Main Cast: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Edward Herrmann, Jerzy Kosinski, Jack Nicholson
Release Year: 1981
Country: US
Run Time: 195 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Few filmmakers other than Warren Beatty would have had the courage and vision to fashion an epic film from the life of famed American Communist John Reed (who is the only US citizen buried in the Kremlin). The film is an effort to humanize a political movement that has previously been depicted on screen in a series of unsubtle and prejudicial broad strokes. The film begins in 1915, when Reed (Beatty) makes the acquaintance of married Portland journalist Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton). So persuasive is Reed's point of view--and so charismatic is Reed himself-- that Bryant kicks over the traces and joins Reed and his fellow radicals. Among the famous personages depicted herein are Emma Goldman (Maureen Stapleton), Eugene O'Neill (Jack Nicholson) and Max Eastman (Richard Herrmann). The second half of this nearly-200-minute film skims through the years when Reed, now a Russian resident, becomes disillusioned by the harsh realities of Bolshevism. Despite the celebrity line-up of real-life "witnesses" to the events depicted in the film (ranging from novelist Henry Miller to comedian George Jessel!), historians took Reds to task for its oversimplification of events and its laundering of the notoriously promiscuous Louise Bryant. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
An achievement in epic storytelling and historical romance, Warren Beatty's Reds (1981) combines American Communist John Reed's experience of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath with the intimate relationship between Reed and Louise Bryant, his match in progressive thinking. Structured through the reminiscences of two dozen actual witnesses, from Henry Miller to George Jessel, the film meticulously recreates the culturally volatile World War I period, from the bourgeois Portland abandoned by Diane Keaton's Louise to the passionate Greenwich Village bohemia of Beatty's Reed, Maureen Stapleton's no-nonsense Emma Goldman, and Jack Nicholson's cynically romantic Eugene O'Neill. Reed's final reunion with lover/comrade Bryant poignantly reveals the personal cost of his political beliefs. Praised as an impressive accomplishment, regardless of its historical liberties, Reds earned 12 Oscar nominations, including Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor for Nicholson, and four for Beatty as producer, director, actor, and co-writer. One of the last vestiges of artistically ambitious 1970s "auteur" Hollywood, Reds won Oscars for Vittorio Storaro's cinematography, Stapleton's supporting performance, and Beatty's direction, but it lost Best Picture to Chariots of Fire. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Paul Sorvino - Louis Fraina; Maureen Stapleton - Emma Goldman; Nicolas Coster - Paul Trullinger; M. Emmet Walsh - Speaker at the Liberal Club; Ian Wolfe - Mr. Partlow; Bessie Love - Mrs. Partlow; R.G. Armstrong - Agent; Roger Baldwin - Witness; Ramon Bieri - Police Chief; Phil Brown; Joseph Buloff - Joe Volski; Norman Chancer - Barney; Brenda Currin - Marjorie Jones; Noel Davis; MacIntyre Dixon - Carl Walters; Will Durant - Witness; Kathryn Grody - Crystal Eastman; Stefan Gryff - Alex Gomberg; Gene Hackman - Pete Van Wherry; Jerry Hardin - Harry; Gerald Hiken - Dr. Lorber; Jack Kehoe - Eddie; Ake Lindman - Escort; Christopher Malcolm - C.I.P. Party Member; Jack O'Leary - Pinkerton Guard; George Plimpton - Horace Whigham; Stuart Richman - Leon Trotsky; Shane Rimmer - MacAlpine; Tony Sibbald - CLP Member; Roger Sloman - Vladimir Lenin; Pat Starr - Helen Walters; Dolph Sweet - Big Bill Haywood; Jan Triska - Karl Radek; Rebecca West - Witness; Eleanor D. Wilson - Mrs. Reed; William Daniels - Julius Gerber; Harry Ditson - Maurice Becker; George Jessel - Witness; Dave King - Allan Benson; Patsy Pollock; Josef Sommer - Official; Max Wright - Floyd Dell; Gretchen Rennell; Nancy Foy; Jane Jenkins; Marion Dougherty; Adela Rogers St. John; Leigh Curran - Ida Rauh; Art Shields - Witness; Hamilton Fish III - Witness; Arthur Mayer - Witness
Credit
