I had never seen this. It has not been released on DVD in the US (Or VHS now) despite three A-list actors and a slew of Oscar nominations in 82. (Nine, winning three including best director for Beatty. Can there possibly be many other Best Director oscar winners not out on DVD? Particularly one that is fairly recent?!)
I wonder what the discussion was then as the Bright Shining Reagan Era was dawning about the merits of a very good film vs. its story of political dissent, socialism, communism, voting for leaders who would not take us into war and so on. Especially when, at its core, it’s just a love story.
I’m going to meander here a bit. I was struck by something that may not really be true. Nicholson, Keaton and Beatty are so iconic that it’s always difficult for me now to see them in films as anything other than themselves. I can never get over the idea that it’s just Nicholson playing a role on the screen. And it held true here as well, but it seems that the three roles are so perfectly suited to the actors dispositions and personalities as to be almost as if they are playing themselves. Beatty’s earnest clumsy fumbling, while at the same being so charming and charismatic, Nicholson’s cynical, world-weary detachment, Keaton’s abrupt changes in determination, going from absolute devotion to packing her bags to leave her husband – We’ve seen these moves by these actors so many times before that it was a little jarring to see them again in this film where they are playing “real” people. Perhaps I’m not being clear on this point (and you will certainly all pounce on me if that’s the case), but it did not keep me from enjoying this film.
Another thought – It is almost as if Beatty knew this was coming: This re-writing of American history to exclude the fact that the labor unions were once incredibly powerful, and found solidarity with the European move towards socialism and the even Russia’s Communist party. Having the “Witnesses” – real people talking of their remembrances of the events and people seems to back me up on this. However, what Beatty might never have imagines is that his own film itself would so quickly be airbrushed out of the picture.
When he made this, with the Cold War still going strong, were there right wing commentators out there claiming Beatty was aiding and abetting the enemy? And now that the Soviet Union is dead, leaving behind a nation being run by thugs and organized criminals, isn’t now a good time to look back on this (both the time of the film and the time the film depicts) with some perspective?
I don’t mean to belittle the performances by the leads by saying they remind me too much of the quirks of the actors, and certainly the supporting roles are excellent: Edward Hermann, an excellent Jerzy Kosinski, Paul Sorvino, Hackman, and – REALLY great – Maureen Stapleton as Emma Goldman (she did win the oscar for it). Besides the acting though; the script is great for its length (imdb says Elaine May helped with it), the photography and lighting are beautiful, and so on.
I really admired this. And enjoyed it also. It is certianly as relevant now as it must have been the. Maybe more so, as unions become villains (NY Post called the striking transit workers “rats” on its front cover), and we all rally around Dear Leader as he saves us from the evils of the world, laws or no.
I remember loving this; haven’t seen it but once since its original release, but your comments on the actors (in particular) recall my own memories of the film. And I think some of the immediate responses focused much (too much) on them, rather than the story–the whole iconic director/actor/writer thing, the ‘real’ love story with Beatty and Keaton, etc. I also recall the NPR types pissy about the film’s distance from history (not least in making the ‘real’ somewhat-unglamorous or ugly people into Beatty and Keaton). I remember as well that rather than thinking about labor, many took the title quite literally and bashed the movie for its ‘glossy’ take on Soviet history, as if anyone who sympathized with communism was a political idealist whose politics should be distrusted entirely, or dismissed. (I think this is a line that former lefties like Christopher Hitchens now drum consistently.) We lose focus on labor because it got aligned with Soviet communism; now the ‘history of labor’ becomes simply another way to address the Cold War.
But I should shut up: this is Chris Howell’s bailiwick entirely–what do you think of the film, C?
Your point about film & labor is fantastic–we had an earlier discussion on John Sayles, and Chris wasn’t too keen on Matewan, but there have been so few (and relatively far-between) mainstream films about labor and labor protests, it’s shameful. Reds got me to actually read some stuff by Reed, and to learn–for the first time–about some of the big protests and movements of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Sayles’ movie similarly–by idealizing?–got me fired up, thinking about big holes from my education.
I’m trying to recall other big films: I did see Barbara Kopple’s stuff on Harlan County, but that’s a doc–not so mainstream. Norma Rae. ? I remember Blue Collar as damn good, but not really about labor movement, if I recall, which I barely do.
