Quick viewing(Text Mode)

April 7, 2009 (XVIII:12) Warren Beatty, REDS (1981, 194 Min)

April 7, 2009 (XVIII:12) Warren Beatty, REDS (1981, 194 Min)

April 7, 2009 (XVIII:12) , REDS (1981, 194 min)

Directed by...Warren Beatty Produced by...Warren Beatty Screenplay….Warren Beatty, Trevor Griffiths and (uncredited): Elaine May, , Peter S. Feibleman Music by...Stephen Sondheim and Dave Grusin Cinematography...Vittorio Storaro Editing by...Dede Allen and Craig McKay

Warren Beatty...John "Jack" Silas Reed ...Louise Bryant ... Jerzy Kosinski... ...Eugene O'Neill Paul Sorvino...Louis Fraina ... Nicolas Coster...Paul Trullinger M. Emmet Walsh...Speaker - Liberal Club George Plimpton...Horace Whigham Gene Hackman...Pete Van Wherry Design, Best Film Editing, Best Picture, Best Sound, Best Writing,

Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen THE WITNESSES: Jacob Bailin, Roger Nash Baldwin (founder of the ACLU), John Ballato, Harry Carlisle, Kenneth Chamberlain, Warren Beatty (March 30, 1937, Richmond, Virginia) has 29 , Tess Davis, Will Durant (Philosopher, historian, acting, 6 writing and 4 directing credits. He received the Irving G. and writer), Hamilton Fish III (congressman), Adele Gutman Thalberg Memorial Award in 2000 and Oscar nominations for Nathan, Blanche Hays Fagen, Dorothy Frooks (author, publisher, best screenplay ( 1998), best actor (Bugsy 1991), best military figure and actress), (illustrator and satirist), picture Bugsy 1991), best director (Reds 1981, won), best actor in Emmanuel Herbert, George Jessel (actor, singer, songwriter, and a leading role (Reds (1981), best picture (Reds 1981), best movie producer), Isaac Don Levine, Arthur Mayer, screenplay (Reds 1981), best actor (Heaven Can Wait 1978), best (writer), (conservationist, activist, educator director (Heaven Can Wait 1978), best picture (Heaven Can Wait and writer), Adela Rogers St. Johns (journalist, novelist, and 1978), best screenplay based on another medium (Heaven Can screenwriter), Dora Russell (feminist and progressive campaigner), Wait 1978), best screenplay Shampoo 1975), best actor in a leading George Seldes (investigative journalist and media critic), Art role (Bonnie and Clyde 1967) and best picture Bonnie and Clyde Shields, Jessica Smith (editor and activist), Arne Swabeck (1967). Some of the other films in which he appeared are Town & (American Communist leader), Bernadine Szold-Fritz Country (2001), Dick Tracy (1990), Ishtar (1987), Shampoo Galina von Meck, Heaton Vorse, Will Weinstone, Rebecca West (1975), The Parallax View (1974), $ (1971), McCabe & Mrs. (Feminist and writer), Lucita Williams Miller (1971), Promise Her Anything (1965), Mickey One (1965),

Lilith (1964), All Fall Down (1962), The Roman Spring of Mrs. Oscar wins: Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Maureen Stapleton Stone (1961), and Splendor in the Grass (1961). playing Emma Goldman), Best Cinematography (Vittorio Storaro)

