Post by ronnierocketago on Mar 18, 2006 15:03:24 GMT
www.andersonvision.com/Reds.html
Published 3/18/2006
Reds
A Film Review by Joe Gayeski
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
United States, 1981
U.S. Release Date: 12/4/81
Running Length: 194 min.
MPAA Classification: PG
Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Cast: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Maureen Stapleton, Jerzy Kosinski, Edward Hermann, Paul Sorvino and Gene Hackman
Director: Warren Beatty
Screenplay: Warren Beatty and Trevor Griffiths
Cinematography: Vittorio Storaro
Original Score: Stephen Sondheim
Studio: Paramount Pictures
“Reds” is one of the most interesting and unique films in regards to its circumstances perhaps in the history of cinema. Consider that by 1980, then-major movie star Warren Beatty was able to flex his muscles in Hollywood in order to squeeze more than around $35 million, an absolute amount of money in those days (or roughly $80 in today’s currency), for him to star/direct/write/produce a very personal epic historical period project of his. Never mind that he’ll be an Orson Welles for a picture about early 20th century American socialist revolutionaries in the first year of the very-conservative decade of the Reagan Revolution.
Yet this movie as well was stuck with the unfortunate state that despite 12 Oscar nominations, including being the last film to score nominations in all four acting categories, it is still damn underrated. How the hell does something like that happen? Better yet, how did a film that garnered across-the-board critical raves that compared this sucker to greatness in the likes of “Lawrence of Arabia” then soon become a lost and forgotten film, even up to the present day? One major reason has to be that the film isn’t on DVD, and can only be found in old out of print VHS copies. An absolute pity, since it was one of those little gems that needs to be rediscovered by a new generation of film buffs.
It’s a shame that indeed this movie has fallen into the cracks of obscurity, for it is quite an epic film in the truest tradition. From a distance, this looks look pure Oscar Bait, with the long running time, foreign historical period settings, the dreaded “love triangle”, war battles, and other facets that we would expect back when the Weinstein Brothers ran Miramax in Hollywood. It does not help that Warren Beatty wanted to make a film focused around a very obscure American historical figure in journalist and socialist activist John Reed, who at best is only known at best for writing the legendary non-fictional “Ten Days that Shook The World” about the Russian Revolution and the fact that he’s the only American ever buried at the Kremlin in Moscow.
However, Beatty was not trying to make a biopic. He wanted to make a drama about an often forgotten period of time in American history in the first decades of the 20th century, when socialism alluded not to imagery of repression and totalitarianism (as under Lenin and Stalin in the Soviet Union), but to that of an ideology shared by thousands of both hard-working laborers and intellectuals in the states. An ideology that while in retrospect appears as totally naïve at best and unworkable in reality, did have a basic underlining concern that we in the states still share in the present day, which is that of wanting to keep the higher-classes from molesting the blue-collar Americans wrongly and screwing them out of their fair share of the financial pie. The socialists at their peak of electoral power were a viable third-party in American politics before they splintered beyond repair.
With this backdrop, we are introduced to feminist artist Louise Bryant (Keaton), who by accident happens to meet Reed (Beatty) at a political dinner party, and quickly joins him and his fellow “Reds” in New York City, though she is forced to be more quick-wit and deeper in political rhetoric by birth control-activist radical Emma Goldman (Maureen Stapleton), or else be simply known as another woman in playboy Reed’s history. Both Bryant and Reed are very dedicated to each other, but at times it is overtaken by their own individual projects, with Reed trying to push for the socialistic cause while Bryant tries to cut the mustard on her own as a respected journalist. This relationship has its sharp peaks and deep lows, with at one point Bryant having an affair with Reed’s fellow intellectual, the legendary playwright Eugene O’Neill (Nicholson). However, they ultimately return to each other by the film’s mid-way point, of which film critic Leonard Maltin attacked as being sappy and cheap. Certainly Maltin makes a valid argument, but I think it makes the foundation for the rest of the movie, for where these two are desperately trying to simply get back into each other’s arms, legal or not, quite layered onto the finale, when emotions fly and crash simultaneously.