I’m just rambling. I can’t believe this isn’t out on dvd.
Reds might be coming out soon on DVD. It’s in Netflix, if that’s at all an indicator.
I loved ‘Reds’ right from the opening moments when Beatty ambles up to the front of the table (I haven’t seen it in years, but I think it is some local elks club or business association) and, in response to the question, “Perhaps Mr Reed will explain what this war is about?” simply says “profits.” But I was still living in London when it came out, so I never knew the US reaction. Wasn’t this about the same time as such classics as ‘Red Dawn’ and ‘Rambo II’? My guess is that it was ignored more than lambasted.
As Mauer points out its strengths are both the acting and fact that it recovers a part of history that might as well not exist. [A friend of mine in the History Department at Bowling Green was on the State of Ohio high school history curriculum committee, charged with revising the curriculum. When he asked why labor was still ignored in late 19th and 20th century history classes, he was told that there were no textbooks that covered labor so it could not be taught or tested… Whatever you think of the way that other groups are treated, at least history textbooks now dutifully have sections on native Americans, women and people of color. Not labor.]
Great labor films that are not documentaries (the best documentary is a different Kopple, titled ‘American Dream’) is a good topic.
To add to Mike’s list, I’d add ‘I’m all right Jack’ with Peter Sellers, Ken Loach’s ‘Riff-Raff’ and ‘Bread and Roses.’
–To add to Mike’s list, I’d add ‘I’m all right Jack’ with Peter Sellers, Ken Loach’s ‘Riff-Raff’ and ‘Bread and Roses.’–
When you start to get into I’m All Right Jack and Ken Loach (I’ve not seen Bread & Roses – that’s American right?), well, the British thing is just too closely tied to class, which has been fodder for wide discussion and art for decades.
Is it possible that it’s Americans’ distaste for class discussion that has resulted in the marginalization of labor/unions in American history and American film?
That last point of Mark’s is really damn interesting–I have to chew/stew on it a bit, and there are probably other factors (the hyperbolic focus on the individual in American culture…)… but it’s intriguing.
‘Bread and Roses’ is by Loach but it’s about the Justice for Janitors strike in LA.
One of my favorite ‘New Yorker’ cartoons takes place in a research library:
1st person: what are you doing?
2nd person: I’m studying how the American class system works.
1st person: oh, I didn’t know America had a class system.
2nd person: that’s how it works.
Some random thoughts:
I heard on the news that the percentage of the American labor force that is unionized is down to 12%. An 80 or 100 year low, I think.
Steven Ross has a well-researched book called Working-Class Hollywood. It doesn’t go into contemporary film that much, though when I was teaching a writing section attached to his course at USC, he did show a couple of clips from Silkwood and Working Girl. Anyway, I remember having this discussion (where is class in today’s Hollywood film) with my students, and with a few of you here–I think a handful of us took issue with Ross’s article in the L.A. Times (I think) about James Cameron’s Titanic.
I think there are a heck of a lot of films coming out of Hollywood that have class in them, but are not “about” class (if that makes sense…if not, think of our discussion about Cronenberg’s A History of Violence–was the film “about” violence, etc.). Take, for instance, Spielberg’s Close Encounters. The film tells its story of UFOs using class issues. The main characters are people who live quiet, sometimes desperate, lives in lower-middle class America. I promise I’ll be brief, but let me suggest a few key scenes.
The scene where Roy decides whether or not the family goes to play goofy golf or goes to see Pinocchio is emblematic of the film as whole: Roy’s obsession with the UFOs is tied into his desire to transcend his lower-middle class existence. He chooses magic (fairies, supernatural transformation) over commercial society (though in truth, both are forms of leisure typically available to the working class, Pinocchio is just as much a commodity as “goofy golfâ€).
Critics typically speak of Roy (and much of Spielberg’s characters) as chasing the inner child (his children don’t appreciate Disney as much as he does), but I think it’s more complex than that. The root of Roy’s depression is also the tedium of working class existence. He’s alienated, folks. But there is no hint that what Roy needs is to involve himself in any kind of working class struggle–in fact, it’s Roy’s wife Ronnie who shouts at Roy’s supervisor when he gets fired for chasing UFOs instead of fixing a downed power wire. A useless gesture.