Best Director (Warren Beatty) Diane Keaton (January 5, 1946, , ) has 55 Oscar nominations: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Warren acting and 9 directing credits. She has four best actress Beatty), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Jack Nicholson), Best nominations, one of which she won: Something's Gotta Give Actress in a Leading Role (Diane Keaton), Best Art Direction-Set (2003), Marvin's Room (1996), Reds (1981), and Annie Hall (1977, Decoration (Richard Sylbert, Michael Seirton), Best Costume Warren Beatty, REDS—2 won). Some of her other films are Mad Money (2008), Smother Maureen Stapleton (June 21, 1925, Troy, —March 13, (2008), Mama's Boy (2007), Because I Said So (2007), The Family 2006, Lenox, Massachusetts; chronic pulmonary disease) has 73 Stone (2005), Terminal Impact (2005), Town & Country (2001), acting credits. She won a best supporting actress Oscar for Reds Hanging Up (2000), Marvin's Room (1996), The First Wives Club (1981) and was nominated for Interiors (1978), Airport (1970) and (1996), Murder Mystery (1993), Father of the Bride Lonelyhearts (1958). Some of her other films were Living and (1991), The Godfather: Part III (1990), The Lemon Sisters (1990), Dining (2003), Wilbur Falls (1998), The Last Good Time (1994), Radio Days (1987), Crimes of the Heart (1986), Mrs. Soffel Cocoon: The Return (1988), Doin’ Time on Planet Earth (1988), (1984), The Little Drummer Girl (1984), Shoot the Moon (1982), Heartburn (1986), Cocoon (1985), Johnny Dangerously (1984), Manhattan (1979), Interiors (1978), Looking for Mr. Goodbar The Fan (1981), The Runner Stumbles (1979), Plaza Suite (1971), (1977), Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976), I Will, I Will... and Bye Bye Birdie (1963). for Now (1976), Love and Death (1975), The Godfather: Part II (1974), Sleeper (1973), Play It Again, Sam (1972), The Godfather Gene Hackman (January 30, 1930, San Bernardino, California) (1972), and Lovers and Other Strangers (1970). has 99 acting credits. In 2002, he won the AFI Film Aware for Featured Actor of the Year for The Royal Tenenbaums (2001). He Edward Herrmann (July 21, 1943, District of Columbia, USA) won a best supporting actor Oscar for Unforgiven (1992), was has 104 acting credits, some of which are “30 Rock” (2008), nominated for best actor Oscar for Mississippi Burning (1988), “Grey’s Anatomy” (2007), “Gilmore Girls” (2000-2007), I Think I won a best actor Oscar for The French Connection (1971), and was Love My Wife (2007), Factory Girl (2006), Intolerable Cruelty nominated for best supporting actor Oscars for I Never Sang for (2003), “Oz” (2000-2003), The Emperor's Club (2002), “The My Father (1970) and Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Some of his other Practice” (1997-2001), “Homicide: Life on the Street” (1996), films are Welcome to Mooseport (2004), Runaway Jury (2003), Nixon (1995), Born Yesterday (1993), Hero (1992), Overboard Behind Enemy Lines (2001), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Under (1987), The Lost Boys (1987), Compromising Positions (1985), Suspicion (2000), Enemy of the State (1998), Absolute Power The Man with One Red Shoe (1985), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1997), The Chamber (1996), Extreme Measures (1996), Get (1985), Mrs. Soffel (1984), Annie (1982), Reds (1981), Harry's Shorty (1995), Crimson Tide (1995), The Quick and the Dead War (1981), Brass Target (1978), The Betsy (1978), A Love Affair: (1995), Wyatt Earp (1994), Geronimo: An American Legend The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story (1978), Eleanor and Franklin: (1993), The Firm (1993), Class Action (1991), Postcards from the The White House Years (1977), Eleanor and Franklin (1976), The Edge (1990), Another Woman (1988), Bat*21 (1988), No Way Out Great Waldo Pepper (1975), The Great Gatsby (1974), The Day of (1987), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), Hoosiers the Dolphin (1973), and The Paper Chase (1973). (1986), Uncommon Valor (1983), Under Fire (1983), Reds (1981), Superman II (1980), Superman (1978), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Jack Nicholson (April 22, 1937, Neptune, New Jersey) has 71 Bite the Bullet (1975), Night Moves (1975), French Connection II acting credits. He was nominated for a best actor Oscar for About (1975), Young Frankenstein (1974), The Conversation (1974), Schmidt (2002), won a best actor Oscar for As Good as It Gets Scarecrow (1973), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Prime Cut (1997), was nominated for best supporting actor in A Few Good (1972), Cisco Pike (1972), The Hunting Party (1971), I Never Men (1992), best actor in Ironweed (1987) and Prizzi's Honor Sang for My Father (1970), Marooned (1969), Downhill Racer (1985), won best supporting actor for Terms of Endearment (1969), and The Gypsy Moths (1969). (1983), nominated best supporting actor for Reds (1981), won best actor for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), nominated for Vittorio Storaro (June 24, 