British playwright Trevor Griffiths who co-wrote Reds was asked by a journalist in 1990 who he hated? His answer was anyone considering voting for the British Conservative Party in the next election. No doubting of his socialist convictions.
However what about Lothario Warren Beatty? This actor/writer/director/producer was better known for his sexual conquests than leftist politics although he did take time out to campaign for George McGovern for the 1972 Presidential Elections.
However Beatty is regarded as a typical liberal Hollywood millionaire. Griffiths is not and maybe it is him who gives the film a political centre. I can certainly see in scenes where there are endless arguments between various factions of the left and the cod bureaucracy that it is Griffiths would have had first hand knowledge with his involvement in left wing politics of 1970s Britain. Goodness knows I encountered it in the 1980s.
Reds was a long held labour of love for him and this film bagged him a Best Director Oscar. You need a strong constitution to watch Reds, it clocks in at 194 minutes and although it is an epic, frankly David Lean probably did not lose any sleep over this movie and that his own epics might get downgraded and Richard Attenborough would go on to show a year later what a real epic should look like.
Reds covers the life of journalist John Reed (Warren Beatty) and his relationship with socialite Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton) from their first meeting, their involvement with the American left movement to Reed's final days in post revolutionary Russia when he is gravely ill and after he became famous for writing the best known account of the Russian Revolution. Bryant was married to someone else when they first met and afterwards has a complex relationship with playwright Eugene O'Neill (Jack Nicholson) the only (cynical) character who sees through the fog of romantic socialism the others are so enamoured with.
To give the movie authenticity the film is interspersed with interviews from surviving witnesses who knew the people involved or were around the time period. This lends the film a documentary setting and for the time was an unusual narrative device. Something that was parodied later by Woody Allen in Zelig, a former lover of Keaton before Beatty became involved with her.
The problem with the film is it's trying to do too much. It is a tragedy, it is a romance, a globe-trotting political adventure, a growing disillusionment of the Russian revolution and the efforts to export the revolutionary ideals to the USA. Beatty has bit off more than he could chew here. Actors flit in and out without establishing much of a presence such as Gene Hackman.
Beatty should had jettisoned some of the story strands and unleashed a tighter film. Of course we later realised that the aftermath of Russian Revolution did not install a socialist utopia and you feel the film tries to but does not always honestly address this.
This film was released in the year when Ronald Reagan became President and America entered an economic shift to the right with policies I daresay laid the foundations of the financial meltdown of 2008. It's a radical but flawed film which you do not expect to be made by a major film corporation.
However what about Lothario Warren Beatty? This actor/writer/director/producer was better known for his sexual conquests than leftist politics although he did take time out to campaign for George McGovern for the 1972 Presidential Elections.
However Beatty is regarded as a typical liberal Hollywood millionaire. Griffiths is not and maybe it is him who gives the film a political centre. I can certainly see in scenes where there are endless arguments between various factions of the left and the cod bureaucracy that it is Griffiths would have had first hand knowledge with his involvement in left wing politics of 1970s Britain. Goodness knows I encountered it in the 1980s.
Reds was a long held labour of love for him and this film bagged him a Best Director Oscar. You need a strong constitution to watch Reds, it clocks in at 194 minutes and although it is an epic, frankly David Lean probably did not lose any sleep over this movie and that his own epics might get downgraded and Richard Attenborough would go on to show a year later what a real epic should look like.
Reds covers the life of journalist John Reed (Warren Beatty) and his relationship with socialite Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton) from their first meeting, their involvement with the American left movement to Reed's final days in post revolutionary Russia when he is gravely ill and after he became famous for writing the best known account of the Russian Revolution. Bryant was married to someone else when they first met and afterwards has a complex relationship with playwright Eugene O'Neill (Jack Nicholson) the only (cynical) character who sees through the fog of romantic socialism the others are so enamoured with.
To give the movie authenticity the film is interspersed with interviews from surviving witnesses who knew the people involved or were around the time period. This lends the film a documentary setting and for the time was an unusual narrative device. Something that was parodied later by Woody Allen in Zelig, a former lover of Keaton before Beatty became involved with her.
The problem with the film is it's trying to do too much. It is a tragedy, it is a romance, a globe-trotting political adventure, a growing disillusionment of the Russian revolution and the efforts to export the revolutionary ideals to the USA. Beatty has bit off more than he could chew here. Actors flit in and out without establishing much of a presence such as Gene Hackman.
Beatty should had jettisoned some of the story strands and unleashed a tighter film. Of course we later realised that the aftermath of Russian Revolution did not install a socialist utopia and you feel the film tries to but does not always honestly address this.
This film was released in the year when Ronald Reagan became President and America entered an economic shift to the right with policies I daresay laid the foundations of the financial meltdown of 2008. It's a radical but flawed film which you do not expect to be made by a major film corporation.