Jillian’s character is interesting too, in that she is a single mother living in a very rural area of Indiana. The remoteness of her life makes her extremely helpless and vulnerable (twice she looses her child—the second time, seemingly forever). When the UFO lands in her front yard, her appliances (emblems of domestic, female consumerism) begin to attack her, chucking knives and barfing up undisposed food. A vacuum cleaner tries to run her down. I’m not sure what, exactly, to make of this scene apart from the idea that she is being punished somehow (she is attached neither to a man or to a suburb). Or, perhaps, it is being suggested that the American home is a frightening place–a nightmare of “things†invested with seemingly autonomous power.
Roy eventually drives his family out so he can build a giant replica of his persistent vision (which turns out to be Devil’s Tower). There’s a terrific scene where he sort of “comes to†and realizes just how far gone he is. He has just had a fit, brought on by his frustration that he cannot connect with his vision—he can’t get it “right.†He falls, exasperated, against a living room window, peeks through the curtain and looks at life outside (housewives in curlers and robes, gathering morning newspapers and taking out trash, I can’t exactly recall). He’s repelled by what he sees and slides the curtains back in disgust.
It’s at this point when the film “turns away†from class.
Class is everywhere in Hollywood, if only in films that demand we turn away from it or transcend it, rather than confront it. Not since the great Screwball era (1933-1941) has Hollywood come close to any direct confrontation with class.
Last thought: I’m not sure if, as Mark suggests, our distaste for class discussion has resulted in the marginalization of labor/unions in American history and American film. I think it’s more likely the opposite–or most likely both (since I don’t feel comfortable with a simple cause-and-effect theory, though if I had to choose, I’d say the marginalization of labor/unions by corporate power and government lobbying for anti-labor bills is more likely the cause of our distaste).
Okay, I’m done. If you’ve read this far, thanks.
A question though, John: Class is addressed directly in British film. It’s only addressed very indirectly in Hollywood film. The fact that you had to go to Close Encounters to make an example seems to back that up. Of all the things people might say C.E. is about, class would not be too high on the list.
Addressing labor/union/blue collar work as something that does not need to be transcended, but something that can give power to the masses was, maybe, the original point.
And while I dont disagree with your CE reading, I’d also say C.E. is part of Spielberg’s waning connection to the great 70s period of American film. (So is Reds actually; filmed in 1980-1…) You can go back to My Man Godfrey, Silkwood, Norma Rae – But what about now. What about post-Carter era? It is NOW that Reds seems all but forgotten – as are the issues/history/people it was about.
Does North Country really qualify here? It seems like it might, which means I may actually have to see it now. I can’t help thinking that the unions will be depicted as villainous in North Country too though…
Mark,
All your questions are mine as well–though I’m a bit puzzled by your first, which is directed at me and is not a question at all: Class is addressed directly in British film, indirectly in Hollywood film. No disagreement here.
My reading of Close Encounters was not prompted by a need to argue that it is “about” class. In fact, I state quite explicitly that it is not about class, and that although Hollywood gives us plenty of films with class in them, it gives us precious few “about” class. I felt compelled to argue that there are class issues in Close Encounters but they are misplaced, displaced and erased. Yes, rhyming is good.
Of course North Country qualifies. It seems that whenever Hollywood wants to address class directly, it’s usually in the form of labor dispute melodramas, where one individual is singled out as a legitimate voice amdist the noisy squabbling of career unionists and management. And of course the unions are demonized. But I, too, have not seen the film (which is why a speak so confidently about it). The irony is that Hollywood is so heavily unionized (they recently sought a deal with Apple over sales of TV programs to video iPods, and are now in dispute over product placement).
There is a piece in the latest ‘American Prospect’ about the new Soderbergh film, ‘Bubble’ which appears to have a lot in common with a Loach film, and deals explicitly with working class life in a rustbelt state. Soderbergh uses ordinary working people as actors, and shoots in high-def video. It is part of a set of six films all of which will broadcast on a high-def cable channel (HDNET Movies) and sold on DVD at almost the same time.
