Warren Beatty Reds DVD 25th Anniversary release interviews

[HWBL]

http://www.premiere.com/feature/3167...nd-speaks.html

Warren Beatty: The Legend Speaks
A sneak preview of the rare in-depth interview with the filmmaking icon from the November 2006 issue of Premiere, on sale October 10.

By Holly Millea

In his own words, Warren Beatty — and some significant others — reflect on his life, his loves, and his more than 45 years as a risk-taking actor, producer, writer, and director.

BEATTY ON THE DEMOCRATS' CURRENT QUANDRY
"It's difficult to exceed the narcissism of a liberal intellectual. A liberal intellectual always wants to say whatever it is he wants to say a little more interestingly than the last liberal intellectual. So by the time ten liberal intellectuals have stated their view on an issue, the listener can be quite confused, unlike the prescribed talking points that are dealt out from the top of the conservative movement. The liberal movement is not so efficiency-minded in the delivery of its agenda."

BEATTY ON WHY HE DOSN'T MAKE MORE MOVIES
"I used to say that for me, making a movie was like vomiting. I really did not look forward to it, but after I did it, I felt better. And when I have such a full life, as I do now, the periods of not wanting to vomit grow longer. Because when I vomit and then I'm producing and I'm directing and I'm writing and I'm acting and all of that nonsense, it's sometimes sickening."

BEATTY ON THE LAST TIME HE CRIED
"Well, the other night I had a dream that I went to pick up my 11-year-old [Ben] at camp and I hadn't seen him for four weeks and when I got there he had grown up, he was about 22. And I began to weep that I had missed that time. I woke up in the middle of that dream and I was weepy."

BONNIE AND CLYDE COWRITER ROBERT BENTON ON CASTING WITH BEATTY
"We were in New York to watch screen tests of possible Bonnies. We walked into this office building on Madison Avenue, and there was a model there, and she turned and saw Warren and Warren sort of started toward her and she backed up into the wall by the elevator. It was mesmerizing. She was totally his for the day. Warren had an unbelievable sense of women, and the what, and when, and where was astounding."

FREQUENT COSTAR GOLDIE HAWN ON BEATTY'S LOVE OF WOMEN
"Now, maybe he loved too many women in his early days. But it wasn't all about sexuality. It was about his tenderness. Warren by nature is a caretaker. Yes, he's maddening. Yes, he's stubborn. But the bottom line is the nature of that animal is good. His intentions are pure."

BEATTY ON ANNETTE BENING, WITH WHOM HE FINALLY TOOK THE MARITAL PLUNGE
"I was never divided on the subject with Annette. I was never divided on the subject of having a child. And I was never divided on the subject of her integrity. Or intelligence. Or capacity to love. I think talent is energy, and let's just say she's very talented. [laughs] See, I think that there's something in the unconscious that is the iceberg, and then there's the tip of the iceberg, that's the conscious. And when I met Annette, I thought, Oh, I see. Right away I thought, I think I have an idea of what's going to happen here."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read the whole 12-page interview with Warren Beatty in the November issue of Premiere, on sale October 10.

Originally Posted by HWBL

http://www.premiere.com/feature/3167...nd-speaks.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,218101,00.html

Beatty: Reagan Wanted Happy Ending for 'Reds'
Thursday, October 05, 2006

By Roger Friedman

Warren Beatty says that when he showed "Reds," his four-hour epic about
the Bolshevik revolution to President and Mrs. Ronald Reagan at the White House in 1981, the president had two comments.

"First he said, he was very admiring of what we’d done and how we’d made it," Beatty said at Wednesday night’s 25th anniversary showing of "Reds" at Lincoln Center. "And then he said he was kind of hoping for a happy ending."

The unhappy ending concerns the love story of journalists John "Jack" Reed
and Louise Bryant, whose turbulent marriage is set against the downfall of
Czarist Russia and the rise of Communism. Reed — played by Beatty — dies
at the end of the movie.

Beatty said that Reagan — whom he’d known for years — was charming but
probably not sympathetic to the characters in the movie. The Oscar winning
actor-director also said he falls more in the camp of Ronald Reagan Jr., a
liberal Democrat, and that "no one is prouder of him than his mother" —
meaning Nancy Reagan.

