Paramount Home Video presents
Reds (1981)

"If you were mine, I wouldn't share you with anybody, or anything. It would be just you and me."
- Eugene O'Neill (Jack Nicholson)

Review By: Jon Danziger  
Published: October 16, 2006

Stars: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Maureen Stapleton
Other Stars: Edward Herrmann, Paul Sorvino, Jerzy Kozinski, Gene Hackman, George Plimpton, M. Emmet Walsh
Director: Warren Beatty

MPAA Rating: PG
Run Time: 03h:15m:03s
Release Date: October 17, 2006
UPC: 097360133141
Genre: epic

Style Grade	Substance Grade	Image Transfer Grade	Audio Transfer Grade	Extras Grade
A	A+	A+	A-	B

DVD Review

On some level, certainly, this movie seems like the height of folly. Warren Beatty cashed in just about all of his Hollywood chits on this one, and in the early days of the Reagan presidency, at the dawn of morning in America, made a film about America's most prominent Communist, an intimate of Lenin, of Trotsky, who died young, still fervently believing in the revolution. (It was a very strange sight indeed on Oscar night, to see Beatty stride to the podium to collect his statuette as the orchestra swelled with The Internationale.) On paper it seems almost like a recipe for career suicide: over three hours long, in obscure foreign locations, and brimming with ancient politics, and unpopular politics, at that. But you've got to set aside all those preconceptions, along with the facile (though perhaps not inaccurate) public image of Beatty at the time as Hollywood's most famous Lothario—trust the art, and not received wisdom about the artist, and you'll find that Reds is an epic of the highest order, smart, bracing, knowing, warm, unforgettable. It makes a well-meaning project similarly driven by star wattage like Good Night, and Good Luck. seem like a home movie in comparison. "Masterpiece" doesn't seem too grand a word when talking about a film as magnificent as this one.

Beatty tells the story of John Reed, dimly remembered in general, perhaps, now that the Cold War is over, but most famous for having written Ten Days That Shook the World, his first-hand account of the Russian Revolution. Reed was squarely from the Oregon bourgeoisie, and as we meet him he's already merrily biting the hand that feeds him, seeking out funding for his radical magazine, The Masses, so that he can continue to advocate for revolution. On a visit back home to Portland he meets Louise Bryant, a dentist's wife, with literary aspirations (she writes) and a hunger for experience—she becomes the great love of his life, accompanying him back to New York, and later to seemingly every corner of the globe. Their relationship is at the heart of the picture, and Reed's life, as portrayed here, is constantly fraught with the tensions brought on when the personal (Louise, and Establishment notions like happiness) crashes up against the political (the call of revolution).

But the story is told on a much bigger canvas, and Beatty is superb at conjuring up the world of Greenwich Village radicalism just before the Great War, the aura of aesthetic and personal liberties taken in Provincetown, and the grandeur and promise that came with the upending of Czarist Russia and the establishment of a People's Republic. Reds can be starry-eyed with wonder about the possibility of revolution, but it's certainly not naïve; Reed's idealism comes undone almost right from the jump, and you can see his anguish as he tries to reconcile his notions of a proletarian state with bread lines and deprivation and mass executions and tyranny.

It is filmmaking on an almost unimaginably grand scale, and, in these days of CGI, we shall not see its like again. And in the intervening quarter century, it's taken on a new relevance—for instance late in the story Reed is sent by Moscow to preach the gospel of revolution to the Islamic world, where he finds Uncle Sam burned in effigy and audiences responsive only to calls for holy war. In a sense the only appropriate comparisons are with the epic films of the past—it holds up favorably against pictures like Lawrence of Arabia and Seven Samurai, and makes subsequent big movies seem facile and boring.

Part of this no doubt is due to the astonishingly talented team of artists on both sides of the camera. Beatty's work is extraordinary in all respects—he's the film's star, director, producer, and co-screenwriter, and he's brought out the best in his collaborators. The work by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro is relentlessly stunning; when you consider that just two years before, he shot Apocalypse Now, it's hard even to fathom his achievements. Production designer Richard Sylbert's work was never better, and you could say the same for the cutting of Dede Allen, both the film's co-editor and its executive producer. Beatty even got Stephen Sondheim to write the music, which is haunting and lyrical without drawing too much attention to itself.

