"The Soviets have no more local autonomy. The central state has all the power. All the power is in the hands of a few men and they are destroying the revolution. They are destroying any hope of real communism in Russia. They're putting people like me in jail!"
...
"What did you think this thing was gonna be? A revolution by consensus where we all sat down and agreed over a cup of coffee? ... Did you really think things would work right away? Did you really expect social transformation to be anything other than a murderous process?"
For one thing, this is a remarkable film for having been made in America during the conservative Reagan years, right around the time of the "evil empire" rhetoric and Cold War arms race escalation. At the same time, and despite conservative opposition to the film for its various sympathies, I thought its crucial political points were about disillusionment, the fact that communism when put into practice devolved into authoritarianism. For all his defense of the Soviet experiment, what a great moment it was when Beatty's character says "When you purge dissent, you kill the revolution! Revolution is dissent!" In a nice parallel, there was also a disillusionment of sorts in the love story, which went from a couple professing a belief in "free love" to the natural jealousies that come when it was put into practice.
This is a sprawling epic, probably a little too long at 195 minutes, one you might say the main subjects, Jack Reed (Warren Beatty) and Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton) were unworthy of, especially when they're almost upstaged by the brilliant Emma Goldman (Maureen Stapleton). To me, however, their personal story was fascinating, and they were a perfect lens through which to view this little segment of history, roughly 1915-20, in a nuanced way. It's a collision of so many things, anti-war sentiment, worker's rights, emerging feminism, and of course, the Russian Revolution. Lots of great speeches here, and a touching human story amidst the grand historical backdrop.
For one thing, this is a remarkable film for having been made in America during the conservative Reagan years, right around the time of the "evil empire" rhetoric and Cold War arms race escalation. At the same time, and despite conservative opposition to the film for its various sympathies, I thought its crucial political points were about disillusionment, the fact that communism when put into practice devolved into authoritarianism. For all his defense of the Soviet experiment, what a great moment it was when Beatty's character says "When you purge dissent, you kill the revolution! Revolution is dissent!" In a nice parallel, there was also a disillusionment of sorts in the love story, which went from a couple professing a belief in "free love" to the natural jealousies that come when it was put into practice.
This is a sprawling epic, probably a little too long at 195 minutes, one you might say the main subjects, Jack Reed (Warren Beatty) and Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton) were unworthy of, especially when they're almost upstaged by the brilliant Emma Goldman (Maureen Stapleton). To me, however, their personal story was fascinating, and they were a perfect lens through which to view this little segment of history, roughly 1915-20, in a nuanced way. It's a collision of so many things, anti-war sentiment, worker's rights, emerging feminism, and of course, the Russian Revolution. Lots of great speeches here, and a touching human story amidst the grand historical backdrop.