I come back to this film often. It is so good. The story so grand yet intimate. The history behind it so breathtaking. It is the best film of the 80s and the last great film of the New Hollywood. I was in my local Barnes and Nobles a few days ago and they had the greatest films listed in a promo. And Reds was not on it. In fact many films from the post 70s era were not on it. But I thought omitting Reds was a horrible omission. After all it was nominated for 12 academy awards. I think that is good enough to be among the best films of all time. Perhaps there is some McCarthyism at play here? Perhaps, yet it goes to show how unknown the film is to a wider audience. I found it when I was in grad school. I looked up films about the Russian Revolution and got Reds which I ordered immediately from amazon.com. I remember from my undergraduate days my political science professor telling me that his class was not Croton on Hudson. Well, I certainly got plenty of that in the film.
I liked the film because it made you feel the euphoria then the paranoia of the times that the movie was set in. The Russian revolution, the Socialist movement in the US, the red scare, the deportations, and of course the free living lifestyle of the Greenwich Village set. This film was how I discovered Eugene O'Neil. Before I didn't know anything about him. After the film I watched his plays like lost relics from a archeological dig. And of course Jack Reed. What a revolutionary. His book and Eisentstein's films caused ripples felt around the World.
It's too bad it didn't win best picture it should have.
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