Reds – 25th Anniversary Edition (DVD-Video
Set)
Picture: B- Sound: B- Extras: B- Film: B
In the
1970s, the political clout and critical success of Warren Beatty was most
impressive. Instead of settling for
being a tired pretty boy who took his paychecks and was about nothing (like
most of the mannequins who pretend to be actors today), Beatty was willing to
take risks going back to Arthur Penn’s Mickey
One in 1965. Classics like Robert
Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller
(reviewed elsewhere on this site) and Alan J. Pakula’s The Parallax View showed that he knew how to use the star system to
his advantage and took big risks, the kind he established with Penn’s Bonnie & Clyde. The end of this star risk cycle happened in
1981 when he starred and directed Reds.
Back in
1960, Michael Powell was chastised and ruined after he made his remarkable
classic Peeping Tom because some
thought it went too far and the British government destroyed his career,
something Alfred Hitchcock successfully dealt with making his film Psycho a huge hit and another classic
like Powell’s film. Fast forward two
decades later and one again one classic and filmmaker had to take a fall which
another learned from. Michael Cimino had
just had a huge critical and commercial success with his remarkable classic The Deer Hunter (1978, also reviewed on
this site) and decided to go further with new narrative complexities and
material about something with Heaven’s
Gate, finally released in 1980.
It was
considered to Left-wing for its own good in its story of the Johnson County
Massacre, told through a very complex and innovative way that went over the
heads of just about all the increasingly arrogant critics at the time. Now recognized as a classic, the story about
how the cavalry essentially rides in to save land barons and kill the poor and
helpless was considered counter to the incoming Conservative wave. The film took too long to get finished, went
extremely overbudget and caused what was left of United Artists to go bankrupt
and merge with MGM. Beatty’s film was
about writer, journalist, activist and American Communist John Reid, who Beatty
played, was more explicitly to the Left to say the least and made it into a
critical hit and commercially viable release.
Though
Cimino’s film takes more risks and is bolder, Beatty’s film was also supported
by a major studio (Paramount) and is a love story that takes place against the
backdrop of The Russian Revolution. The
one thing bold about this film that Cimino did not have to worry about was that
his film would not be compared to the mighty Sir David Lean’s masterwork Dr. Zhivago, also a love story that
takes place against the backdrop of The Russian Revolution. However, Beatty had already been part of
several genres being turned on their heads, so what would he do here?
For
starters, he cast Diane Keaton as feminist writer Louise Bryant, Jack Nicholson
as no less that Eugene O’Neill, Maureen Stapleton exceptionally strong in her
Oscar-winning performance as Emma Goldman, Edward Herrmann as Max Eastman,
Jerry Kosinski as Grigory Zinoviev, Dolph Sweet as Big Bill Haywood, Paul Sorvino, Gene
Hackman, M. Emmet Walsh, William Daniels, Shane Rimmer and R.G. Armstrong. That is a great cast and that is not even the
whole list. Rarely has a cast been put
together so seamlessly. They never seem
phony, token or just there to secure any false ideas of the box office.
As Reed
falls for Bryant, he is equally passionate about a new movement from the Left
against exploitation of hard working people as the Industrial Age was about to
help put The United States ahead of England as the world’s most powerful
country within a few decades. Reed was
ahead of his time in thinking about the rights of workers, but the problem
arises when he starts to fight about the individual and why the revolutionaries
cannot have a collective that recognizes individuality. He is doomed by this, of course, though he
keep trying to get the developing stories told as Czarist Russia is about to be
overthrown.
This was
a fascinating film to have out there as the Reagan era was about to heat up The
Cold War as Reagan was about to escalate the conflict between the U.S. and now
defunct U.S.S.R., with Reed ironically becoming the only American ever buried
in The Soviet Union until its implosion thanks to The Beatles, Chernobyl, MTV
and so many other failed policies.
As for
Reed, at least he believed in something and was passionate about it, but this
is a film about more than just Reed and this is not to say it is about the
collective. Instead, it is about
principles, issues and how what we stand by and stand for affects us and the
world around us more than we often realize.
Furthermore, the most important thing it says that is more vital than
ever is that history always affects us and it is better to be aware than be
Forrest Gump, whether what you believe in is right, left, or wrong.
