Customer Reviews

Reds (25th Anniversary Collection)

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

It's a brilliant movie really; romantic, funny, intelligent and sad, as well as historical. John Reed was a confused American, or perhaps just an inspired one. His real battle was for the American working man, an underpaid, over-worked breed of Americana who helped form this nation. Reed really just believe, if you break it down into bare essence, that men should be treated fairly. He was labeled a communist, and probably believed himself to be one on some level, but his views were really more socialistic. This was his basis, and that basis took him to Russia, where he became an unwitting spokesman for the communist regime, his words twisted and translated to meet the Party's needs. His heart was just with the working man, and a misguided feeling that life should be fair. His writing speaks for itself--read "Ten Days that Shook the World". Ah, but there's more behind Reed's Russian connection, far more. He, along with the people who formed his circle of friends, was a bohemian in all respects. They were people of art, and of talent, intellectual artists in their own right, and far ahead of their time. The movie touches upon it, and leads one to want to learn more about the man, and his time. His relationships with Gene O'Neill and Louise Bryant goes far beyond what is portrayed, but the movie does at least give one the insight into those relationships. In their time, Reed, Bryant, and O'Neill did much in America for American writers, and for American theatre. They were all people of art, and of deep emotion. In a time of growing comformity, they tossed comformity aside. Their lifestyles were not the lifestyles of "proper people" of the time, but they gave great emotion to merely living, and to living each day as it came. Each of them touched this world in some way, left something of themselves behind, and that's what Reds is really all about...what one leaves behind. John Reed is the only American ever buried in the Kremlin...hardly a matter to be left a faded shade in history. His belief was strong, and he stood by those beliefs, and that's something that most of us never achieve in the long run of things.

It's a good movie, and worth seeing, and worth remembering.

The kind of film that has sadly just about disappeared - the personal,
auteur driven epic. Very rarely if ever now will a studio give a film
maker huge funds to do a risky, personal, not obviously commercial
project, one that could never be made as a `small' film.

While critics can nit pick, and a few of their points may be valid (both
Beatty and Diane Keaton were at least 10 years older then their real life characters,
making some behavior seem overly naive and juvenile instead of understandable
for their youth and inexperience), overall this is a masterful combining of the big picture
and the personal, and how the two interrelate in life. How do we deal with emotions that
are much messier than our ideals of how to live?

It explores the twin faces of revolution - the sometimes desperate need to fight to
create a new order, but the danger that the new order may be just as corrupt as the old.

Rare is the film that deeply, honestly explores both idealism and the dark realities of
political compromise. Rarer still is the film that explores both in a personal way, without
judgment, but with deep insight.

Beautifully shot by Vitorio Storraro, wonderful production design.

Keaton and Beatty are very good in the leads, and the supporting cast, down to the
smallest role, is generally magnificent. Especially amazing are Maureen Stapleton
as Emma Goldman, and Jack Nicholson in one of his very best (and most restrained)
performances as Eugene O'Neil. He may capture the true pain of trying to live through
the eyes of an artist as well as anyone I've ever seen.

The Blu-ray is particularly beautiful.

Thrilling, challenging, gorgeous, emotional and epic. They don't make 'em
like this anymore, and that's our loss.

It was nice to see this movie again since I saw it in the movies back in early 1982. It is a refreshing alternate to Dr Zhivago which was in the same time frame.

This is a GREAT film -- a magnificient epic and a remarkable acheivement!!

At least a 2-disc set, please -- although that may not happen (for political reasons) unless, or until, Warren ponies up his own $$$ to get a DVD out!!??

There is only one way of watching this film; it has to be watched as if one were reading a novel. What unfolds, however, is a love story told in terms of tense relationships. The story becomes increasingly absorbing with every passing minute.

Sublime!

Of the wide-release, narrative, political films made in the second half of the 20th century, surely "Reds" ranks as one of the best. "The Manchurian Candidate," "All the President's Men," "The Candidate," and "Sweet Bird of Youth" are all interesting mixtures of fact and fiction that actually pale next to Beatty's gutsy work. Even Oliver Stone's work on historical situations and figures, "Platoon," "Salvador," "JFK," and "Nixon," seems--as fine as it is--too slick and slightly impersonal compared to the political vigor and sexual dynamics explored in this bio-pic of Jack Reed, Eugene O'Neill and Louise Bryant. The depths of feeling and intelligence in this film, despite your feelings about Communism, can make you glad to be alive. Thank you, Warren Beatty, for giving this story to the world in such a powerful and even-handed way. I can't wait until this movie is available on DVD. Hopefully, Warren will add a commentary track or two w/Jack and Diane, of course.

