Reds

It seems like an odd choice so soon after the communist witch hunts in the McCarthy era to make a biopic that essentially immortalizes John Reed, an activist and journalist who promoted pro-communist ideas in early 1900’s America before becoming an exile from his home country when he was found guilty of sedition and fled illegally to Russia. Warren Beatty’s film about a man that most Americans would detest humanizes him while choosing not to lionize him. John Reed is portrayed matter-of-factly complete with flaws and unflattering characteristics. We are meant to understand him without necessarily liking him. 

The year is 1915 and journalist Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton) encounters the radical journalist John Reed (Warren Beatty) for the first time at a lecture. She is intrigued by his idealism and, after an entire evening interviewing him she realizes that writing has been her only escape from a frustrating life. She joins him in New York City and is introduced to the local activists and artists including author Emma Goldman (Maureen Stapleton) and Eugene O’Neill (Jack Nicholson). Soon they move together to Massachusetts to concentrate on their writing. Through her own work she becomes a feminist and a radical, too. Reed becomes obsessed with labor strikes and with changing the world which has him travel while leaving her behind. During this time she enters into an affair with Eugene O’Neill. When Reed finds out he doesn’t care and offers to marry her. Afterwards, he admits to affairs of his own and the two fight and split up. 

When they are eventually reunited professionally the two travel to Russia and get caught up in the events of the 1917 Russian Revolution. When they return to the states he becomes an active member in the Socialist Party of America’s new Left Wing Section but when that wing secures 12 of the 15 seats on the committee they are all expelled rather than allowed to take control. Infighting splinters the twelve members in to two competing groups with different focuses with Reed forming the Communist Labor Party of America. He plans on returning to Russia to secure official recognition from the Comintern but Bryant threatens to end their relationship again if he does. He goes anyway, promising to be back by Christmas. When he is unable to escape Russia and come home she travels there to find him again but he has gotten ill and may not make it back again.

This is a dense movie with a lot of ideologies and politics bandied about for the space of over three hours. I would argue that this film is at times too dense, opting to settle for montages of protests and infighting to demonstrate what is going on in a country going through revolution and turmoil. So much of this story is factual and is presenting the world view of the two leads, even when they aren’t in sync. John Reed was so determined to believe Communism would solve the world’s problems that even when his oldest friends accept that they were wrong he blindly goes on. Emma Goldman points out that under the communist rule the people are starving and that this form of government isn’t working. John insists this is because Europe and America are to blame, not communism, for having cut off supplies. He is so certain he is right he cannot see what is obvious around him.

This film takes place well before the Red Scare that permeated the McCarthy era that led to the Hollywood blacklist and McCarthyism, coined in 1950. He became the face of anti-communism legislature and prosecutions that ruined many lives, innocent and otherwise. But the prosecution of Communist and communist sympathizers began much earlier and at one point Bryant is brought before an inquest to answer questions concerning John Reed. He will be charged with sedition and, later when he is arrested trying to cross illegally from Russia into Finland, the US government will not step in and try to bring him home. Instead he will eventually be returned to Russia.

It’s perhaps poetic justice that the very thing he accuses the US and European governments of causing will be what leads to his own death. He at one point gets a kidney infection that causes him to lose one of them. Later, while trapped in Russia he will develop typhus and, because of the closed border preventing medicines from entering the country, he succumbs to the illness. In his own mind he probably saw that as further validation of his point of view.

This is a compelling story about a real life couple and Warren Beatty punctuates it with filmed interviews with a group of men and women referred to only as “the witnesses.” These interviews were made as early as 1971 when Beatty was trying to get this story off the ground initially. Since, the names of the witnesses have been released. They serve to add some much needed behind the scenes information about John Reed and Louise Bryant that the film itself, as long as it is, doesn’t have the time to show. These interviews create a documentary feel to the proceedings and paint a  portrait of the couple as more than just the legends they became but the very real humans they were.

This is a tough subject to get right and it’s no surprise it took Warren Beatty fifteen years to get it made. It went through many different iterations before the format was finally settled on and filmed. It ended up getting lauded by critics and audiences alike and was nominated for a massive twelve Oscars including all the major categories. It would lose most of these but Warren Beatty did take home the Best Director Award, one of a rare instances where that didn’t also bring the Best Picture win. This is a fascinating picture about a man who was not the greatest of individuals and who had political leanings that put him in direct opposition with his government and it ultimately cost him his life. It’s a story that needed to be told and is a great look at a recent period in American, and Russian, history. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Warren Beatty

Best Director: Warren Beatty (won)

Best Actor: Warren Beatty

Best Actress: Diane Keaton

Best Supporting Actor: Jack Nicholson

Best Supporting Actress: Maureen Stapleton (won)

Best Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen: Warren Beatty and Trevor Griffiths

Best Art Direction: Richard Sylbert and Michael Seirton

Best Cinematography: Vittorio Storaro (won)

Best Costume Design: Shirley Ann Russell

Best Film Editing: Dede Allen and Craig McKay

Best Sound: Dick Vorisek, Tom Fleischman and Simon Kaye

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Release Date: December 4, 1981

Running Time: 195 Minutes

Rated PG

Starring: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Edward Herrmann, Jerzy Kosiński, Jack Nicholson, Paul Sorvino and Maureen Stapleton

Directed By: Warren Beatty