what keep the viewer gripped to the movie and make every minute of the 3 and a half-hour movie worth it. The only thing that this movie demands from the viewer is an open mind, and unfortunately it seems that that is too much to ask from some viewers. July 1, 2008

good acting, good film.

All of the actors are at their best in this film. Warren Beatty did a tremendous job in bringing it all together. I ordered this film for my greatest films library, and it's surely one of my favorites. July 1, 2008

Well Done Docudrama

Beatty was perhaps a little old to be cast as John Reed, but his empathy
for the character made up for it(and Beatty is, afterall, one of the
ageless, Dick Clark-types).

Few actors could be better suited to their respective roles than Jack
Nicholson as Eugene O'Neill, and Maureen Stapleton as Emma Goldman.

If I had one wish for the movie, it would be for a bit more on the tragic
life of Louise Bryant after Reed's death.

Much of the screenplay's depiction of Reed's thinking while in Russia was
necessarily speculative, and, indeed apocryphal, but nevertheless fairly
sound, in my opinion.

It deserved an Oscar, but was, alas, upstaged by On Golden Pond that year
(which also deserved an Oscar). June 30, 2008

A better movie now than when it was made -- we know more

When I saw "Reds" on the big screen in 1982, I admired the strong casting and performances, the photography and editing, and the ingenious use of interviews by elderly witnesses. But I strongly disliked its romanticizing of the Bolsheviks, the Russian Revolution, and the American radicals of the early 20th century. I disliked how it romanticized free love and dismissed marriage.

Over the years, then, I have generally dissed the movie. When I watched the film recently, however, I gained a new respect for it. Why did I have a different reaction?

My first take on Beatty's treatment of the period still seems accurate. In the interview that is a "special feature" of the 25th anniversary edition DVD, he confirms that he intended the film to honor the socialists and Communists of the nineteen-teens and 1920s. And the film, Beatty tells us, "was very much motivated by my own political activism at that time -- probably had a lot to do with what I thought was a mistaken American paranoia about Communism and most particularly in Vietnam."

In the DVD interview, Beatty mentions his collaboration with "the British playwright Trevor Griffith who was a very strict Marxist who I felt would keep me or John Reed in line with the dogmatism of it." Beatty feared that a movie with such "political, polemical, dialectical" dimensions could not find financing.

Finally, Beatty admires "those who really thought something else would be possible in American politics." It seems possible that he imagined or idealized a counterfactual history that would have unfolded if America had embraced the socialist vision.

A quarter century has now passed since the film was released. The Soviet Union no longer exists. Now, we know the twin Soviet promises -- a better material life and human equality -- were frauds. Now, we know that the Bolsheviks, Lenin, and Stalin killed millions. Now, we know about the frozen hell of the Gulag camps. Now, we wonder how the utopian claims of Communism could be so admired by intellectuals in the West when the reality of life in the Soviet Union was so cruel, capricious, and bloody.

In the same quarter century, there has been more historical research on socialism, American Communism, and the characters portrayed in the film -- John Reed, Louise Bryant, Max Eastman, Emma Goldman, and Eugune O'Neill among them. (Consulting Wikipedia is a good first step to learning more about them.) Those were complex times and complex personalities, to be sure, but one now notices that -- whether from the need to compress the story or to make it more palatable -- the script scrubbed away some dark corners of their characters.

So when in 2008 we hear Beatty, Diane Keaton, and Jack Nicholson speak the political, polemical, and dialectical lines in the dialog -- lines intended to be faithful to John Reed's times -- we react differently. We know more about Soviet dishonesty and more about the crimes the carefully chosen words of the screenplay were designed to smooth over. In a scene with Edith Stapleton playing Emma Goldman, for instance, we hear John Reed justify the Revolution's suppression of dissent. Now, we recall that Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein said many of the same things.

Similarly, the script was written to challenge conventional values. In the years since the film was made, for instance, Americans have intensely debated marriage. Twenty-first century Americans may read Diane Keaton's portrayal of Louise Bryant differently -- the the free love she spoke for was at war with her desire for commitment and fidelity. Could it be that those "bourgeois" values are not mere social constructs but are, rather, "written in the heart"?

I conclude, then, that "Reds" is a great movie, but in a way Warren Beatty did not intend. Twenty-five years after it was released, the film he intended to honor the socialists and challenge American "paranoia" about Communism conveys instead many ugly truths about Communism, socialism, political and social radicalism, and ... John Reed.

-30-
June 25, 2008

More reviews at Amazon.com ...