REDS
Warren Beatty co-produced, directed, co-wrote and starred in Reds, an ambitious 200-minute biography of American communist John Reed. It features a romance based mostly upon petty quarrels, a revolution consisting mostly of speechmaking, and political intrigue filled mostly with more petty bickering. Adventurer/journalist Reed meets attractive artist/activist Louise Bryant just prior to the advent of World War I. Soon, she leaves her conservative husband for Reed. She also takes up with bitter playwright Eugene ONeill. Disillusioned with Wilsons declaration of war against the Germans, the already radical Reed becomes a communist.
Warren Beatty deserves respect for making such a financially risky and densely political epic. By no means are the Russian communists glorified. Lenin, for example, is depicted as a cold-blooded intellectual, while Maureen Stapletons character is used to demonstrate her disillusionment with the Bolsheviks repressive dictatorship.
(Brian Koller)
- Maureen Stapleton - Emma Goldman
- Warren Beatty - John Reed
- Diane Keaton - Louise Bryant
- Edward Herrmann - Max Eastman
- Jerzy Kosinski - Grigory Zinoviev
- Jack Nicholson - Eugene ONeill
- Paul Sorvino - Louis Fraina
- Warren Beatty
- Trevor Griffiths
- Vittorio Storaro
- Richard P. Cirincione
- Dede Allen
- Craig McKay
- Dave Grusin
- Stephen Sondheim
- Richard Sylbert
- Shirley Russell
Paramount Classics 5555 Melrose Avenue Hollywood, CA 90038 T 323 956 2000 F 323 862 1212
