A Big Hollywood Movie, but Intellectually Engaging
Nominated for 12 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Reds (1981) was co-written, directed and produced by Warren Beatty, who also plays the male lead. The film recounts an unusual love story, and Beatty is paired with leading lady Diane Keaton, who gives a splendid performance. Also, Jack Nicholson is good in an important supporting role.
In the tradition of Doctor Zhivago (1965) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Reds is a sweeping historical epic. There was location shooting in Finland, Spain and England, and the movie won the Oscar for Best Cinematography (Vittorio Storaro). The film earned Warren Beatty the Academy Award for Best Director.
As the love story in Reds unfolds, the movie creates two richly textured characters who are romantics at heart. But they are writers embedded in the world of leftist politics, and this is a driving force in the characters' lives. There is lots of political talk in the film, but the movie avoids turning into a propaganda piece and remains a mainstream entertainment. However, for viewers interested in history, the film raises many thought-provoking issues.
Fact-Based, Character-Driven Drama
Warren Beatty portrays John ("Jack") Reed (1887-1920), author of the classic book Ten Days That Shook the World. Diane Keaton plays Louise Bryant (1885-1936), a feminist who wrote Six Red Months in Russia. The movie presents a dramatized version of Reed's and Bryant's relationship from 1915 to 1920.
Famed playwright Eugene O'Neill (Jack Nicholson) was a friend of both Reed's and Bryant's. In the movie, Bryant first lives with Reed, then she has a sexual relationship with O'Neill, and then she weds Reed. It's left to the viewer to decide whether or not her fling with O'Neill was a calculated move to get Reed to marry her.
All the important characters in Reds are based on real people. In a role that won her an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, Maureen Stapleton portrays anarchist Emma Goldman. Novelist Jerzy Kosinski gives a good performance as Grigory Zinoviev, one of the triumvirate of Soviet leaders who took power when Lenin died. Edward Hermann is well-suited for his role as Max Eastman, editor of the radical periodical The Masses. And Paul Sorvino plays Louis Fraina, an important figure in the American communist movement.
Passionate People, Unconventional Lives
In the movie, Jack Reed and Louise Bryant meet in 1915 when she is the wife of a dentist in Portland, Oregon. But soon she comes to live with Jack in Greenwich Village, where they are part of a group of bohemian intellectuals. The group summers in Provincetown, and there's a charming scene showing Louise doing a part in a play written by Eugene O'Neill. While Jack is away on a trip, she and O'Neill become lovers, but when Jack comes back, he and Louise marry. Only months later, she leaves Jack and goes to Paris. While still estranged, Louise and Jack travel to Russia together in 1917, and there they reconcile while witnessing the October Revolution.
After the film's intermission, Jack and Louise are back in the United States, where their relationship deteriorates. He engages in a single-minded, fanatical pursuit of Marxist activism, and she grows unhappy because her interest is not so much in politics as it is in writing. When in 1919 he announces he will again visit Russia, she refuses to accompany him and tells him she's not sure where she'll be when he returns. But after Jack is charged with sedition in the United States and ends up imprisoned in Finland, Louise sets out on a difficult journey to try to help him.
Interviewees Provide Viewers With a Reality Check
As counterpoint to the dramatized story of John Reed and Louise Bryant, Reds intercuts interviews with about 30 people who have relevant personal experience. The interviews were conducted 50 or 60 years after the dramatized events, and the interviewees agree on some things, but disagree on others. This is a clever device that helps viewers keep the story in perspective.
The interviewees are not identified when they appear on camera, although their names are listed in the credits, where they are referred to as "Witnesses." They range from the obscure to the famous. The best known of the interviewees is surely novelist Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn), who opines, "A guy who's always interested in the condition of the world and changing it either has no problems of his own or refuses to face them."
Other well-known interviewees include prolific author Rebecca West, entertainer George Jessel (the "Toastmaster General of the United States") and writer Adela Rogers St. Johns (who, according to Warren Beatty in the making-of documentary, wrote Richard Nixon's "Checkers" speech).
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