Beatty also said that movie making was "a bit like vomiting. You dread it but
you have do it."

"Reds" won four Oscars in the spring of 2002, but Beatty recalled that Charles Bludhorn, chairman of Gulf and Western, the company that owned Paramount Pictures at the time, urged him not to make it. "He said, 'Take $30
million. Go to Mexico, make a movie for a million dollars and keep the rest,
just don’t make this movie.'"

Beatty made “Reds,” one of my all-time favorite movies, back in 1981. He
won the Oscar for best director, and two of his supporting actors — the great Maureen Stapleton and an incredibly good Jack Nicholson — won, too. The fourth Oscar went to cinematographer Vittorio Storaro.

But Beatty never saw the movie with an audience, never did publicity and, until now, “Reds” has not been available on DVD.

Twenty-five years later, all that has changed. Paramount Home Video has released a special edition coming on Oct. 17 and last night, Beatty and wife
Annette Bening were special guests at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall for a screening, Q&A and reception.

To say “Reds” went over like gangbusters is an understatement. After viewing the film — with a short intermission — the discerning audience gave Beatty not one but two standing ovations.

Ethan Hawke and actor pal Josh Hamilton were just two of the celebs who braved the pouring rain and sat through the show last night.

Beatty, who almost never does publicity for his films, was floored by the enthusiastic response — and it showed. What was it that surprised him at this screening?

“How much world events have changed to make the movie even more relevant,” he told me. “We were between wars in 1981 and, dare I say, maybe taking a victory lap after finishing Vietnam. Now, with this war on our
minds, a movie about a revolution seems more relevant.”

Indeed, a couple of scenes in “Reds” really got the audience going. In one, a
discussion of whether or not to vote for Woodrow Wilson, considering his
broken promise to keep the U.S. out of World War I, was met with rueful
laughter.

And later, when Beatty, playing journalist-turned-socialist Reed, makes a speech to Arabs, the language is changed to include the word “jihad.” This word didn’t mean much to Americans in 1981. It means everything now.

And all this, considering that “Reds” is set in the years 1905-1919, is what’s amazing. Beatty and writer Trevor Griffiths (with a cadre of uncredited helpers including Elaine May) really fashioned a masterpiece for the ages.

“Reds” is the love story of writer Reed, the author of “Ten Days That Shook
the World,” and his wife, journalist Bryant (played byDiane Keaton, who was
Oscar-nominated for her work).

Nicholson plays playwright Eugene O'Neill and Stapleton is socialist activist
Emma Goldman. Gene Hackman has a big, memorable cameo, and there are numerous excellent subsidiary performances by Edward Herrmann, Paul Sorvino and the late real-life writers George Plimpton and Jerzy Kosinski.

There is also a shimmering production design by the late great Dick Sylbert that, coupled with Storaro’s work, makes “Reds” a visual feast. This will be a must-have DVD for anyone interested in great filmmaking.

For Beatty, this is a season of DVDs, by the way. “Bugsy,” his great mobster flick, is coming out Dec. 15.

For each of these discs, Beatty has sat down and done a DVD extra interview. But, like Steven Spielberg, he refuses to do scene-by-scene commentary (for even more Beatty insights, check out Holly Millea’s 8,000-word profile in the new issue of Premiere magazine).

I did not ask Warren about an old canard concerning “Reds.” That is that Woody Allen’s “Zelig,” a faux documentary, was meant as a parody of the Beatty epic.

Both films intersperse the action with interviews with historic figures. The
main difference is that Beatty’s are real, and Allen’s, of course, are fake.

Beatty managed to round up a large selection of important people from
Reed's and Bryant’s time including author Rebecca West (“I had a crush on her,” Beatty revealed last night), Adela Rogers St. Johns, Hamilton Fish, revered historian Will Durant and legendary vaudevillian George Jessel (who died six months before the film was released).

All of these people infuse “Reds” with a sense of humor that most of us who
remembered the film well had forgotten.

Beatty himself has a brilliant cooking scene in the Reeds’ small kitchen that is part Chaplin, part Buster Keaton and maybe a pinch of Allen’s lobster scene
from “Annie Hall.”

It’s not what most people think of when they think “Warren Beatty” — as
demonstrated last night by a beautiful young woman who snuck into a picture with the actor and another woman.

