Wednesday, May 1, 8P: Reds
Dryden Theatre, George Eastman House
Rochester, NY
Organized by the Rochester Labor Film Series

(Warren Beatty, US 1981, 195 minutes) This second directorial effort from Warren Beatty was his most daring and politically volatile, painting a sympathetic portrait of America’s radical Left in the second decade of the 20th century. The film focuses on John Reed (played by Beatty), a revolutionary journalist who reported on the Paterson silk strike and the Mexican revolution (1913), the Colorado Coal War (1914), and WWI’s Eastern front (1915), but is best known for his first-hand account of the Russian Revolution (1917) — Ten Days That Shook the World. Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, and Maureen Stapleton round out the powerful cast nominated in all four acting categories at the Academy Awards, the only film to do so until 2013. An epic film whose complex polemics strongly resonate with our political climate, Reds stands as a lasting testament to the vitality of socially conscious cinema.