Monday, July 23, 2018

TODAY'S NUGGET: Reds (1981) - Characters Matter to Us; Politics as Backdrop

[Quick Summary: This is the very complicated, push-pull marriage of communist activist Jack Reed and writer Louise Bryant (late 1910s).]
 
Once again, film critic Roger Ebert nails my feelings for this script:
The whole movie finally comes down to the fact that the characters matter to us. Beatty may be fascinated by the ins and outs of American left-wing politics sixty years ago, but he is not so idealistic as to believe an American mass audience can be inspired to care as deeply. So he gives us people. (underline mine)
Another story about politics? NO THANK YOU.  But this story was different.

Why? Because "[t]he heart of the film is in the relationship between Reed and Bryant," which spits and crackles.*

I worried about Louise, who was no push over, yet wasn't taken seriously as a writer. 

I was exasperated with Jack, a political animal who 'never wants to be where he's at.'

Could these two lovers make it work? Or was it doomed?

In the scene below, notice how politics is only in the backdrop.

The real conflict is a universal one: How do Louise and Jack take care of (or don't take care of) one another against the demands of career and politics?

ex. "INT. CROTON HOUSE - THE KITCHEN - JACK

...LOUISE'S VOICE: Jack?

JACK: Stay out! Stay out! Stay out!

INSIDE THE DINING ROOM Louise sits at the table on which is a birthday cake. She counts the candles suspiciously.

INSIDE THE KITCHEN the turkey, now wrapped in a towel, lies on the sink as Jack drops a mound of diced vegetables into a pan of boiling grease. The grease erupts with a gust of smoke and a loud sizzling sound.

INSIDE THE DINING ROOM, Louise sits gripping the arms of her chair, watching the smoke flow out from around the kitchen door and calls brightly.

LOUISE: I had an offer today to lecture in St. Louis and San Francisco, but I turned them down. I don't want to go any further away from here than New Jersey. (there is no answer) Jack?

JACK: Stay out! Stay out!

...He returns with an entire platter of little burnt things and puts them in front of Louise.

JACK: I put a turkey in the oven so we have a while.

LOUISE: Mmmm.

JACK: Eat up, there're plenty more where those came from.

The phone rings. He sits looking at it, then walks over and picks it up.

JACK: Hello (he listens) Tonight? Oh, shit. (he listens) Hold on. (to Louise, his hand over the phone) The organizer they found in Rochester has to go back tonight and I have to meet with him. I'll only be an hour. I'm sorry, honey.

LOUISE: No, no. If you think it's important.

JACK (into phone): I'll be there in twenty minutes. (he hangs up)

Louise slumps as he prepares to leave."

WHAT I'VE LEARNED: Characters matter.

"A film about the politics in the Bolshevik Revolution? I'll pass."  vs. "A film about mismatched lovers against the backdrop of the Bolshevik Revolution? Yes, please."

Reds (1981) 
by Warren Beatty and Trevor Griffiths

*Thanks to uncredited work by writer/director Elaine May.

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