The article is here (and my New Year’s resolution is to learn how to embed links in these posts in a more elegant style):
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=10760
We saw Reds in school (Catholic high school in “urban” NH) as part our comparative government course in around 1984. The nuns were on the radical side (that sort of liberal social justice Catholic) but it was shown by one of our (closeted) gay teachers. It’s hard, though, to say that it was being shown as “good” propaganda because this was, after all, “Live Free or Die” New Hampshire. Nevertheless I think many of us came away with the understanding that vast segments of our history were not being portrayed in our movies or our school books. (This would have just followed Reagan’s sweeping out of the air traffic controllers–and Nashua was full of atcs who landed planes in Boston–so we all had a heightened awareness of labor issues.)
As for representations of class, you should get Pete involved with this discussion. He did teach all those sections of “Class in America” even when Penny told him there was no such thing. He found enough pop culture to fuel a few semesters.
nikki, why does pete need an invitation? he’s a member of the blog, ain’t he? even if he hasn’t posted in almost a year.
This is sort of obvious, but movies on labor don’t get much better than ‘Modern Times.’ I usually show the first 20-25 minutes at the start of my labor course. That includes the best known scenes as Chaplin gets sucked through the production line (and the wonderful bit on the automatic feeding device for line workers), and I end with him picking up and waving the flag only to find himself inadvertently leading a strike. Great stuff.
not to mention that Paulette Goddard wears that short little dress!
This months’s Vanity Fair has a long article about the making of Reds in it. I read half of it in a nice public library in Carmel while waiting for the rain to stop. Written by Peter Biskind.
It’s in the same issue as the nekkid pix of Scarlett and Kiera. VF is such an odd magazine: There’s almost always one article I really want to read per issue, including long essays by Christopher Hitchens, but the other 800 pages each month are entirely annoying.
I couldnt find anywhere on the web someone has posted the article. A quote from the article I remember by Robert Evans: “After Shampoo, Reds was Warren’s come shot.”
Reds due out on DVD in October. Check http://www.davisdvd.com. I hope its loaded and will look forward to seeing it again in its proper aspect ratio, etc.
Just a follow up to Jeff’s comment: the 25th anniversary release of Reds is just around the corner. October 17, to be precise. And there’s a nice story in the New York Times about it. I had no idea it was the last film made in Hollywood to have an intermission.
Paramount Home Entertainment is giving it the full bonus-freature treatment. And in November, it’ll be available in Blu-ray and HD DVD formats.
Branagh’s Hamlet had an intermission. It’s hard not to think of that star-fest as not being Hollywood though I’m sure it was made in Great Britain. Is Hollywood really tied to geography?
Tarantino is apparently going to re-release ‘Kill Bill’ volumes I and 2 as a single movie with an intermission “like a 60s film.” This delays even further the “special edition” DVD package. I guess intermissions are making a comeback.
I wish nocturnal emissions would make a comeback.
Got the new DVD. I’ve made my way through half of it, and although I am enjoying it I must say that it is at time a very shoddily directed film. I’m inclined to think that it was Warren Beatty who made a mess out of Bonnie and Clyde, not Arthur Penn. Beatty can’t seem to figure out how to use space creatively. Take the scene where Jack and Louise are arguing about why her work isn’t taken seriously. At the climax of the fight, it’s all sho[u]t-reverse-sho[u]t. Wouldn’t it be much more dramatic to see them together in the same shot?
And the shot of Jack/Louise strolling on the beach matched later with the shot of Eugene/Louise strolling on the beach. It’s clever, but it would have been much more interesting if Eugene and Louise had switched places. That is, with Louise in Jack’s place (Louise/Eugene instead of Eugene/Louise). I know this seems like nitpicking, but by having Louise walk in Jack’s footprints (instead of retracing her own, but with a new lover) suggests that Louise has become a much more active agent, a stronger character who “takes” a lover. More importantly, having Louise walk in Jack’s place would suggest the dilemma she is in. She wants to strike out on her own, but can do so only in relation to Jack. This is why she wants to leave him, to escape his gravitational pull. She knows that she can’t come into her own because everything circles around him.
The editing is confusing and sloppy at times. It’s easy to spot bad cuts, especially when one’s eyes are on Beatty (who is looking his finest) at all times. Still, some fine performances. And I had forgotten how effective the “witnesses” are.
I am eager to watch part 2.