Reds (25th Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray]

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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Joseph Buloff, Phil Brown, R.G. Armstrong, Ramon Bieri, Roger Baldwin
Brand: Paramount
Cinematographer: Vittorio Storaro
Composer: Dave Grusin
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 195 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-06-03
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Paramount

Movie Reviews of Reds (25th Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray]

Movie Review: Great period docudrama Amer Communist party, 1917 Russian Revolution
Summary: 5 Stars

This film is a docu-drama about the 1917 Russian Revolution that transferred political power from the Tsars (royal Romanov family) to a socialist / communist gov't under Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Also chronicled the start of the Socialist labor and Communist parties in America.

Much of the film is about the American Socialist labor movement of the early teens in NYC as a rebellion against the Industrial Revolution during the late 19th century. The other third of the film shows John Reed in the Russia during the early Communist party formation, trying to get legitimacy from the RU party for the Amer party. While there he wears himself down physically. Then his left-behind wife, Bryant, crosses Finland to St Petersburg too, but too late where Reed dies of typhus ("Jail Fever," a sanitation disease caused by bacteria which attack the brain, spread by body lice, which was common in Russia. (only curable with the antibiotics tetracycline, occurs naturally in beer fermentation (Conover, Pfizer 1950 patent) and prevented with insecticide DDT (Muller, 48 Nobel) discovered in 1939).

As an adjunct film of history on the Industrial Revolution, watch the first half of PBS's TV epic by Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel (05)." It shows how the agricultural and industrial revolutions profoundly affected world politics, including conquest, colonialism, and socialistic communities. Driving former agrarian peoples (serf sharecropper, slavery, feudalism) from the farm to cities and its centers for education was essential to create the artisan worker (middle-class). This also created the economically powerful capitalist-class. The socialistic counter-attack was German Karl Marx and Frederich Engels thesis "Das Kapital (1867)" which addressed the exploitation and alienation of the laboring class.

The industrial revolution started in the UK in the late 18th and 19th centuries starting with textile and steel making, canals and rail, and steam power. The Russian political revolution started in Petrograd (St Petersburg) then the largest city and capital of Russia at the time at the eastern-most edge of the Baltic Sea, next to Finland and closest port to W Europe's technology.

It became the industrial center of Russia, with canals cut in the former swamp and in 1718 to the headwaters of Volga River system which is 80 miles from Moscow, iron ore deposits south of Moscow near the Ukraine boarder, coal near Moscow, steam engine technology starting in 1837, Russian Academy of Sciences, Petrograd State U, Technology and Mining Institutes, Medical-Surgical and Naval Academies and migration of the serfs emancipated by Alexander II starting in 1861. The 1916 Petrograd population was 2.4 million housed in large community housing building projects.

Much of Beatty's Russia was filmed in Finland with expensive recreation of Russian sets, as he botched getting permission from the former USSR gov't in the late 70s, as they were in the midst of Soviet War in Afghanistan (79-89) with the US, UK, and PRChina supporting the Muslim Mujahideen rebels in a guerrilla war. This was a half-decade before Perestroika economic restructuring was starting in 1986 by Gorbachev, as centralized-management model of Soviet industry and agriculture was failing due, in part, with the debilitating Afghan war.

He initially went to visit Moscow's centralized film industry, MOSFilm, but started off on the wrong foot, calling the 1917 Oktoberist Revolution a mere "Bolshevik takeover." Did this backlash cause the film not adequately described in the "Reds" was the revolutionary proletariat (labor class), Vladimir Lenin, and the formation of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP)? The RSDLP later formed the Russian Communist Party. Vladimir Lenin (as Roger Sloman) appearance in "Reds" was a mere look-alike in the background, even though he was elected Chmn of the Soviet Congress at 47 years old on 8 Nov 1917.

Instead Beatty's dialog emphasized Reed's conflict with Grigory Zinoviev (as Jerzy Kosinski) who was one of Lenin's closest aides. Before the Oktoberist 1917 revolution, he wrote a position paper against an armed revolution against the weakened, inbred Tsarist monarchy. This caused Zinoviev's temporary expulsion from the Soviet Central Committee and eventual imprisonment for treason.

Beatty's film did not have an epilogue where Stalin's rise to power after Lenin's (1870-1924) (Kazan U, LLB U StPetersburg, taught Geneva U) assassination attempt (1918), refusing hospitalization and resulting a long debilitating 6-year illness. Stalin emphasized industrial and agricultural development away from the vulnerable Baltic after WW I towards the interior Moscow, Volga River and Ural Mts dividing Europe and Soviet Asia.

