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I thought it might be beneficial to watch a movie about the one American who chronicled the most transformative political revolution in the 20th Century. His name was John Reed, and he wrote the book on the Russian Revolution that commenced in 1917: “Ten Days that Shook the World.” (Regrettably, I have never read it).
There were two men, both journalists, both Americans from what would later be dubbed “the flyover zones.” One went east, the other west. Edgar Snow left his home in Kansas City in 1928, for what he intended to be a few month trip overseas. He would stay in China for 13 years, and be on good terms with the Chinese Communist leadership, before they came to power, including Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. Snow’s classic account of the Chinese revolution was published in 1937: “Red Star over China.” Snow would live long enough to collect Social Security. Reed grew up in Portland, Oregon (flyover, if you are going longitudinally). Reed would (somehow) get to Petrograd in 1917 (probably not by train from France, as shown in the movie). He would be on good terms with the Russian Communist leadership, including Lenin and Trotsky. In this movie, Lenin who personally arranged for Reed’s release from a Finnish prison would proclaim: “I’d trade 50 Finnish professors for one John Reed.” Reed is the only American buried in the Kremlin, struck down by yet another plague that was denied at the time: typhus. He died in 1920, at the age of 32.
I really liked this movie. It commenced with interviews of older people who remembered Reed and the times, and sometimes frankly admitted, they no longer could remember (“Did he leave for Russia in 1913, or was it 1917?”). One of the people interviewed repeatedly was Henry Miller, who actually said that he thought sex nowadays was a bit of a perversion and unfeeling, hinting that it was better back in his day when a dash of romance was thrown in! Yet another example of chutzpah, from the author of “Tropic of Cancer,” et al., though I’ve been told I do not really understand him.
Tangled doctrinaire politics complemented by tangled personal relationships (“Plus ca change…” Henry) and a great cast. Warren Beatty plays an admirable John Reed. The pleasant surprise was Diane Keaton, who played Reed’s lover and eventually his wife, Louise Bryant. I’ve improperly typecast her as the sometimes ditzy “Annie Hall.” Keaton can pull off the serious feminist who can take a lover, but gets upset when Reed admits to a notched bedpost or two, one of whom was identified as Mabel Dodge Luhan, who has bequeathed us a museum in nearby Taos. Bryant’s lover would be Eugene O’Neill, of “A Long Day’s Journey into the Night” fame. O’Neill was admirably played by the ever so cynical Jack Nicholson. “You can’t tell the players without a scorecard,” as they used to bark out at the stadiums before the electronic era.
Jerzy Kolsinski, of all people, would play Grigory Zinoviev, one of the doctrinaire Communist leaders. Kolsinski most famously wrote “The Painted Bird” which I have read, a largely fabricated and probably plagiarized account of surviving the Holocaust in rural Poland, during WW II. Emma Goldman, bless her heart, pushing for birth control back then, to truly liberate women, was played by Maureen Stapleton. Goldman would eventually be arrested and deported back to Russia, where she and Reed would meet again. One of her comments that resonates today: “the only impact you can make is in the streets.” Imagine that one Minneapolis police officer had over 18 complaints filed against him, including one involving the death of an individual, and it was always “nada,” absolutely nothing was done about it. It took action “in the streets,” and suddenly he is arrested and charged with murder. As for the upcoming election, Goldman proclaimed: “voting is the opium of the masses.”
A well-written, well-acted story with much historical and personal drama. And I have had to add “Ten Days…” to my reading list. 5-stars, plus.
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ANGELES ANDRES ANTON
una de mis pelis de siempre
Reviewed in Spain on December 9, 2017