“That’s OK,” she said. “We’ll just make a sandwich.”

Meanwhile, Beatty’s better half, Bening, was also on hand, and off-duty from
rearing the couples’ four kids.

“I’m very much about ‘Did you finish this? Did you do this?’” she says of their schoolwork.

Somehow, though, she managed to make two films this year — “Mrs. Harris” for HBO and the forthcoming “Running with Scissors,” based on Augusten
Burroughs' memoir. How did she like seeing “Reds” on the big screen last
night?

“It’s my second time in a few days,” she admitted. “But I was swept right in.
That performance by Diane Keaton is amazing!”

There’s more to come with Beatty, so stay tuned …

[HWBL]

Originally Posted by HWBL

http://www.premiere.com/feature/3167...nd-speaks.html


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,218101,00.html

http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dl...NEWS/610060340

Friday, October 6, 2006
Beatty: ‘Reds’ was fortunate lunacy

By A.O. Scott THE NEW YORK TIMES


“What kind of lunatic would make a movie like this and ask someone to invest in it?”
asked Warren Beatty, reached by telephone recently at his home in Los
Angeles. It was a rhetorical question, since the movie he was talking about
was “Reds,” the 3 1/2-hour historical epic he wrote (with Trevor Griffiths),
directed and starred in 25 years ago.

The point he was making had less to do with his own sanity than with the
movie business, which he is not alone in believing to be far more risk-
averse — and less willing to spend money on the potential follies of ambitious
directors — than it was back then, when Paramount put up the money
for “Reds.”

Large-scale costume dramas are still undertaken from time to time, but the
scope, the seriousness and the subject matter of “Reds,” which immerses the
audience in the factionalism of the early-20th-century American left, as well
as in the spectacle of the Bolshevik Revolution and the love lives of obscure
intellectuals, make it unusual.

To revisit the film — which is being released on DVD Oct. 17 — is to
acknowledge that they don’t make them like that anymore, and that they
didn’t make very many even when they did.

According to Beatty, “Reds” was the last Hollywood picture to be released
with an intermission, and it does, in retrospect, seem to come at the end of
a line of grand, sometimes grandiose movies that stretches back from
the “Godfather” series, through “Lawrence of Arabia,” to “Gone With the
Wind.”

“Reds” was generally admired when it first came out. The New York Film
Critics Circle named it the best picture of 1981, and it was nominated for 12
Oscars, winning three (best supporting actress for Maureen Stapleton, best
cinematography for Vittorio Storaro and best director for Beatty.)

Though it has not previously been available on DVD, a format to which its
director is a recent convert, the movie has not really been forgotten, either.
It features Beatty in an especially dashing performance, playing the radical
journalist John Reed, and Diane Keaton in top form — sexy, unpredictable,
quick-witted and tough — as Louise Bryant, Reed’s colleague, comrade and wife.
Jack Nicholson, in one of his last entirely un-self-conscious
performances, plays Eugene O’Neill, and Stapleton steals a handful of scenes
as the indomitable Emma Goldman.

“Reds” remains a superior history lesson, thanks to Beatty’s thorough
command of the material and to his inclusion of real-life “witnesses” to the
life and times of Reed. Their faces and voices give this romance some
documentary ballast, and make it, now that they are gone, a moving archive
of faded memories.

Curiously, though, the movie may be less nostalgic now than it was in 1981.
You might think the opposite, given the inglorious expiration of the Soviet
Union, the founding of which feeds the idealism of the film’s main characters
(who do, it should be noted, express some misgivings at the authoritarian and
antidemocratic tendencies evident within the revolution, even in its early days).
The strains of “The Internationale” do not set many pulses racing
nowadays. But the dwindling of the socialist cause may also make it possible
to look at “Reds” with fresh eyes, and to feel the nearness of the long-ago
story it tells.

But in 1981, Beatty noted, “this movie was so harmless that Ron and Nancy Reagan,
who I always considered friends, arranged a screening in the White House.”

A return engagement seems unlikely, for any number of reasons. But Beatty,
who declined to speak to the American press when “Reds” came out, and who
agreed to be interviewed for the making-of documentary that is one of
the DVD’s extra features, regards his movie with renewed zeal.

