Reds: 25th Anniversary Edition [HD DVD]

At least a 2-disc set, please -- although that may not happen (for political reasons) unless, or until, Warren ponies up his own $$$ to get a DVD out!!??


USEFUL IDIOTS   June 24, 2004
 2 out of 8 found this review helpful

EXCERPTED FROM STEVEN TRAVERS' "GOD'S COUNTRY"

The 1920s were a strange time. John Reed's "Ten Days That Shook the World" reached a large audience in the United States and internationally. Many wanted to know why an entire planet could be thrust into war. In an attempt to address that issue, some decided that nationalism, governmental agendas, realpolitik, racism, class warfare, capitalism, Democracy, and corporations in bed with politicians and militarists were to blame.

Nationalism was part of it. German unification and Balkan nationalism played a role. Governmental agendas and realpolitik always have played a role in conflict. Since Communism addressed the concept of "one world government" and a "world without borders," some concluded that Communism offered the answer to these problems.
Racism was never an original part of the war, but would emerge as an ugly by-product. The Turks unleashed an open can of worms resulting in "ethnic cleansing" and genocide pitting Christians against Muslims, Turks against Arabs, secular vs. religious. In Germany, an easy scapegoat began to emerge: The Jews. Lies began to spread that Jewish banking interests profited from the war. In the American South Jewish influence was an affront to their sensibilities. The Ku Klux Klan rose again after a period of dormancy. The KKK's "mandate" pitted them against a "worldwide Jewish conspiracy" somehow in league with Papal domination. They said Catholics pledge allegiance not to the U.S., but to the Vatican. But few Catholics and fewer Jews lived in the South. Many blacks did. They were becoming a more prominent segment of society. Blacks were emerging as professional athletes in the Negro baseball leagues, and as musicians in the jazz world. As they asserted themselves, this infuriated the white underclass.
But the most pernicious thing that emerged out of World War I were Westerners who believed that the war had occurred because of the failure of capitalism, Democracy, and corporations who were in bed with politicians and militarists. When Reed's book came out, a segment of society allowed themselves to believe that the new political system in Russia should be given a chance. Communism became "the answer" to society's many problems, including racism and poverty. The failure of Communism, already evident by 1920, was not exposed to the world. Reed either chose not to write about the thousands and thousands of famine victims, the secret police, the crackdowns and forced marches, the banishments, assassinations and disappearances, or he was controlled by the hierarchy, and not allowed to see it. He probably did not want to see it. He had found his story and he was going to stick to it. The great failure of the free press, of governments and political figures, of humanists and truth-seekers, was the failure to pin Russia - Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and the rest of them - down before they became too powerful. To expose them for what they were.

STEVEN TRAVERS
AUTHOR OF "BARRY BONDS: BASEBALL'S SUPERMAN"
...


A film as novel   April 20, 2004
There is only one way of watching this film; it has to be watched as if one were reading a novel. What unfolds, however, is a love story told in terms of tense relationships. The story becomes increasingly absorbing with every passing minute.

Sublime!


Second Only to "Schindler's List"   March 11, 2004
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Of the wide-release, narrative, political films made in the second half of the 20th century, surely "Reds" ranks as one of the best. "The Manchurian Candidate," "All the President's Men," "The Candidate," and "Sweet Bird of Youth" are all interesting mixtures of fact and fiction that actually pale next to Beatty's gutsy work. Even Oliver Stone's work on historical situations and figures, "Platoon," "Salvador," "JFK," and "Nixon," seems--as fine as it is--too slick and slightly impersonal compared to the political vigor and sexual dynamics explored in this bio-pic of Jack Reed, Eugene O'Neill and Louise Bryant. The depths of feeling and intelligence in this film, despite your feelings about Communism, can make you glad to be alive. Thank you, Warren Beatty, for giving this story to the world in such a powerful and even-handed way. I can't wait until this movie is available on DVD. Hopefully, Warren will add a commentary track or two w/Jack and Diane, of course.


Spiteful and small and important   November 5, 2003
 0 out of 7 found this review helpful

This movie has an awful lot of chutzpah, but does not go so far as to try to glamorize communism - at least not as it developed in the early Soviet.

But communism was a hideous and genocidal ideology. And Warren Beatty needed to justify John Reed's (clearly Beatty's alter ego) attachment to it. So he gave Reed something to hate - namely his parents.

Communism was as much about hatred as it was about ideology. This movie unintentionally shows that. The movie treats Reed's parents in a gratuitously ugly manner. I guess Beatty thinks that if you mock the people you hate - they somehow deserve it.

I'm glad this movie was made, because this imaginary autobiography by Warren Beatty's could have been written by a whole class of people in the baby boom generation. It does not hide the hatred at its core. That's a good thing to have as part of the historical record.

If he matures well, Warren Beatty will one day be embarrassed by this movie he made.