Good thing that Beatty had essentially a blank check from Paramount / Gulf+Western coffers as filming took about a year and burned up over a million feet of film, that was specially processed in Rome, Italy, in order to get the special dark filming effects, pioneered by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, who won 3 Oscars, including "Apocalypse Now (79)" (Coppola, dir, 2 Oscars) and "The Last Emperor (87)" (Bertolucci, dir, 9 Oscars).

ENR is a proprietary Technicolor process (originally developed for Vittorio Storaro by Technicolor-Rome by three employees with initials E, N & R). It is one of the many bleach retention processes: after the bleach bath in the pos process, the film is passed through a black and white developer which reconverts the bleached silver ions to silver, which is not removed in the fixer. The result is a very contrasty and desaturated image, with particularly rich blacks but subdued colors.

Overall, a great docudrama movie, well researched and well filmed. But too long, 3 1/4 hrs. In the movie marketplace it did poorly only grossing at the box office of $40M, with a production budget $32M. Paramount lost money on American Communist party history.

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Summary of Reds (25th Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray]

Reds is the story of the love affair of John Reed and Louise Bryant in a war-torn world and how the Russian Revolution shook their lives.

Warren Beatty's lengthy 1981 drama about American Communist John Reed and his relationships with both the Russian Revolution and a writer named Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton) is a compelling piece of little-known history told in a uniquely personal way. Beatty plays Reed as he did the title gangster in Bugsy and Senator in Bulworth, as a visionary likely to die before anyone fully recognizes the progressiveness of the vision, including those who are supposed to be on the same page. Jack Nicholson has an interesting part as fellow intellectual Eugene O'Neill, and the late author Jerzy Kosinski--himself a refugee from then-Soviet-controlled Poland--makes a strong impression as Reed's problematic Russian liaison. --Tom Keogh

In some ways, Warren Beatty's 195-minute film about the radical movement at the beginning of the 20th century is the last Hollywood studio epic. A peerless reporter, John Reed, mixes with the intellectuals of the time who see socialism as the answer to end what would become the First World War. As with epics, we go on a journey--from Portland to New York to Europe and finally Russia--just in time to witness the revolution that would make Reed famous upon publishing "Ten Days That Shook the World." But Reed had more ambition, and Beatty's ambition is splendidly captured on the screen, matched by a tremendous cast and stunning visuals (shot by Oscar-winner Vittorio Storaro). Reds doesn't have the action or vistas as a David Lean epic, but travels on the road less taken--here, seeing the birth of communism. Beatty and Trevor Griffiths lace their talky script of ideas with plenty of humor and fashion a poignant love story. Reed's infatuation with the rebel without a cause, Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton), turns into a love triangle with playwright Eugene O'Neill (Jack Nicholson at his most sublime). As Brooks becomes more complex and stalwart, the love story becomes something more. Keaton is perfect in following the arc of Brooks, just another spot-on casting decision by Beatty. Also impressive is Oscar winner Maureen Stapleton as feisty activist Emma Goldman and author Jerzy Kolinsky (Being There) as a Russian diplomat. The boldest stroke is hearing from real "witnesses" talking about the times. They are funny, poetic, deft, provide musical accompaniment and, most importantly, expertly set up scenes. The uninitiated will learn about this time in remarkable fashion; the cineaste can marvel in the ground Beatty covers, never better then a montage ending first half as Reed and Brooks are literally swept up in the revolution.

Beatty states at the top of the DVD extras he's not a big fan of talking about a movie (and did no publicity for the film upon its release in 1981). So there is no commentary track, just an expertly produced 90-minute retrospective with interviews from most of the major players, minus Keaton. We find out why Beatty's best performances are the ones he doesn't direct, while Nicholson provides the reason why Beatty had to star. Beatty talks about the process to interview the witnesses, and when we see bits of unused footage, it whets the appetite for more. Certainly, an hour of witness outtakes would have been something special, and would allow Beatty not to speak about his masterpiece. --Doug Thomas

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Reds (25th Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray]

Reds (25th Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray]

DVD Cover Information

Movie Reviews of Reds (25th Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray]

Movie Review: Great period docudrama Amer Communist party, 1917 Russian RevolutionSummary: 5 Stars

Summary of Reds (25th Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray]

Drama DVD Video

Movie Review: Great period docudrama Amer Communist party, 1917 Russian Revolution
Summary: 5 Stars