1940, Rome, Italy) has 57 best actor in Chinatown (1974), The Last Detail (1973) and Five cinematography credits. He won best cinematographer Oscars for Easy Pieces (1970), and best supporting actor for Easy Rider The Last Emperor (1987), Reds (1981) and Apocalypse Now (1969). Some of his other memorable roles were in The Bucket List (1979). Some of his other films were Io, Don Giovanni (2009), (2007), The Departed (2006), Batman (1989), Broadcast News L’Imbroglio nel lenzuolo (2008), Dominion: Prequel to the (1987), The Witches of Eastwick (1987), Heartburn (1986), Terms Exorcist (2005), Exorcist: The Beginning (2004), Zapata - El of Endearment (1983), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), sueño del héroe (2004), Picking Up the Pieces (2000), Goya en The Shining (1980), Goin' South (1978), Professione: reporter/The Burdeos/Goya in Bordeaux (1999), Tango (1998), Bulworth Passenger (1975), The King of Marvin Gardens (1972), Carnal (1998), Taxi (1996), Little Buddha (1993), Tosca (1992), The Knowledge (1971), Hells Angels on Wheels (1967), The Shooting Sheltering Sky (1990), Dick Tracy (1990), Tucker: The Man and (1967), Ride in the Whirlwind (1965), The Raven (1963), The His Dream (1988), Ishtar (1987), One from the Heart (1982), La Terror (1963), and as the masochist dental patient in the original Luna (1979), Agatha (1979), Novecento/1900 (1976), Giordano The Little Shop of Horrors (1960). Bruno (1973), Malizia/Malicious (1973), Ultimo tango a Parigi/Last Tango in Paris (1972), Il Conformista/The Conformist Paul Sorvino (April 13, 1939, , New York) has 115 (1970), L’Urlo/The Scream (1966), I Normanni/Conquest of the acting credits, some of which are Carnera: The Walking Mountain Normans (1962) (2008), Mr. Fix It (2006), “That's Life” (2000-2005), The Cooler (2003), Longshot (2000), Bulworth (1998), Most Wanted (1997), Dede Allen (December 3, 1925, Cleveland, Ohio) has 31 editing Nixon (1995), “Law & Order” (1991-1992), (1990), credits. She received three best editing Oscar nominations: Wonder Dick Tracy (1990), That Championship Season (1982), I, the Jury Boys (2000), Reds (1981), and Dog Day Afternoon (1975). Some (1982), Reds (1981), Cruising (1980), The Brink's Job (1978), of the other films she edited were Fireflies in the Garden (2008), Slow Dancing in the Big City (1978), I Will, I Will... for Now Have Dreams, Will Travel (2007), John Q (2002), The Addams (1976), The Day of the Dolphin (1973), A Touch of Class (1973), Family (1991), Henry & June (1990), The Milagro Beanfield War and The Panic in Needle Park (1971). (1988), The Breakfast Club (1985), The Wiz (1978), Slap Shot (1977), The Missouri Breaks (1976), Night Moves (1975), Serpico Warren Beatty—REDS—3 (1973), Slaughterhouse-Five (1972), Little Big Man (1970), Alice's from the other side, of course. The love story stars Warren Beatty Restaurant (1969), Rachel, Rachel (1968), Bonnie and Clyde and Diane Keaton, who might seem just a tad unlikely as casting (1967), America, America (1963), The Hustler (1961), and Odds choices, but who are immediately engaging and then grow into Against Tomorrow (1959). solid, plausible people on the screen. Keaton is a particular surprise. I had somehow gotten into the habit of expecting her to Craig McKay has 40 editing credits, some of which are Life in be a touchy New Yorker, sweet, scared, and intellectual. Here, as a Flight (2008), Awake (2007), Carriers (2007), Surviving Christmas Portland dentist’s wife who runs away with and (2004), The Manchurian Candidate (2004), Blue Moon (2000), eventually follows him halfway around the world, through Cop Land (1997), Murder Incorporated (1995), blizzards and prisons and across ice steppes, she is just what she (1993), Mad Dog and Glory (1993), The Silence of the Lambs needs to be: plucky, healthy, exasperated, loyal, and funny. (1991), She-Devil (1989), Married to the Mob (1988), Something Beatty, as John Reed, is also surprising. I expected him to play Wild (1986), Swing Shift (1984), Reds (1981), Melvin and Howard Reed as a serious, noble, heroic man for all seasons, and so he (1980), “Holocaust” (1978), Thieves (1977), Free to Be... You & does, sometimes. But there is in Warren Beatty’s screen persona a Me (1974). He was nominated for two best editing Oscars—The persistent irony, a way of kidding his own seriousness, that takes Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Reds (1981). the edge off a potentially pretentious character and makes him into one of God’s fools. Beatty plays Reed but does not beatify him: he permits the silliness and boyishness to co-exist with the self- conscious historical mission. The action in the movie takes Reed to and back again to Portland, and off again with Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton), and then there is a lengthy pause in and time enough for Louise to have a sad little love affair with the morosely alcoholic playwright Eugene O’Neill (Jack Nicholson). Then there are other missions to , and heated political debates in New York basements, and at one point I’m afraid I