The film
arrives on DVD and HD formats at an interesting time when Beatty is constantly
rumored to possibly be running for office, was cinematically political for the
first time in a long time a few years ago with Bulworth and the political climate moves slightly left again as
neo-Conservative policy destroys the environment, the reputation of the U.S.
connected to the Iraq fiasco, scandals abound, yet Communism and Much of
Socialism is dead as a practice. Instead
of being preachy, the film just shows the drama and events, letting the
audience see a part of history U.S. media are still anxious to ignore.
Though
even the slightest Right-of-center or moderate types might be disturbed by such
films, they need and deserve to exist within the corpus of American Cinema for
it to be a healthy cinema. You do not
have to agree with it and the more political any film is, the more likely it
can age or be proven wrong, but what those slightest Right-of-center/moderates
never understand in an interesting sense of slanted thinking is that all films have an ideology no
matter how “entertaining” or “innocent” they may seem.
To make
his points more vivid, the one thing not in the Beatty/Trevor Griffiths
screenplay (with uncredited help from writers like Elaine May) are the
testimonials of the persons who were part of the unions and Leftist movements
of that time that he was archiving for a few years prior to production of the
actual film. It reminds us that this
really happened (something that is also true of Heaven’s Gate, but the narrative complexity has a different mission
than mere documentary to show) like testimonials from Holocaust victims,
serving the same purpose of disproving those revisionists who would lie and say
no such movement ever happened because they have ulterior motives. With the anti-labor movement since the 1980s,
you can understand why this is a particularly valuable aspect of the film. Note the clever use of it. That also quite separates, yet does not
undermine Zhivago in any way. At over three hours, it is longer, yet is
never boring and always compelling.
I cannot
be for certain what Beatty’s intents were with the film, though any possibility
of supporting The Soviet Union is mute with its collapse over and
permanent. Even if it rose again, it
would not be the same, but all the civil wars alone with the Late Capitalism
being practiced there assure its end. As
for the witnesses, those who were part of the IWW (aka The Wobblies, a documentary of which appears elsewhere on this
site) who just wanted a better life and not to have to die or be part of slave
labor just to have food and shelter.
They made changes that made the society better, though some people got
carried away with them and those who always opposed them took advantage by
trying to roll them back.
It is for
reasons like this that Reds is still
important. The title is another label
given to people for what they believed in and were trying to do with their
lives. Some loved the label and others
could have cared less, but the film breaks the myth of monolithic Communism or
Socialism. It also led to much-needed
Civil Rights, though ironically the collectivism of Communism and/or Socialism
does not support such individualism, which brings us back to Beatty’s version
or Reed. Can there be any kind of
Capitalist-compatible Left movement with individual rights? That is the ultimate question the film can
now pose.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image was shot by the great Vittorio Storaro,
A.I.C., looking good for its age. Though
it may seem to look dated at first look, the fact of the matter is that it is
stylized to have a certain look and this was achieved in part by begin the
first of many films to use a silver-retention process for the film stocks from
the Technicolor labs dubbed ENR. There
are even a few competing versions, but this one was later used on films like The Grifters, Saving Private Ryan and Alien
Resurrection, which shows you the diversity of its uses.
There are
still limits to the picture quality since DVD can only go so far in reproducing
the complexities of the image. We had
hoped to have the HD-DVD to compare, but will hopefully get to review that
version later. Nevertheless, the film
looks good and the way Storaro uses the process is to make the time period seem
more like going back in time versus the lush cinematography on Lean’s Dr. Zhivago which this film is always
compared to.
The
original audio was supposedly magnetic stereo at best on some prints, with no
Dolby Stereo, Ultra Stereo or 70mm blow-ups.
The sound here has been remixed for Dolby Digital 5.1 and though it is
centered towards the front and the film itself is dialogue-based, this is a faithful
remix including good sound effects and Stephen Sondheim’s scoring of the film
is very good. Dolby 2.0 Mono tracks are
also included.
Extras
include a new trailer and multi-part "Witness
to Reds” documentary whose installments include The Rising, Comrades, Testimonials, The March, Revolution Parts 1
and 2, and Propaganda. They give more details about the politics,
production and history of the film and history the film covers that make them
all worth watching, but only after you have seen the film, which is a true
epic, no matter what your politics. It
is the kind of film Hollywood used to get made all the time, regardless of the
story. It is about something, which is why
you should see it or see it again.
- Nicholas Sheffo
