Reds

I have to confess that I don't really 'get' Warren Beatty. I can see that he has a certain suaveness about him that no doubt appeals to the ladies, but I've always found his acting range a little lacking. After a string of critically-acclaimed but relatively minor dramas in the 1970s, Reds was Beatty's attempt at an attention-getting magnum opus. Directed, co-written by and starring Beatty, it's an epic tale of turn-of-the-century radicalism and the birth of Russian communism. Filmed in 1981, a time when the Cold War was still very much alive and kicking, Beatty takes a controversial subject and makes it palatably downbeat for a pro-democratic audience. The film was a huge success, attracting a whopping 12 Oscar nominations (it won three of these), though the passage of time has seen it largely forgotten amongst the wider film-viewing public.

Beatty plays John Reed, a radical American journalist who gets swept up by the intellectual fervour surrounding the Russian Revolution of 1917. He hooks up with Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton), a similarly open-minded journalist, and together they dream of introducing the ideals of socialism back home in America. The first part of the film follows their relationship and infidelities, whilst the second half sees Reed return to the new Soviet Union to follow up the progress of the revolution. Unfortunately, once there, Reed finds it increasingly hard to leave Russia due to the corruption and totalitarianism that locks the country in an iron grip, and he finds himself getting increasingly sicker due to a kidney disorder.

Based on real events and featuring interview footage with real life figures who were there, Reds feels a lot like a conscious attempt to recapture the feel of the David Lean-styled epics of yesteryear (Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago in particular). Beatty lacks the broad cinematic eye that helped frame those films in such a memorable way though, and Reds just ends up feeling overlong and self-indulgent as a result. It also doesn't help that Beatty and Keaton lack the screen presence to drive such an experience, with Keaton in particular seeming a bit too strained and self-conscious. There's a colourful assortment of supporting talent (Jack Nicholson, Paul Sorvino and Maureen Stapleton chief amongst them) on hand to give the film a bit more of a boost, though only Sorvino has any real impact. I struggle to imagine why Stapleton won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar when she barely figures in the film at all, but there you go.

If you enjoy political/historical epics you'll probably get something out of this one... it might've been a sharper film if it's runtime had been shortened down to something under three hours. The only thing that gives it's bloated length any creedence are the interviews interspersed throughout, apart from these sequences it's self-importance doesn't seem so warranted when there's vaguely silly scenes such as the one where Beatty rides a one-man rail-rider through the Russian wildnerness, and it's touches like these that remind you that someone like Beatty shouldn't neccessarily be in charge of such a 'big' film.

TRIVIA: Beatty started work on this film about ten years before it's release. Amongst the first things he did was begin gathering the interview footage.

Whilst the film's final runtime is 194 minutes, we should be thankful that it didn't end up longer - Beatty shot close to 130 hours worth of footage, requesting the cast to do up to between 70 to 100 takes at various times. He was so anal about his final cut that he also stopped an American television channel from screening a specially-edited version they themselves had created.

Jerzi Kosinki (who played Grigory Zinoviev) was better known for writing the novel and script for the film Being There (and other novels). In the early 1990s it was revealed that he had plagiarised some of his novels from little-known Polish texts and his reputation was ruined as a result. He subsquently committed suicide by taping a bag around his head after drinking a rum and coke with a sizeable handful of barbituates. Reds was his only real acting role.

DIRECTOR: Warren Beatty
WRITER/SOURCE: Written by Warren Beatty and Trevor Griffiths, based on real life events they researched themselves (with help from Peter S. Feibleman, Elaine May and Jeremy Piksar).
KEY ACTORS: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Paul Sorvino, Edward Hermann, Gene Hackman, Maureen Stapleton, M. Emmet Walsh, Jerzy Kosinski.

RELATED TEXTS:
- Tonally similar to Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago.
- For a Royals-eye view of the Russian Revolution, check out Nicholas and Alexandra. I'm sure there's also a multitude of other films about the revolution, but Nicholas and Alexandra is the main one that comes to mind for the moment.

AWARDS:
Lots. Nominated for a variety of American film awards (and the BAFTAs). Beatty won a Golden Globe for Best Director, Jack Nicholson and Maureen Stapleton won BAFTAs for their acting.

Oscar nominations came in for Best Director, Best Actor (Beatty), Best Actress (Keaton), Best Supporting Actor (Nicholson), Best Supporting Actress (Stapleton), Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Picture, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Sound and Best Original Screenplay. It won for Best Director, Best Supporting Actress and Best Cinematography.