entirely lost track of exactly why Reed was running behind a horsecart in the middle of some forgotten battle in an obscure backwater of the Russian empire. The fact is, Reed’s motivation from moment to moment is not the point of the picture. The point is that a revolution is ’s Movie Home Companion 1990 Edition. Roger happening, human societies are being swept aside, a new class is in Ebert. Andrews and McMeel, Kansas City/NY, 1989. control—or so it seems—and for an insatiably curious young man, that is exhilarating and it is enough. “Reds”. The original John Reed was a dashing young man from The heart of the film is in the relationship between Reed and Portland who knew a good story when he found one, and, when he Bryant. There is an interesting attempt to consider her problems as found himself in the midst of the Bolshevik revolution, wrote a well as his. she leaves Portland because she is sick unto death of book called Ten Days that Shook the World and made himself a small talk. She wants to get involved in politics, in art, in what’s famous journalist. He never quite got it right again after that. He happening: She is so inexorably drawn to Greenwich Village that if became embroiled in the -wing politics of the 1920s, Reed had not taken her there, she might have gone on her own. If participated in fights between factions of the Socialist Party and she was a radical in Portland, however, she is an Oregonian in the the new American , and finally returned to Village, and she cannot compete conversationally with such Moscow on a series of noble fool’s errands that led up, one way or experienced fast-talkers as the anarchist Emma Goldman (Maureen another, to his death from tuberculosis [sic. spotted ] and Stapleton). In fact, no one seems to listen to her or pay her much kidney failure in a Russian hospital. He is the only American heed, except for sad Eugene O’Neill, who is brave enough to love buried within the Kremlin walls. her but not smart enough to keep it to himself. The ways in which That is Reeds’ story in a nutshell. But if you look more deeply she edges toward O’Neill, and then loyally returns to Reed, create you find a man who was more than a political creature. He was an emotional density around her character that makes it really also a man who wanted to be where the action was, a radical young mean something when she and Reed embrace at last in a wonderful intellectual who was in the middle of everything in the years after tear-jerking scene in the Russian train station. , when Greenwich Village was in a creative ferment The whole movie finally comes down to the fact that the and American society seemed, for a brief moment, to be characters matter to us. Beatty may be fascinated by the ins and overturning itself. It is that personal , human John Reed that outs of American left-wing politics sixty years ago, but he is not so Warren Beatty’s Reds takes as its subject, although there is a lot, idealistic as to believe an American mass audience can be inspired and maybe too much, of the political John Reed as well. The movie to care as deeply. So he gives us people. And they are seen here never succeeds in convincing us that the feuds between the with such warmth and affection that we sense new dimensions not American socialist parties were much more than personality only in Beatty and Keaton, but especially in Nicholson. In Reds, conflicts and ego-bruisings, so audiences can hardly be expected to understating his desire, apologizing for his passion, hanging care which faction is “the” American party of the left. around Louise, handing her a poem, throwing her out of his life, he What audiences can, and possibly will, care about, however, is is quieter but much more passionate than in the overwrought The a traditional Hollywood romantic epic, a love story written on the Postman Always Rings Twice. canvas of history, as they used to say in the ads. And Reds As for Beatty, Reds is his bravura turn. He got the idea, provides that with glorious romanticism, surprising intelligence, nurtured it for a decade, found the financing, wrote most of the and a consistent wit. It is the thinking man’s Dr. Zhivago, told script, produced, and directed and starred and still found enough Warren Beatty, REDS—4 artistic to make his Reed into a flawed, fascinating enigma instead of a boring archetypal hero. I liked this movie, I from 1001 Movies You Must See before You Die. Steven Jay felt a real fondness for it. It was quite a subject to spring on the Schneider Gen, Editor. Barron’s, London, 2005. Entry by R. capitalist Hollywood movie system, and maybe only Beatty could Barton Palmer. have raised $35 million to make a movie about a man who hated millionaires. I noticed, here at the end of the credits, a wonderful Reds, despite its concession to entertainment cinema, is arguably line that reads: Copyright © MCMLXXXI Barclays Mercantile Hollywood’s most effective presentation of politics and ideological Industrial Finance Limited. John Reed would have loved that. conflict in 20th-century America.