[HWBL]

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111...goryid=15&cs=1

Posted: Mon., Oct. 9, 2006, 4:47pm PT

Beatty revisits 'Reds'

By LIZ SMITH


TALKING TO the ineffable Warren Beatty as he revisited his great epic of the
Russian Revolution, "Reds." The movie -- celebrating its 25th anniversary --
enjoyed a special screening this week at the New York Film Festival. The DVD
comes out today for the first time with never-before-seen special features,
including interviews with Warren and Jack Nicholson, etc.

LIZ: How do you feel about "Reds" now?

WARREN: Well, it's nice. We had a screening at the Directors Guild in L.A. and
I realized I had never really seen it with an audience since December 1981.
You know I never gave a single interview at the time "Reds" was first
released. I didn't want to get in the way of the film itself.

LIZ: Do you have a revisionist view of the movie?

WARREN: I wish I had held it back for 25 years because it has a lot that
applies to these times. Patriotism and profits are even more relevant today,
seen between the Vietnam and the Iraq wars. People question other people's
patriotism and profits seem to be foremost. ... Historically, the collapse of
the Soviet Union cuts two ways -- both good and bad. It shows us people in
a secular society will resort to religion in times of trouble. The movie is about
an idealistic American man who doesn't really know what's going on. Usually,
when I see my movies, I want to change this or that. I think. 'Oh, this is a
terrible idea. I should change the music cue or something.' But this time I
didn't want to change anything about the movie.






http://www.variety.com/vstory/VR1117...goryId=38&cs=1

Seeing 'Reds'
Classic pic find home release

By ADDIE MORFOOT

For someone who didn't believe in promoting his films 25 years ago, Warren
Beatty has certainly changed his tune.
Thesp, whose 1981 pic "REDS" is just now being released on DVD, has
recently cooperated with several publications in order to get the word out on
the release.

On Wednesday night after a special screening of the pic at Lincoln Center's
Alice Tulley Hall, Beatty explained his past actions involving the media.

"I am an odd case I guess. I don't believe in publicity for movies. I didn't do
any interviews for this movie when it came out. For me to get up and start
yakking about the movie when it came out would be possibly dangerous to
the film because you never know if you are going to say something that
obliterates what the movie is intended to be. It can be disruptive. So I didn't
do that. Of course that was dumb because the nature of the film distribution
in that late seventies (changed) so you have to do the publicity. I still think
it is wrong but I do it."

Beatty went on to explain why the pic's DVD release took so long.

"This business (of) commentary tracks - all of that self inflation is also not
helpful to the movie itself. I always avoided it. But then these very nice
people at Paramount who were not quite as sleepy as I was said, 'Hey! Come
on do this.' I also had some other friends of mine tell me, 'Get with the
program. People do this now.' But I still didn't do the commentary over the
scenes. I think that is just preposterous."

[HWBL]

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment...lumn?track=rss

Gene Seymour

'Reds' is still revolutionary
October 15, 2006

The idealism that both informs and inspires Warren Beatty's "Reds"
seems so distant from the present day that it's not only impossible
to imagine any movie like it being made today, it's hard to believe it
was ever made in the first place - especially by a major Hollywood
studio.

In the extensive and illuminating commentaries found on the second
of this 25th anniversary edition's two discs, even Beatty sounds
astonished that he was able to put forth a three-hour-plus epic in
which he played John Reed (1887-1920), a left-wing journalist who
lived fast, died young and ended up as the only American buried in
Red Square.

When he won the 1981 Oscar for directing "Reds," Beatty said without
a trace of irony that it was a justification of capitalism that a company
such as Paramount (then owned by Gulf & Western) would invest so
much money in a subject as provocative as American communism.
Beatty says the same thing today while wondering if he would have
been allowed today to make the film without computer-generated
imagery - or, for that matter, its unhappy ending. Maybe yes;
likely no.

Such uncertainties help "Reds" look even better now than it did upon
its initial release. The movie, which was given a high-profile revival at
this month's New York Film Festival, sweeps you into its vortex of
events from bohemian get-togethers in Greenwich Village and
Provincetown, Mass., to the Russian Revolution and its jolting
aftershocks. As with the very best historical epics, the movie also
establishes an elemental zone of intimacy, especially with its two lead
characters, Beatty's Reed and Diane Keaton's Louise Bryant, Reed's
lover and professional colleague-competitor.

