The summer of 1978 was one of the best summers that I can recall
from childhood. My grandmother took my sister and I to see Heaven Can Wait,
Warren Beatty's remake of 1941’s Here Comes Mr. Jordan. I immediately
took to Mr. Beatty’s interpretation of Joe Pendleton, despite not being an avid
fan of football. Two years later I was introduced to Jack Nicholson's work
when, in July 1980, I saw a broadcast of Mike Nichols’ 1975 film The Fortune
on ABC-TV in which he co-starred with Mr. Beatty, along with Stockard Channing.
It was not a particularly memorable film, but I enjoyed both of them in their
respective roles.
In the winter of 1981, Paramount Pictures released Reds, a
three-and-one-quarter hour long drama that Mr. Beatty wrote, produced, and
directed. I had seen the ads for the film and while traveling to and from New
York City with my Boy Scout troop to broaden our horizons of the world of art by
visiting the Museum of Modern Art. We spent a significant amount of time in New
York's Pennsylvania train station awaiting our journey home, which was an
education in and of itself. Aside from the cross-dressers and drug addicts,
there was a video playback system positioned near the rear of the terminal.
This advertising mechanism the name of which completely escapes me, was sponsored
by Paramount Pictures. It ran movie trailers on ¾” U-matic videotape for
several films released by the studio. One of them was Raiders of the Lost
Ark, my favorite film of that year, and another one was Reds. I
never had the opportunity to see Reds theatrically, and my parents correctly
figured that the film would have gone way over my head. The prospect of sitting
in a theater for nearly three-and-a-half hours did not sit well with them,
understandably so. Movie theater seats in those days were simply not
comfortable. I did not catch up with Reds until many years later, but
the film has finally found its way restored on Blu-ray for its 40th
anniversary. I’m finally getting around to review it.
If there is anything that can be said about this film, Reds
is about many things. It is a love story, it is an ambitious work, it is the
brainchild of a man who managed to pull off an extraordinary feat of
filmmaking, and it is arguably the last of the big-budgeted sprawling epics of
the time, following Michael Cimino’s failed Heaven’s Gate from the
previous year. While I am not completely understanding of the ideologies in the
politics involved, I can safely say that Reds is probably not the sort
of film that would be green-lit today, as the climate of filmmaking now is
completely different than it was four decades ago.
Reds opened on Friday, December 4, 1981 nationwide, however the story it
depicts begins sixty-six years earlier in 1915 when Louise Bryant, expertly
portrayed by Diane Keaton who had already appeared in TheGodfather
(1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974) and played opposite Woody Allen
in six films, meets fellow journalist John Reed (Warren Beatty) at a Portland,
Oregon lecture. She interviews him in an hours-long session that compels her to
leave her stuffy husband (Nicolas Coster) and move with Reed to Greenwich
Village in New York City where she is introduced to anarchist and author Emma
Goldman (Maureen Stapleton, who won an Oscar for her performance) and Eugene O’Neill
(Jack Nicholson), the playwright.
Following a move to Provincetown, Massachusetts, Bryant and Reed
find themselves involved in the local theater scene. Bryant has realized that
her writing is what makes her truly happy, and her ideologies begin to align
with Reed’s, who is now involved in labor strikes with the Communist Labor
Party of America. These people are called “Reds,” hence the film’s title. While
Reed is off covering the 1916 Democratic National Convention in Missouri, Bryant
becomes romantically involved with O’Neill, the truth of which comes to Reed’s
attention when he returns to Massachusetts and finds a letter O’Neill wrote
Bryant inside the pages of a book. Despite this, he still loves Bryant and
after marrying, they move to upstate New York. However, a fight ensues when
evidence of his own affairs comes to light, which causes Bryant to take a
position of war correspondent in Europe, a role that Reed also follows despite
his doctor’s admonitions to slow down. The Russian Revolution commences, and
Bryant and Reed are reunited.
Following an intermission (possibly the last major American film
to feature one, not counting Serio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America in
1984), Reed publishes his famous Ten Days That Shook the World and
becomes inebriated on the ideals perpetuated by the Revolution and does his
best to introduce the United States to the political theory of Communism, the
antithesis of the beliefs espoused by Grigory Zinoviev (Jerzy Kosinski) and the
Bolsheviks. Unfortunately, the effects of typhus catch up with him following a
prison stint in Finland. The film’s most celebrated sequence is Reed’s return
to Moscow and his reunion with Bryant at a train station. His demise occurs
shortly thereafter, while Bryant can only look on, helplessly.
The supporting cast is excellent and the transfer on this Blu-ray is
beautiful. Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro added this film to his Oscar
collection following his win for his work on Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse
Now (1979). He would later win again for Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last
Emperor (1987), although not having even been nominated for his stunning
work on Signor Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970), Last Tango in
Paris (1972) or Luna (1979) makes one scratch their head in
disbelief.
Reds was a
boxoffice bomb despite the fact that the film was nominated for Best Picture
and Beatty was named Best Director. Beatty’s sentimental look at a man who
espoused Communism was ill-timed for the beginning of the Reagan era.
There is a second Blu-ray added which consists of the same extras
that accompanied the 25th anniversary DVD edition:
Witness To Reds:
The Rising (SD, 6:29)
Comrades (SD, 13:30)
Testimonials (SD, 11:58)
The March (SD, 9:07)
Revolution, Part 1 (SD,
10:18)
Revolution, Part 2 (SD,
6:55)
Propaganda (SD, 9:11)
The
story of the making of this film and Paramount Pictures’ (which was owned by Gulf
and Western at the time) willingness to make it is a fascinating one. While the
film looks beautiful, I would have loved a running commentary from the major
performers giving their insights and memories of the making of the film. A
missed opportunity to be sure, but the film alone is enough to warrant the
purchase.