John Reed (1887-1920) New York. In 1913 Reed published his first book, SANGAR, a from books and collection of poems. He was arrested for trying to speak for writers: striking silk worker in Paterson, New Jersey. Reed spent four days American journalist and in a jail. He then wrote 'The Pageant of the Paterson Strike', which poet-adventurer, whose was enacted at Madison Square Garden, as a benefit to aid the colorful life as a workers. In the following years Reed was arrested several times for revolutionary writer organizing strikes. ended in Russia but In the early 1910s Reed went to Mexico to cover the made him the hero of a Mexican revolution for the Metropolitan Magazine and the New generation of radical York World. He spent four months with and his intellectuals. Reed was a troops and described the revolutionary fighting in INSURGENT close friend of V.I. MEXICO (1914). Lenin and an eyewitness During World War I Reed worked as a war correspondent to the 1917 October for the Metropolitan Magazine, where some of his stories were revolution. He recorded rejected on the basis of leftist sympathies. Reed's reports on the this historical event in fighting in Germany, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and Russia were his best-known book, published in THE WAR IN EASTERN EUROPE (1916). All what TEN DAYS THAT he saw, depressed him  there was no revolutionary enthusiasm. SHOOK THE WORLD Reed was forced to return to the United States for an operation that (1920). Reed is buried removed one of his kidneys. In 1916 Reed supported Woodrow with other Bolshevik heroes beside the Kremlin wall. Wilson and warned about dark forces that want to plunge the "It was just 8.40 when a thundering wave of cheers country into war. His fears came true: Wilson declared war on announced the entrance of the presidium, with Lenin-great Germany. In early 1917 Reed married the journalist Louise Bryant; Lenin-among them. A short, stocky figure, with a big head set they had met a few years earlier at a dinner party. At that time down in his shoulders, bald and bulging. Little eyes, a snubbish Louise was married to Paul Trullinger, a successful dentist and an nose, wide, generous mouth, and heavy chin; clean-shaven amateur painter. now, but already beginning to bristle with the well-known Reed was one of the best paid reporters in the U.S. but his beard of his past and future. Dressed in shabby clothes, his idea to travel to Russia was received lukewarmly. With the help of trousers much too long for him. Unimpressive, to be the idol of Max Eastman and some other friends he managed to get enough a mob, loved and revered as perhaps few leaders in history money. In the autumn he started with Bryant his journey to St. have been. A strange popular leader-a leader purely by virtue Petersburg to witness and report on the revolution for . of intellect; colourless, humourless, uncompromising and Reed was not an impartial observer. He identified himself with detached, without picturesque idiosyncrasies-but with the and his pro-Communist and anti-war articles were power of explaining profound ideas in simple terms, of partly responsible for that journal's indictment and trials on the analysing a concrete situation. And combined with shrewdness, grounds of sedition. the greatest intellectual audacity." (from Ten Days That Shook In St. Petersburg Reed began one of his most ambitious the World) poems, 'America', 1918, which was inspired by Walt Whitman. In John Silas Reed was born in Portland Oregon into a it personal subject matters blended with his vision of America, "my wealthy family. His father, Charles Jerome Reed, was a country, my America." During this period Reed became active in businessman, socially active and admired Theodore Roosevelt. At politics. He started to write in 1919 for The New Communist edited college Reed joined the swimming team and the dramatics club. the Voice of Labour. In the summer he participated in Chicago in He served on the editorial board of the Harvard Monthly and the meeting of the Socialist Party of America. It ended in chaos, Lampoon, and was class orator and poet. After graduating from and as a result, two Communist parties were born. Reed himself Harvard in 1910, Reed travelled in England and Spain. Upon his became the leader of Communist Labor Party. To secure the status return to America Reed started his career as a journalist in the of the party, Read realized that it should recognized as soon as leftist magazines. He was one of the leading socialists of the New possible by Comintern (), also known as Review and The Masses. Van Wyck Brooks called him in The the Third International. Reed was sent to Russia. Confident Years "the wonder boy of Greenwich Village." Later In autumn he crossed Gulf of Finland on a ship, hiding in Reed appeared in Max Eastman's novel Venture (1927) as Jo a sort of iron shaft, arrived at Turku, and continued to Helsinki. Hancock, a young man in love with life. Through the contacts of the writer and businesswoman Hella During this time Reed made close friends with Mabel Wuolijoki he met Lydia Stahl, who was later arrested in France as Dodge, the rich hostess, who ran her salon at 23 Fifth Avenue. She a Russian spy. At this time she was close to Otto Ville Kuusinen, a helped organize the 1913 Armory Show, which brought Cubism to Finnish Communist working underground. Stahl and Reed Warren Beatty—REDS—5 continued correspondence until his death. they moved to New York where they associated with a group of Reed had visited Finland briefly in 1917 and 1918, but radical journalists centered around the magazine The Masses. when he returned in 1919, the Finnish authorities had started to Bryant wrote numerous political articles, poetry and was a war contol more tightly the border and followed movements of correspondent in World War I. Her book Six Months in Russia emigrants and revolutionaries. In November Reed was in Russia. made her an authority on the Russian government, its foreign He met several times Lenin at the Kremlin, and gave him Ten Days policy, and . That Shook The World. He planned to get out of Russia through Latvia, but found it impossible to avoid there the battle lines The Last Days With John Reed: A Letter from Louise Bryant between the Whites and the Reds. So he crossed again the Finnish to Max Eastman, The Liberator, February 1921: border and tried to use "the traditional Bolshevik coalbox route", Moscow, Nov. 14, 1920 but this time the adventures ended in Turku, on a ship, where he Dear Max: was found hiding in the well-known coalbox. After being arrested I knew you would want details and a story for the he was taken to a shower. With him Reed carried 102 diamonds, a Liberator — but I did not have either the strength or the courage. large sum of money, and letters written by Trotsky and Lenin. In As it is — I will be able to write only a very incoherent letter and Finland he was found guilty of smuggling, but also the State you may take from it what you wish. Jack’s death and my Department in the United States wanted him  in Chicago he was strenuous underground trip to Russia and the weeks of terror in the suspected of "criminal anarchy". While in prison Reed wrote more typhus hospital have quite broken me. At the funeral I suffered a poetry and outlined a pair of