And the movie offers a galaxy of indelible performances, starting with Beatty's. Reed's commitment to the revolution never wanes, and yet he sees the truth that his comrades either don't or continue to deny—that love isn't an ideological formulation, that it cuts through the cant, that it's worth working for and fighting for. Diane Keaton finds the warmth and the good humor to go along with Louise's perseverance—she was just a couple of years past her iconic performance as Annie Hall, but there's no doubting that Louise is made of sterner stuff, that there's nothing la di da about her. Jack Nicholson smolders as Eugene O'Neill, and it's hard to look at the plays without thinking of this performance once you've seen the movie—he can be vicious and wounding, to himself most especially, but you come away remembering his commitment to friendship, and the fact that he almost single-handedly invented the modern American theater is a tiny little afterthought at best, in terms of Bryant's and Reed's story. Great actors show up in smaller parts, too—Paul Sorvino is a committed revolutionary who knocks heads with Reed, Gene Hackman is an editor who thinks it can all be settled over a couple of cocktails at the bar, and even George Plimpton is very good as a publisher who doesn't quite have the courage of his convictions to make a pass at Louise. And finally there is Maureen Stapleton, as Emma Goldman, in a multidimensional performance that almost defies description. She gets at Goldman's revolutionary fervor while retaining her good humor, she's a loyal friend who can be withering if she's crossed. She doesn't much cotton to Louise, taking her as another in a series of girlfriends distracting Reed from the seriousness of revolution—but when circumstances force her to reconsider Louise Bryant and recognize the steeliness of her character, Stapleton gives a smile that could light up the sky.

Rating for Style: A
Rating for Substance: A+

 

Image Transfer

	One
Aspect Ratio	1.85:1 - Widescreen
Original Aspect Ratio	yes
Anamorphic	yes

Image Transfer Review: The nuance and detail in Storaro's camerawork have been restored and transferred just wonderfully here—this has got to be as good as the film has ever looked, and it may even be better than its original theatrical release. Colors are deeply saturated without bleeding, and you won't see a mark on the print.

Image Transfer Grade: A+

 

Audio Transfer

	Language	Remote Access
Mono	English, French	yes
Dolby Digital 5.1	English	yes

Audio Transfer Review: Only occasional little glitches in the audio detract—it's almost as if the sound drops out for a beat, but as a general rule you'll be able to make out the polyglot dialogue on the dense 5.1 mix.

Audio Transfer Grade: A-

 

Disc Extras

Full Motion menu with music
Scene Access with 19 cues and remote access
Subtitles/Captions in English with remote access
1 TV Spots/Teasers
7 Featurette(s)
Packaging: Amaray with slipcase
2 Discs
1-Sided disc(s)
Layers: dual

Extras Review: The film originally played with an intermission, and that's replicated in a way here, with the feature split up onto two discs. On the first you'll also find an advertisement for this DVD release; the rest of the extras are on the second disc, seven featurettes yoked under the heading Witness to Reds (58m:16s). Beatty has sat for new interview footage, despite saying that he "basically disapproves" of this sort of material on DVD—but he's convinced a bunch of pals to do the same, and also interviewed are Nicholson, Sorvino and Edward Herrmann (who plays Max Eastman); Storaro, Allen, Sondheim; and Barry Diller, the head of Paramount when the movie was produced. The Rising discusses the origin of the project, and Comrades is a look both at the cast and the issues Beatty encountered directing himself. Testimonials is about the interview footage included in the feature with those who knew Reed and Bryant personally—it's deeply poignant footage, these old people remembering events from years ago, and a lesser feature would probably wilt with the juxtaposition. (One feature that's not included but that would have been very welcome would be identifying the witnesses.) The March deals with the arduous shoot; Revolution, Parts 1 and 2 assess issues of historical accuracy and the movie's autobiographical resonances for Beatty. And finally Propaganda is about the film's reception during awards season, and its reputation over the years—Beatty relates that he couldn't make the sale at home and get his kids to watch it with him.

Extras Grade: B

 

Final Comments

Reds, like its hero, is courageous almost to the point of foolhardiness—it's politically committed, culturally knowing, historically relevant, and almost unimaginably poignant. It's got a vibrancy that comes only from art of the first order, and features actors and filmmakers of the highest rank turning in some of their very best work. Rejoice, comrades—finally it's on DVD, and it looks spectacular.

 

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