Opinion of the movie Reds

[d3crypt]

Today i watched this movie called Reds. It was about an American journalist John Reed and his wife Louise Bryant. It follows their life in the 1910s and ends during the Russian Civil War. The movie was really good in my opinion and I like how it shows the gradual corruption of the Soviet Bureaucracy and how peoples idealism can be crushed by reality.

[SonofRage]

Great film.

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[The Jay]

I hated that movie so much.

[Fourth Internationalist]

I've never seen it. :(

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Its an interesting movie, maybe one of my favorites. It is interesting to see a favorable view of the Russian Revolution coming out of Hollywood, during the Reagan Era to boot.There are some flaws of course. It emphasizes the degeneration of the revolution without providing the context and material causes-the horrific situation facing the Bolsheviks. The scene where John Reed and Emma Goldman are arguing is cliche. The whole thing fits into the conventional liberal narrative that "yeah the Russian Revolution was a good idea on paper but those totalitarian Bolshies wrecked it all.."

The scene towards the end when Zinoviev has Reed's speech mistranslated ("class warfare" becomes "Islamic jihad") is a composite of two incidents where something like this actually did happen. At this time the Bolsheviks were very much in survival mode so some opportunism could be forgiven.

Zizek's critique of this film is correct-its more a traditional Hollywood love story about the romance between Louise Bryant and John Reed than the Russian Revolution itself. Lenin is there as a stand in for a "Dr Love" figure, mentoring Reed's and Bryant's relationship from afar.

Having said this I did enjoy the film, it does bring the excitement and idealism (in the non-philosophical sense) of Reed and his circle and the RR to life.

[goalkeeper]

It seemed a bit "hollywood" to shoe horn in the whole love story line alongside - or maybe it made the film more appealing and watchable to people aren't communist nerds, i don't know.

[Red Commissar]

I've been told that the initial script wanted to focus more on the setting and revolution part more than the romantic story, but a combination of time restraints and studio pressure moved them to have the current structure with the Russian Revolution providing the backdrop for the two characters' interactions. I enjoyed the movie but I don't generally recommend it as one to see about the revolution, as I know most of the people who see it solely for that would be disappointed.

That being said it has a more sympathetic portrayal of the revolution even if it shows Reed's own frustrations with it, and considering it came out in the midst of Reagan's neocon bullshit it's surprising a movie like that even did well. I think it was also a nice touch to use the interviews from people who were associates of Reed and Bryant to put things in context, more so since all of them are dead by now. It was interesting that one of these old men emphasized that Reed had never become "disillusioned" with communism or he would have come back earlier, which was apparently a jab at attempts from those like Benjamin Gitlow to recruit Reed to their anti-communist camp.

[LOLseph Stalin]

I haven't seen it, but have heard it's not really worth watching. It's kind of sad there seems to be so few movies dealing with this important period in history.

[Karlorax]

Great film, for sure. The debate between Goldman, Reed, and Zinoviev is great. There is an interesting review of the film here: http://llco.org/reviewing-a-few-scenes-from-reds/