novels, which he never completed. He very sever heart attack which by the merest scratch I survived. was released in June. Reed then traveled to Estonia and from there Specialists have agreed that I have strained my heart because of the to St. Petersburg. long days and nights I watched beside Jack’s bed and that it is "This is just a beginning... It's not happening the way enlarged and may not get ever well again. They do not agree, we thought it would. It's not happening the way we wanted to, however, on the time it will take for another attack. I write to you but it's happening. If you walk out of it now, what's your whole all these stupid things because I have to face them myself and life then?" (Warren Beatty in Reds) because it must be part of the letter. The American and German In Russia he gave speeches and was joined by Bryant, doctors give me a year or even two, the Russians only month. I whom he had sent letters from the prison. The three months in have to take stimulants and I am not in a bit of pain. I think I have Turku had exhausted him mentally and physically although better recuperative powers than they believe — but, anyway, it is a physical force was not used in his interrogations. In Moscow Reed small matter. I once promised Jack that I would put all his works in was elected in the Executive Committee of the Comintern. At the order in case of his death. I will come home if I get stronger and do peak of his career, Reed was stricken with typhus after his return so. from . He died in Moscow on October 19, 1920. Reed's All that I write now seems part of a dream. I am in no popularity as a radical leader led to the creation of pain at all and I find it impossible to believe that Jack is dead or across the United States. His life was subject for the successful that he will not come in this very room any moment. 1981 motion picture Reds. Jack was ill twenty days. Only two nights, when he was Ten Days That Shook the World focused on the crucial calmer, did I even lie down. Spotted typhus is beyond description, moment of history, when Lenin pressed the Bolsheviks to seize the patient wastes to nothing under your eyes. power. Workers, soldiers, peasants, and sailors stormed the Winter But I must go back to tell you how I found jack after my Palace. Trotsky announced the overthrow of the provisional illegal journey across the world. I had to skirt Finland, sail twelve government, and counterrevolutionary forces threatened Moscow. days in the Arctic ocean, hide in a fisherman’s shack four days to Reed recounts conversations and arguments, details political avoid the police with a Finnish officer and a German, both under machinations, and speculates on personal motives. Although sentence of death in their own countries. When I did reach Soviet Reed's enthusiasm for the revolution hinders his objectivity, the territory I was at the opposite end of Russia from Jack. When I book gives an unique, firsthand account of the turning point in reached Moscow he was in Baku at the Oriental Congress. Civil Russian history. war raged in the Ukraine. A military wire reached him and he came back in an armored train. On the morning of September 15th Louise Bryant (1885-1936) he ran shouting into my room. A month later he was dead. from Encyclopedia of We had only one week together before he went to bed, : and we were terribly happy to find each other. I found him older Louis Bryant was born and and sadder and grown strangely gentle and aesthetic. His clothes raised in Reno, . She were just rags. He was so impressed with the suffering around him moved to Portland when she that he would take nothing for himself. I felt shocked and almost was twenty to attend the unable to reach the peak of fervor he had attained. . There The effects of the terrible experience in the Finnish gaol she became active in the were all too apparent. He told me of his cell, dark and cold and women's suffrage movement wet. Almost three months of solitary confinement and only raw and began her career as a fish to eat. Sometimes he was delirious and imagined me dead. writer. She was married to a Sometimes he expected to die himself, so he wrote on books and successful dentist when she met everywhere a little verse: John Reed, who would become her partner and professional Thinking and dreaming colleague until his early death Day and night and day in 1920. Shortly after meeting Yet cannot think one bitter thought away — Warren Beatty, REDS—6 That we have lost each other with a brave face. But I was not brave at all and fell on the ground You and I... and could not speak or cry. I do not remember the speeches. I remember more the But walking in the park, under the white birch trees and broken notes of the speakers’ voices. I was aware that after a long talking through brief, happy nights, death and separation seemed time they ceased and the banners began to dip back and forth in very far away. salute. I heard the first shovel of earth go rolling down and then We visited together Lenin, Trotsky, Kaminev, Enver something snapped in my brain. After an eternity I woke up in my Pasha, Bela Kun, we saw the Ballet and Prince Igor and the new own bed. Emma Goldman was standing there and Berkman, and and old galleries. two doctors and a tall young officer from the red Army. They were He was consumed with a desire to go home. I felt how whispering and I went to sleep again. tired and ill he was — how near a breakdown and tried to persuade But I have been in Red Square since then — since that him to rest. The Russians told me that he often worked twenty day all those people came to bury in all honor our dear Jack Reed. hours a day. Early in his sickness I asked him to promise me that I have been there in the busy afternoon when all Russia hurries by, he would rest before going home since it only meant going to horses and sleighs and bells and peasants carrying bundles, soldiers prison. I felt prison would be too much for him. I remember he singing on their way to the front. Once some of the soldiers came looked at me in a strange way and said, “My dear little Honey, I over to the grave. They took off their hats and spoke reverently. would do anything I could for you, but don’t ask me to be a “what a good fellow he was!” said one. “he came all the way coward.’ I had not meant it so. I felt so hurt that I burst into tears across the world for us.” “he was one of ours” In another moment and said he could go and I would go with him anywhere by the they shouldered their guns and went on again. next train, to any death or any suffering. He smiled so happily I have been there under the stars with a great longing to then. And all the days that followed he held me tightly by the hand. lie down beside the frozen flowers and the metallic wreaths and I could not leave him because he would shout for me. I have a not wake up. How easy it would be! feeling now that I have no right to be alive. I send greeting to all old friends. Of the illness I can scarcely write — there was so much Good luck to all of you. pain. I only want you all to know how he fought for his life. He Louise would have died days before but for the fight he made. The old peasant nurses used to slip out to the Chapel and pray for him and burn a candle for his life. Even they were touched and they seem men die in agony every hour. He was never delirious in the hideous way most typhus patients are. He always knew me and his mind was full of poems and stories and beautiful thoughts. He would say, “You know how it is when you go to Venice. You ask people — Is this Venice? - just for the pleasure of hearing the reply.” He would tell me that the water he drank was full of little songs. And he related, like a child, wonderful experiences we had together and in which we were very brave. Five days before he died his right side was paralyzed. After that he could not speak. And so we watched through days and nights and days hoping against all hope. Even when he died I did not believe it. I must have been there hours afterwards still talking to him and holding his hands. And then there came a time when the body lay in state with all military honor, in the Labor temple, guarded by fourteen soldiers from the red Army. Many times I went there and saw the soldiers standing stiffly, their bayonets gleaming under the lights and the red star of Communism on their military caps. Jack lay in a long silver coffin banked with flowers and streaming banners. Once the soldiers uncovered it for me so I might touch the white forehead with my lips for the last time. On the day of the funeral we gathered in the great hall where he lay. I have very few impressions of that day. It was cold and the sky dark, snow fell as we began to march. I was conscious of how people cried and how the banners floated and how the wailing heart-breaking Revolutionary funeral hymn, played by a John Reed’s preface to Ten Days That Shook the World: military band, went on forever and ever. This book is a slice of intensified history—history as I saw it. It The Russians let me take my grief in my own way, since does not pretend to be anything but a detailed account of the they felt I had thrown all my caution to the winds in going to the November Revolution, when the Bolsheviki, at the head of . On that day I felt very proud and even strong. I wished to workers and soldiers, seized the state power of Russia and placed it walk according to the Russian custom, quite by myself after the in the hands of the Soviets. hearse. And in the red Square I tried to stand facing the speakers Naturally most of it deals with “Red Petrograd,” the capital and heart of the insurrection. But the reader must realize that what Warren Beatty—REDS—7 took place in Petrograd was almost exactly duplicated, with greater They (the workers) were all agreed that our (American) or lesser intensity, at different intervals of time, all over Russia. political institutions were preferable to their own, but they were In this book, the first of several which I am writing, I must not very anxious to exchange one despot for another (i.e., the confine myself to a chronicle of those events which I myself capitalist class)…. observed and experienced, and those supported by reliable The workingmen of Russia did not have themselves shot evidence; preceded by two chapters briefly outlining the down, executed by hundreds in Moscow, Riga and Odessa, background and causes of the November Revolution. I am aware imprisoned by thousands in every Russian jail, and exiled to the that these two chapters make difficult reading, but they are deserts and the arctic regions, in exchange for the doubtful essential to an understanding of what follows. privileges of the workingmen of Goldfields and Cripple Creek…. Many questions will suggest themselves to the mind of the And so developed in Russia, in the midst of a foreign war, reader. What is Bolshevism? What kind of a governmental the Social Revolution on top of the Political Revolution, structure did the Bolsheviki set up? If the Bolsheviki championed culminating in the triumph of Bolshevism. the Constituent Assembly before the November Revolution, why Mr. A. J. Sack, director in this country of the Russian did they disperse it by force of arms afterward? And if the Information Bureau, which opposes the Soviet Government, has opposed the Constituent Assembly until the danger of this to say in his book, “The Birth of the Russian Democracy”: The Bolshevism became apparent, why did they champion it afterward? Bolsheviks organised their own cabinet, with Nicholas Lenine as These and many other questions cannot be answered here. In Premier and —Minister of Foreign Affairs. The another volume, “Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk,” I trace the course of inevitability of their coming into power became evident almost the Revolution up to and including the German peace. There I immediately after the March Revolution. The history of the explain the origin and functions of the Revolutionary Bolsheviki, after the Revolution, is a history of their steady organisations, the evolution of popular sentiment, the dissolution growth…. of the Constituent Assembly, the structure of the Soviet state, and the course and outcome of the Brest-Litovsk negotiations…. Foreigners, and Americans especially, frequently emphasise In considering the rise of the Bolsheviki it is necessary to the “ignorance” of the Russian workers. It is true they lacked the understand that Russian economic life and the Russian army were political experience of the peoples of the West, but they were very not disorganised on November 7th, 1917, but many months before, well trained in voluntary organisation. In 1917 there were more as the logical result of a process which began as far back as 1915. than twelve million members of the Russian consumers’ The corrupt reactionaries in control of the Tsar’s Court deliberately Cooperative societies; and the Soviets themselves are a wonderful undertook to wreck Russia in order to make a separate peace with demonstration of their organising genius. Moreover, there is Germany. The lack of arms on the front, which had caused the probably not a people in the world so well educated in Socialist great retreat of the summer of 1915, the lack of food in the army theory and its practical application. and in the great cities, the break-down of manufactures and William English Walling thus characterises them: transportation in 1916—all these we know now were part of a The Russian working people are for the most part able to read and gigantic campaign of sabotage. This was halted just in time by the write. For many years the country has been in such a disturbed March Revolution. condition that they have had the advantage of leadership not only For the first few months of the new régime, in spite of the of intelligent individuals in their midst, but of a large part of the confusion incident upon a great Revolution, when one hundred and equally revolutionary educated class, who have turned to the sixty millions of the world’s most oppressed peoples suddenly working people with their ideas for the political and social achieved liberty, both the internal situation and the combative regeneration of Russia…. power of the army actually improved. Many writers explain their hostility to the Soviet Government But the “honeymoon” was short. The propertied classes by arguing that the last phase of the was wanted merely a political revolution, which would take the power simply a struggle of the “respectable” elements against the brutal from the Tsar and give it to them. They wanted Russia to be a attacks