Beatty gives "Jack" Reed an effective combination of bumptious
earnestness and zealous drive. But Keaton is so riveting as Bryant
that she seems to take over the whole movie. Her Louise starts out as
a provincial libertine, emboldened by the possibilities of individual
freedom at the turn of the 20th century, though not altogether
reconciled to them. Her struggle to mediate what she wants with what
she must settle (or fight) for embodies the movie's central tension. It
is, to these eyes, Keaton's rawest, most emotionally demanding
performance on screen. From what Beatty implies in his commentary,
he took some risks in getting as much out of her as he did.

Beatty also contained Jack Nicholson's combustibility into a seething
performance as Eugene O'Neill, who becomes a rival for Louise's
affections. ("I'd like to kill you," he says to her at one point, "but I
can't. So you can do whatever you want. Except not see me.") One
can't talk about the movie without mentioning the Oscar-winning
performance by the late Maureen Stapleton as radical firebrand Emma
Goldman.

There are critics who complain that Beatty's approach to his radical
subject is too traditional. "Reds" is built like a Hollywood romance. But
its melodrama is offset by Beatty's ingenious use of real-life talking
heads - referred to as "witnesses" - whose recollections of the era in
general and of Louise and Jack in particular smooth out the story's
exposition and enhance its historical resonance.

Seeing and hearing such presences as Henry Miller, Rebecca West,
George Jessel, Will Durant, Scott Nearing and Adela Rogers St. Johns
makes "Reds" feel like a haunted cavern of lost passions. Without these
folks, "Reds" would be little more than a smarter-than-average period
piece - though these days, that would be quite a lot to settle for.

REDS: 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION (Paramount)

[HWBL]

http://www.startribune.com/459/story/739138.html

Warren Beatty sees 'Reds'
After years of shunning the format, the director and actor has finally
come around for the DVD debut of his biggest film.

Randy Salas, Star Tribune
Last update: October 13, 2006 – 6:47 PM

Warren Beatty isn't high on DVDs and the accompanying extras that
explore the making of a movie. "I've never done one of these interviews
for DVD, and I basically disapprove of it," he says in an interview on the
new DVD of "Reds."

Wait a minute. Back up.

Did you get that?

Warren Beatty is actually talking on a DVD about one of his films. And
it's his most heralded work, 1981's "Reds," which he directed, co-wrote
and starred in.

"Reds" earned 12 Oscar nominations, with wins for Beatty as best
director, Maureen Stapleton as supporting actress and Vittorio Storaro
as cinematographer. Its release Tuesday on a two-disc set (Paramount,
$20) leaves 1964's "Beckett" the only one of the 23 films with 12 or
more Oscar nominations not available on DVD.

In the 195-minute biopic "Reds," Beatty stars as John Reed, the early-
20th-century U.S. journalist who became a Communist activist and
wrote the landmark book "Ten Days That Shook the World," his
eyewitness account of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Diane Keaton plays
Reed's wife, feminist writer Louise Bryant, with Jack Nicholson as
playwright Eugene O'Neill and Stapleton as anarchist Emma Goldman
among Reed's luminary friends. Reed was so revered in Russia that he
remains the only American interred in Moscow's Kremlin.

"It was very much motivated by my own political activism of that time,"
Beatty says on the DVD about why he made "Reds."[It] probably had a
lot to do with what I thought was a mistaken American paranoia about
communism and most particularly in Vietnam."

Producing "Reds" was a years-long pursuit for Beatty, but he explains
that he knew it would be a tough sell in Hollywood. So he directed and
starred in the highly successful 1978 remake "Heaven Can Wait" to get
some cred so he could make the controversial biopic. Loyalty to
Paramount, because of its support for "Heaven Can Wait," drove Beatty
to give the studio first dibs on financing "Reds," which executives finally
agreed to do after much debate.

"Here you had a company, Gulf & Western, which owned Paramount,
which was the most competitive, the most capitalistic," says former
Paramount chairman and CEO Barry Diller on the DVD. "And you had this
company put up the financing for a film about John Reed, a great figure
in the history of socialism in the U.S., communism, etc., and do it with
a happy face."