For a movie star that is usually chided for being a rabid and loony celebrity liberal, director/co-writer Warren Beatty delivers a very sharp and intelligent film about the limits of political ideology when people try to implement it in the reality of society. With Storaro’s Oscar-winning epic myth making cinematography, we become moved with the Russian Revolution as it breaks out in 1917, for it is the great revolt against the capitalistic system that has finally arrived, and socialists/communists arrive from around the world to be part of it, including our two central protagonists. However, the glory quickly fades away as the new Russian regime bastardize the “dream” when it seizes control of the press, and rule the nation with martial law.
A great scene is when Reed meets up his ideological ally and friend Goldman in Moscow. Beatty, Nicholson, and Keaton were given worthy acting Oscar nominations, but Maureen Stapleton won her Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, and unfortunately died earlier this week. She is stirring as she almost indirectly gives a subtle eulogy for a cause that they both fought so much for, and while Reed is in great denial about it, even saying that “losses are expected for this struggle” which eerily fulfills the prophecy that O’Neill gave earlier in the movie, where he called socialism the “new Irish Catholicism”. Yet, there's a sense in his eyes that he knows as well that the “dream” is dead. He may eventually be reunited with his lover, but his heart was broken when his one true love in life was raped and destroyed before his eyes.
Warren Beatty has directed twice since “Reds,” but without as much success. Sure “Dick Tracy” is stylishly stunning and “Bulworth” has a great screenplay, but neither hold the power, grace, and awe that Beatty was able to display with “Reds,” and thus he was awarded with the Best Director Oscar for 1981, defeating Steven Spielberg for “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” arguably the most influential action movie of the last 30 years. However, Beatty deserved that prize. Perhaps his most bold move was to have real-life “witnesses” of the historic events and people give their own testimony, which is inter-cut through out the dramatic narrative, and thus attempting to truly create a “docu-drama”. Such brawn to attempt such a risky film device pays off, which produces a unique humanistic angle to a drama that viewers in the present day that they can find relatable.
© 2006 Joe Gayeski
Film Rating - *****/5
Published 3/18/2006
Reds
A Film Review by Joe Gayeski
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
United States, 1981
U.S. Release Date: 12/4/81
Running Length: 194 min.
MPAA Classification: PG
Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Cast: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Maureen Stapleton, Jerzy Kosinski, Edward Hermann, Paul Sorvino and Gene Hackman
Director: Warren Beatty
Screenplay: Warren Beatty and Trevor Griffiths
Cinematography: Vittorio Storaro
Original Score: Stephen Sondheim
Studio: Paramount Pictures
“Reds” is one of the most interesting and unique films in regards to its circumstances perhaps in the history of cinema. Consider that by 1980, then-major movie star Warren Beatty was able to flex his muscles in Hollywood in order to squeeze more than around $35 million, an absolute amount of money in those days (or roughly $80 in today’s currency), for him to star/direct/write/produce a very personal epic historical period project of his. Never mind that he’ll be an Orson Welles for a picture about early 20th century American socialist revolutionaries in the first year of the very-conservative decade of the Reagan Revolution.
Yet this movie as well was stuck with the unfortunate state that despite 12 Oscar nominations, including being the last film to score nominations in all four acting categories, it is still damn underrated. How the hell does something like that happen? Better yet, how did a film that garnered across-the-board critical raves that compared this sucker to greatness in the likes of “Lawrence of Arabia” then soon become a lost and forgotten film, even up to the present day? One major reason has to be that the film isn’t on DVD, and can only be found in old out of print VHS copies. An absolute pity, since it was one of those little gems that needs to be rediscovered by a new generation of film buffs.
It’s a shame that indeed this movie has fallen into the cracks of obscurity, for it is quite an epic film in the truest tradition. From a distance, this looks look pure Oscar Bait, with the long running time, foreign historical period settings, the dreaded “love triangle”, war battles, and other facets that we would expect back when the Weinstein Brothers ran Miramax in Hollywood. It does not help that Warren Beatty wanted to make a film focused around a very obscure American historical figure in journalist and socialist activist John Reed, who at best is only known at best for writing the legendary non-fictional “Ten Days that Shook The World” about the Russian Revolution and the fact that he’s the only American ever buried at the Kremlin in Moscow.