of Bolshevism. However, it was the propertied classes, constitutional Republic, like France or the United States; or a who, when they realised the growth in power of the popular constitutional Monarchy, like England. On the other hand, the revolutionary organisations, undertook to destroy them and to halt masses of the people wanted real industrial and agrarian the Revolution. To this end the propertied classes finally resorted democracy. to desperate measures. In order to wreck the Kerensky Ministry William English Walling, in his book, “Russia’s Message,” an and the Soviets, transportation was disorganised and internal account of the Revolution of 1905, describes very well the state of troubles provoked; to crush the Factory-Shop Committees, plants mind of the Russian workers, who were later to support were shut down, and fuel and raw materials diverted; to break the Bolshevism almost unanimously: Army Committees at the front, capital punishment was restored They (the working people) saw it was possible that even and military defeat connived at. under a free Government, if it fell into the hands of other social This was all excellent fuel for the Bolshevik fire. The classes, they might still continue to starve…. Bolsheviki retorted by preaching the class war, and by asserting The Russian workman is revolutionary, but he is neither the supremacy of the Soviets. violent, dogmatic, nor unintelligent. He is ready for barricades, but Between these two extremes, with the other factions which he has studied them, and alone of the workers of the world he has whole-heartedly or half-heartedly supported them, were the so- learned about them from actual experience. He is ready and willing called “moderate” Socialists, the Mensheviki and Socialist to fight his oppressor, the capitalist class, to a finish. But he does Revolutionaries, and several smaller parties. These groups were not ignore the existence of other classes. He merely asks that the also attacked by the propertied classes, but their power of other classes take one side or the other in the bitter conflict that resistance was crippled by their theories. draws near…. Warren Beatty, REDS—8 Roughly, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries the Bolshevik insurrection as an “adventure.” Adventure it was, believed that Russia was not economically ripe for a social and one of the most marvellous mankind ever embarked upon, revolution—that only a political revolution was possible. sweeping into history at the head of the toiling masses, and staking According to their interpretation, the Russian masses were not everything on their vast and simple desires. Already the machinery educated enough to take over the power; any attempt to do so had been set up by which the land of the great estates could be would inevitably bring on a reaction, by means of which some distributed among the peasants. The Factory-Shop Committees and ruthless opportunist might restore the old régime. And so it the Trade Unions were there to put into operation workers’ control followed that when the “moderate” Socialists were forced to of industry. In every village, town, city, district and province there assume the power, they were afraid to use it. were Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, They believed that Russia must pass through the stages of prepared to assume the task of local administration. political and economic development known to Western Europe, No matter what one thinks of Bolshevism, it is undeniable that and emerge at last, with the rest of the world, into full-fledged the Russian Revolution is one of the great events of human history, Socialism. Naturally, therefore, they agreed with the propertied and the rise of the Bolsheviki a phenomenon of world-wide classes that Russia must first be a parliamentary state—though importance. Just as historians search the records for the minutest with some improvements on the Western democracies. As a details of the story of the Paris , so they will want to consequence, they insisted upon the collaboration of the propertied know what happened in Petrograd in November, 1917, the spirit classes in the Government. which animated the people, and how the leaders looked, talked and From this it was an easy step to supporting them. The acted. It is with this in view that I have written this book. “moderate” Socialists needed the bourgeoisie. But the bourgeoisie In the struggle my sympathies were not neutral. But in telling did not need the “moderate” Socialists. So it resulted in the the story of those great days I have tried to see events with the eye Socialist Ministers being obliged to give way, little by little, on of a conscientious reporter, interested in setting down the truth. their entire program, while the propertied classes grew more and J. R. more insistent. New York, January 1st 1919. And at the end, when the Bolsheviki upset the whole hollow compromise, the V.I. Lenin’s introduction to Ten Days That Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries Shook the World: “With the greatest interest and found themselves fighting on the side of with never slackening attention I read John Reed’s the propertied classes…. In almost every book, ‘Ten Days that Shook the World.’ country in the world to-day the same Unreservedly do I recommend it to the workers of phenomenon is visible. the world. Here is a book which I should like to Instead of being a destructive force, it see published in millions of copies and translated seems to me that the Bolsheviki were the into all languages. It gives a truthful and most only party in Russia with a constructive vivid exposition of the events so significant to the program and the power to impose it on the comprehension of what really is the Proletarian country. If they had not succeeded to the Revolution and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Government when they did, there is little These problems are widely discussed but before doubt in my mind that the armies of one can accept or reject these ideas, he must Imperial Germany would have been in understand the full significance of his decision. Petrograd and Moscow in December, and John Reed’s book will undoubtedly help to clear Russia would again be ridden by a Tsar…. this question, which is the fundamental problem It is still fashionable, after a whole of the universal workers’ movement. year of the Soviet Government, to speak of

______

TWO MORE TO GO IN BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XVIII: April 14 32 SHORT FILMS ABOUT GLENN GOULD April 21 Pedro Almodóvar ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER/TODO SOBRE MI MADRE 1999

This week in 3 x 3 @ AKAG, Thursday Evenings at the Albright-Knox, 7:30 p.m.: Yasujiro Ozu’s Banshun/Late Spring, 1949. For more information go to http://3x3.cc

…email Bruce Jackson [email protected] ...for the series schedule, annotations, links and updates: http://buffalofilmseminars.com ...to subscribe to the weekly email informational notes, send an email to addto [email protected] ....for cast and crew info on any film: http://imdb.com/

The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the Market Arcade Film & Arts Center and State University of New York at Buffalo with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News

Top View