Beatty's involvement in the widescreen DVD's extras might not quite live
up to the billing. Seven features are listed, but they actually are just
small segments of one retrospective totaling a little more than an hour.
Beatty is so enthusiastic, well-spoken and forthcoming in his interviews
that one pines for him to provide commentary for the film, too. (The
sole other extra is a new trailer made specifically for the DVD.)

But let's take this one step at a time. Beatty has finally come around to
DVD, and fans should see his new perspective bear fruit on forthcoming
special editions of his criminal classics "Bugsy" on Nov. 14 and "Bonnie
and Clyde" next year. There's no word on better DVDs of his other
highly touted films such as "Dick Tracy,"Bulworth" and "Shampoo," but
there's new hope for them. Oh, and "Reds" is due in the high-definition
HD-DVD and Blu-ray formats on Nov. 7.

Beatty is late to the DVD party, but it's good to see that he's finally
arrived.

[lalala]

Is this some kind of posting competition with Nitelife?

[HWBL]

Originally Posted by lalala

Is this some kind of posting competition with Nitelife?

No, this is shameless free promotion of one of the best movies in US
cinematographic history.

[lalala]

I didn't like it that much myself but I was just asking in jest I know you like the guy - I'll start my own De Niro thread next, watch out

[HWBL]

Originally Posted by lalala

I didn't like it that much myself but I was just asking in jest I know you like the guy - I'll start my own De Niro thread next, watch out

I know you were But I just happen to think that, aside from liking the guy
for his looks, he deserves to get more credit for his work as actor, director,
writer and producer than he's received. I think in his early days, his image of
"pretty boy" obscured many people's opinions on him being able to do anything
but standing there and being handsome......

PS> As for Nitelife: I don't think I've read any of his/her posts......

PS2> Robert de Niro thread: Robert De Niro [Actor]

[lalala]

I agree on both counts

[HWBL]

http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/c...ovies-features

'Reds' revived on DVD
The revolutionary drama, filmed at the height of the Cold War,
takes on new meaning 25 years later.

By Tina Daunt, Times Staff Writer


At the Directors Guild of America theater on a recent Saturday night,
Warren Beatty watched "Reds" with an audience for the first time in
25 years.

It's not that he didn't want to see the movie since its release in 1981.
After all, he directed, produced, co-wrote and costarred in the film
about two American revolutionaries. In many ways, it was the one
project that was always with him. It established him as a serious-
minded actor with a deep interest in politics; it became the foundation
for everything political he would do since.

But how would it hold up?

The DGA screening was a celebration, of sorts, for the "Reds" release
today on DVD. Beatty was in the company of those who remember
the days when Hollywood was still making epic films with intermissions.
"It probably never would have been made today," Beatty said.

Afterward, the crowd gave a standing ovation to Beatty, who said he
was surprised by the reaction — the audience's and his own. The movie
that he created at the height of the Cold War and in the midst of Reagan
economics, had suddenly taken on new meaning in a time of real war.

"It's more assessable now than it was then," said Beatty, in an interview.
"It was fascinating to me the audience's response. The jokes were clearer,
the remarks more resonant. The things that we attempt to excuse in the
name of patriotism are clearer, as is the futility of war.

"These values, these conflicts are eternal."

Perhaps, Beatty reflected, he should have pushed for the release of the
movie on DVD sooner. There's a lot in the 3 1/2-hour movie to absorb.
Home viewing makes sense.

The digitally restored movie, released by Paramount, is available on
two discs, with six "Witness to Reds" featurettes about the making
of the film.

"I've never really paid attention to the DVD," Beatty said. "I've never
pushed to have DVDs released on any of my movies, let alone 'Reds.'
I never realized it was as important to that incarnation as I now do. It
allows the older and more sophisticated audiences to experience the
movies on their own terms."

"Capote" director Bennett Miller, who moderated Beatty's Q&A after
the "Reds" screening, said he welcomed the DVD release. He managed
to find a VHS tape of the movie years ago and has watched it over and
over. It has served as a guide for what cinema could accomplish, he told
Beatty. "This movie takes on all the problems of humanity," Miller said.