This movie has an awful lot of chutzpah, but does not go so far as to try to glamorize communism - at least not as it developed in the early Soviet.

But communism was a hideous and genocidal ideology. And Warren Beatty needed to justify John Reed's (clearly Beatty's alter ego) attachment to it. So he gave Reed something to hate - namely his parents.

Communism was as much about hatred as it was about ideology. This movie unintentionally shows that. The movie treats Reed's parents in a gratuitously ugly manner. I guess Beatty thinks that if you mock the people you hate - they somehow deserve it.

I'm glad this movie was made, because this imaginary autobiography by Warren Beatty's could have been written by a whole class of people in the baby boom generation. It does not hide the hatred at its core. That's a good thing to have as part of the historical record.

If he matures well, Warren Beatty will one day be embarrassed by this movie he made.

"Reds" is the 1981 Warren Beatty epic that harnessed the turmoil of the Russian Revolution as reported by American journalist Jack Reed and brought it to the screen in a rivetingly intelligent and thoughtful entertainment piece. As Reed, Beatty brings to the character a political and social passion that is eventually shared with his wife, Louise, played unflinchingly by Diane Keaton. Beatty and Keaton are aptly supported by co-stars Jack Nicholson and Maureen Stapleton (in a Best Supporting Actress Oscar performance). The film is a stunning historic retelling of the political chaos of the socially and economically devastated Russian society and their implementation of the Communist regime that would establish the Soviet Union and last the next 70 years, most of them in Cold War relations with the Western world. Beneath the political drama, "Reds" is also the love story, probably glamorized, between Jack and Louise, and Beatty and Keaton are realistic in their roles. The film carries us from the planting of the seeds of Russian discontent to Reed's death from kidney failure, and in between we get an important historic lesson. This is one of Beatty's better and more diligant projects, and it's one that's earned respect and a timelessness for its historical importance.

Beatty's historical-biographical epic about John Reed deserves credit for tackling the controversial subject of Communist sympathizers in America during the early part of the 20th century. Reed is sympathetically portrayed as a sincere idealist who sees those ideals betrayed in the aftermath of the Russian revolution, long before the Cold War got started. Subsequently revealed facts may have modified this view of Reed, but the drama is still effective if taken on it's own terms.

Some reviewers felt the romantic subplot was unnecessary or overemphasized, but I think it serves to show Reed as an uncompromising idealist even in his personal life. He questions all social institutions, even marriage, in trying to maintain an open relationship with his main romantic interest. The vicissitudes of their relationship are a tellng illustration of the difficulties on the personal level they have in adapting to the bold social revisions they are endorsing. The fact that Louise later voluntarily endures personal hardship to find him and care for him indicates a final personal triumph, underscoring the disappointment he has in the turn of larger scale events which ultimately hasten his demise.

Although the real-life Communist drama has ended in a way that Reed, and even Beatty in 1981, certainly didn't imagine, there is still relevance to modern audiences. Current events are foreshadowed in the scene where Reed makes a speech to an Arab crowd that attempts to parallel Eastern and Western class struggles, and they begin chanting for Jihad against America and it's allies. Although Reed complains about translation problems to his Russian sponsors, it is remarkable how little it took to agitate a crowd of Arab men into a violent anti-Western rage, even back then.

I love this movie more than I can find words to express. It is a spectacular piece of film making. The story is rivoting, the direction and cinematography are the best that can be found in any film not directed by David Lean, and all of the acting by just an amazing cast is phenomenal. Diane Keaton and Warren Beatty have a scene at the end that has to rank as one of the greatest moments in film. This is not a political film. It is a devastatingly beautiful love story with the most significant political event of the twentieth century as its backdrop. There are several eloquent and erudite reviews here that get into more detail, but I just wanted to say-- how could this film possibly still not be out on DVD? If ever there was a great DVD film, this is it. I'm pretty sure Beatty won Best Director for this and it got cheated out of Best Picture by, as I recall, Chariots of Fire (Bleccch!) I'm trying to collect my all-time favorite films on DVD, and this one is in the fight for the #1 slot with Dr. Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia. I must have the DVD!!!