Reds

[David Casseres]

Reds, Warren Beatty's movie, that is, from 1981, available on DVD in a "25th
Anniversary Edition." Watched it last night, having seen it once when it
came out.

It's full of amazing portrayals of amazing people: Beatty himself as John
Reed, the radical journalist who wrote Ten Days that Shook the World. Jack
Nicholson as Eugene O'Neill. Jerzy Kosinski as Grigori Zinoviev, one of the
original Bolsheviks.  Maureen Stapleton as Emma Goldman. Diane Keaton as
Louise Bryant, feminist, Marxist, and anarchist.

And a long list of "witnesses," who appear briefly as talking heads, adding
anecdotal detail: Roger Baldwin, Henry Miller, Rebecca West, Will Durant,
just to name a few of them, all appearing as themselves.

I don't yet know how the Russian Revolution figures in AtD, but I've never
seen another movie that conveys the feel of the politics and the players as
this one does.  Beatty dared to create long scenes of Communist delegates
arguing together in smoke-filled rooms over such things as whether English
could be made an official language for the Party Congress -- and he got away
with it.  The scenes are exciting, the whole thing is full of life and
movement and passion.  I say it's a must-see.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20061230/a1780763/attachment.html>