The movie portrays the life of John Reed, a Portland-born rebel who
believes in the Communist cause so passionately that he travels to
Russia in 1917 to participate in the revolution. Along the way, Reed
(Beatty) falls in love with equally idealistic Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton).

"It may be to Beatty's credit that he doesn't delete or water down the
serious political issues that rage throughout the film," Los Angeles Times
film critic Sheila Benson wrote when the film was released. "It was an
unparalleled time, and Beatty gives it full weight."

"I've always been interested in the conflict between the personal life
and the public life," Beatty said recently. "Those factors always touched
me about the story between the young idealists. It moved me that they
gave up what many people are comforted by in their personal lives —
they never had a child. And Reed dies before they can continue their lives."

Coming of age in the '60s, Beatty said "Reds" gave him an outlet
to "dramatize things that I felt I knew about." It was a huge success,
with 12 Academy Award nominations.

The actor said he screened the film for President Ronald Reagan, a
personal friend, at the White House.

Reagan was fascinated. "He turned to me and said, 'I didn't know you
can produce and write and direct and act at the same time,' " Beatty
said. "Then the president said: 'I was kind of hoping for a happy ending.' "

[HWBL]

http://g.msn.com/9SE/1?http://beta.s...13&CS=AWP&SR=7

http://g.msn.com/9SE/1?http://beta.s...=1&CS=AWP&SR=1

http://g.msn.com/9SE/1?http://beta.s...15&CS=AWP&SR=8

http://g.msn.com/9SE/1?http://beta.s...=7&CS=AWP&SR=4

http://g6publish.videodome.com/veriz...300&format=wmp

[HWBL]

http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,1..._21_0_,00.html

Seeing 'Reds'
With his 1981 political masterpiece finally
available on DVD, Warren Beatty opens up to
EW's Mark Harris about the epic, and what it
means in 2006 by Mark Harris

ON YOUR MARX... Beatty's Reed rallies the Middle East

Warren Beatty, absolutely nobody should be
surprised to hear, likes to take his time. He first
struck upon the idea of making a movie about
the early-20th-century journalist/revolutionary
John Reed shortly after he finished 1967's
Bonnie and Clyde. Fourteen years after that,
his dream project Reds, the $32 million film he
enjoys wryly referring to as ''a long, long movie
about a Communist who died,'' finally arrived on
screen, led by a cast that included Beatty, his
then girlfriend Diane Keaton, and Jack
Nicholson. The film went on to gross $39
million; four of the 12 Academy Award
nominations it received went to Beatty himself,
as actor, writer, producer, and (the one he
won) director.

It took only 25 more years for Beatty to decide
he was ready to do press for the movie. The
occasion — speaking of a long wait — was the
film's first-time-ever release on DVD (see
review here), a medium about which the f
ilmmaker admits ''negligence'' until recently.
Though Beatty still dislikes commentary tracks,
or, as he calls them, ''that ridiculous thing
where someone talks during the scenes,'' he did
participate in a DVD-only documentary about
the film. The night before Reds showed to a
lusty ovation at this year's New York Film
Festival — where it seemed both more
politically relevant than ever and the last
example of a kind of intelligent epic romantic-
historical moviemaking that has all but vanished
— Beatty, 69, talked to EW about his
masterpiece, and whether there's any room for
it in the moviegoing world of 2006.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You've said that
audiences are now connecting to this movie
and its politics much more passionately
than in 1981. But at the same time, a studio
would never make Reds now. So what's
gone wrong with the system?
WARREN BEATTY: The motion-picture business
is convinced that to make a lot of money for its
stockholders, the most lucrative approach is to
make a movie that has a $50 million or $60
million marketing campaign and is in 3,000
theaters on opening night. Obviously, that
requires content for people who want to be
entertained, to escape. More power to that
type of movie — except there are other movies
that don't fulfill those requisites, that, done
well, would require big budgets. We have to
look at the unintended consequences of those
massive campaigns.

Reds, in other words, could never be an
indie, which is what most good American
movies are these days.
No. If you adjust for inflation, Reds would cost
about $91 million. And it's the last movie with
an intermission — it could only play once a
night, so immediately, your gross is halved.

It's hard to imagine what a marketing
meeting about Reds would have sounded
like.
The people at Paramount were very supportive,
but the fact is, there was no way to deal with