However, Beatty was not trying to make a biopic. He wanted to make a drama about an often forgotten period of time in American history in the first decades of the 20th century, when socialism alluded not to imagery of repression and totalitarianism (as under Lenin and Stalin in the Soviet Union), but to that of an ideology shared by thousands of both hard-working laborers and intellectuals in the states. An ideology that while in retrospect appears as totally naïve at best and unworkable in reality, did have a basic underlining concern that we in the states still share in the present day, which is that of wanting to keep the higher-classes from molesting the blue-collar Americans wrongly and screwing them out of their fair share of the financial pie. The socialists at their peak of electoral power were a viable third-party in American politics before they splintered beyond repair.
With this backdrop, we are introduced to feminist artist Louise Bryant (Keaton), who by accident happens to meet Reed (Beatty) at a political dinner party, and quickly joins him and his fellow “Reds” in New York City, though she is forced to be more quick-wit and deeper in political rhetoric by birth control-activist radical Emma Goldman (Maureen Stapleton), or else be simply known as another woman in playboy Reed’s history. Both Bryant and Reed are very dedicated to each other, but at times it is overtaken by their own individual projects, with Reed trying to push for the socialistic cause while Bryant tries to cut the mustard on her own as a respected journalist. This relationship has its sharp peaks and deep lows, with at one point Bryant having an affair with Reed’s fellow intellectual, the legendary playwright Eugene O’Neill (Nicholson). However, they ultimately return to each other by the film’s mid-way point, of which film critic Leonard Maltin attacked as being sappy and cheap. Certainly Maltin makes a valid argument, but I think it makes the foundation for the rest of the movie, for where these two are desperately trying to simply get back into each other’s arms, legal or not, quite layered onto the finale, when emotions fly and crash simultaneously.
For a movie star that is usually chided for being a rabid and loony celebrity liberal, director/co-writer Warren Beatty delivers a very sharp and intelligent film about the limits of political ideology when people try to implement it in the reality of society. With Storaro’s Oscar-winning epic myth making cinematography, we become moved with the Russian Revolution as it breaks out in 1917, for it is the great revolt against the capitalistic system that has finally arrived, and socialists/communists arrive from around the world to be part of it, including our two central protagonists. However, the glory quickly fades away as the new Russian regime bastardize the “dream” when it seizes control of the press, and rule the nation with martial law.
A great scene is when Reed meets up his ideological ally and friend Goldman in Moscow. Beatty, Nicholson, and Keaton were given worthy acting Oscar nominations, but Maureen Stapleton won her Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, and unfortunately died earlier this week. She is stirring as she almost indirectly gives a subtle eulogy for a cause that they both fought so much for, and while Reed is in great denial about it, even saying that “losses are expected for this struggle” which eerily fulfills the prophecy that O’Neill gave earlier in the movie, where he called socialism the “new Irish Catholicism”. Yet, there's a sense in his eyes that he knows as well that the “dream” is dead. He may eventually be reunited with his lover, but his heart was broken when his one true love in life was raped and destroyed before his eyes.
Warren Beatty has directed twice since “Reds,” but without as much success. Sure “Dick Tracy” is stylishly stunning and “Bulworth” has a great screenplay, but neither hold the power, grace, and awe that Beatty was able to display with “Reds,” and thus he was awarded with the Best Director Oscar for 1981, defeating Steven Spielberg for “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” arguably the most influential action movie of the last 30 years. However, Beatty deserved that prize. Perhaps his most bold move was to have real-life “witnesses” of the historic events and people give their own testimony, which is inter-cut through out the dramatic narrative, and thus attempting to truly create a “docu-drama”. Such brawn to attempt such a risky film device pays off, which produces a unique humanistic angle to a drama that viewers in the present day that they can find relatable.
© 2006 Joe Gayeski
Film Rating - *****/5