Simon Holland - Art Director, David L. MacLeod - Associate Producer, Shirley Russell - Costume Designer, Warren Beatty - Director, Dede Allen - Editor, Craig McKay - Editor, Simon Relph - Editor, Dede Allen - Executive Producer, Simon Relph - Executive Producer, Stephen Sondheim - Composer (Music Score), William Turner - Makeup, A. Kitman Ho - Production Designer, Michael Seirton - Production Designer, Richard Sylbert - Production Designer, Vittorio Storaro - Cinematographer, Dede Allen - Producer, Warren Beatty - Producer, Simon Relph - Producer, Redmond Morris - Set Designer, Simon Bosanquet - Set Designer, Peter Odabashian - Sound Editor, Warren Beatty - Screenwriter, Trevor Griffiths - Screenwriter, Dave Grusin - Additional Music, William Scharf - Additional Editing, Zelda Barron - Script Supervisor
In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "Ten Top Ten" -- the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres-after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Reds was acknowledged as the ninth best film in the epic genre.[1][2]
Warren Beatty came across the story of John Reed in the mid-1960s and executive producer and film editor Dede Allen remembers Beatty mentioning making a film about Reed's life as long ago as 1966. Later, in the 1970s Beatty would begin to write the early drafts of what would become Reds, but the process stalled. In 1976, Beatty would find a suitable collaborator in Trevor Griffiths who began work but was delayed when his wife died in a plane crash.[3] The preliminary draft of the script was finished in 1978, but Beatty still had problems with it. Beatty and Griffiths spent four and a half months on fixing it, though Beatty's friend Elaine May would also collaborate on the script.
Beatty originally had no intention of acting in the film or even directing it because he had learned on various projects that producing a film alone is a difficult task. He considered John Lithgow for the part of John Reed because the two looked similar but eventually Beatty decided to act in the film and direct it himself. Jack Nicholson was cast as Eugene O'Neill over James Taylor and Sam Shepard.[4]
When principal photography began in August 1979 the original intention was for a 15 to 16 week shoot but it would take one whole year to just shoot the film. The process was slow because it was shot in five different countries and at various points the crew had to wait for snow to fall in Helsinki (and other parts of Finland), which stood in for the Soviet Union, and for rain to stop in Spain. Beatty would also not stop the camera between takes and would have it continuously roll. He also insisted on a large number of takes. Paul Sorvino said he did as many as 70 takes for one scene and actress Maureen Stapleton had to do 80 takes of one particular scene which caused her to quip to Beatty, "Are you out of your fucking mind?".[5]
Diane Keaton and Beatty's romantic relationship also began to deteriorate during the filming as Peter Biskind writing about the making of Reds said, "Beatty's relationship with Keaton barely survived the shoot. It is always a dicey proposition when an actress works with a star or director – both, in this case – with whom she has an offscreen relationship. ... Keaton appeared in more scenes than any other actor, save Beatty, and many of them were difficult ones, where she had to assay a wide range of feelings, from romantic passion to anger, and deliver several lengthy, complex, emotional speeches. George Plimpton once observed, "Diane almost got broken. I thought [Beatty] was trying to break her into what Louise Bryant had been like with John Reed." Executive producer Simon Relph adds, "It must have been a strain on their relationship, because he was completely obsessive, relentless."[6]
The editing process began in spring of 1980 with as many as 65 people working on editing down and going over approximately two and a half million feet of film.[7] Post-production ended in November of 1981 more than two years after the start of filming. Paramount stated that the final cost of the film was $33.5 million dollars, which would be the rough equivalent of around $80 million today.[8] To date, Reds is the most recent film to receive Academy Award nominations in all four acting categories.
