194m; U.S.
Director: Warren Beatty
Cast: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Edward Hermann, Jerzy Kosinski, Maureen Stapelton, Gene Hackman
Synopsis: Reds is the epic biography of early 20th century U.S. communist author and activist Jack Reed and his stormy off-again, on-again love affair with free-thinker Louise Bryant. The film covers some of Reed’s time in the United States (including relationships with the IWW and the Socialist Party) and their time together in Russia during the Bolshevik revolution which led Reed to write the book Ten Days that Shook the World. The film also covers attempts to build a communist party in the U.S., the post-World War I “Red Scare” and the early years of the U.S.S.R. Maureen Stapelton won an Oscar for her portrayal of Emma Goldman and Beatty won for Best Director. Interspersed throughout the film are interviews with many of the people who knew Reed and Bryant. Long but highly recommended.
Click here to read Jon Garlock’s introduction to Reds at the Rochester (NY) Labor Film Series.
Trailer
The Russian Revolution Montage
John Reed’s Speech on Freedom and Revolution
94m; US
Directed by Herbert Biberman
Cast: Juan Chacón, Rosaura Revueltas and Will Geer
Synopsis: Salt of the Earth is based on a 1950 strike by zinc miners in Silver City, New Mexico. Against a backdrop of social injustice, a riveting family drama is played out by the characters of Ramon and Esperanza Quintero, a Mexican-American miner and his wife. In the course of the strike, Ramon and Esperanza find their roles reversed: an injunction against the male strikers moves the women to take over the picket line, leaving the men to domestic duties. The women evolve from men’s subordinates into their allies and equals.
NYT: Movies don’t get much more Labor Day-appropriate than a film backed by the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers. But “Salt of the Earth” was perceived as a dangerous object in 1954, when the principal members of its creative team — the director Herbert J. Biberman, the producer Paul Jarrico and the screenwriter Michael Wilson, working independently of Hollywood — were subject to the blacklist. (The Congress of Industrial Organizations had separately expelled the union from its ranks.) This chronicle of a New Mexico miners’ strike, dramatized from real events and now a favorite of film programmers, looks ahead of its time in its foregrounding of Mexican-American characters; its emphasis on racial and especially gender equality; and its powerful depiction of unity against strikebreaking tactics. BEN KENIGSBERG
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82m; U.S.S.R.
Director: Sergei M. Eisenstein
Cast: Grigori Aleksandrov, Maksim Shtraukh and Mikhail Gomorov
Synopsis: In Russia’s factory region during Czarist rule, there’s restlessness and strike planning among workers; management brings in spies and external agents. When a worker hangs himself after being falsely accused of thievery, the workers strike. At first, there’s excitement in workers’ households and in public places as they develop their demands communally. Then, as the strike drags on and management rejects demands, hunger mounts, as does domestic and civic distress. Provocateurs recruited from the lumpen and in league with the police and the fire department bring problems to the workers; the spies do their dirty work; and, the military arrives to liquidate strikers.
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127m; U.K.
Director: Ken Loach
Cast: Cillian Murphy, Padraic Delaney and Liam Cunningham
Synopsis (IMDB): Ireland, 1920. Damien and Teddy are brothers. But while the latter is already the leader of a guerrilla squad fighting for the independence of his motherland, Damien, a medical graduate of University College, would rather further his training at the London hospital where he has found a place. However, shortly before his departure, he happens to witness atrocities committed by the ferocious Black and Tans and finally decides to join the resistance group led by Teddy. The two brothers fight side by side until a truce is signed. But peace is short-lived and when one faction of the freedom-fighters accepts a treaty with the British that is regarded as unfair by the other faction, a civil war ensues, pitting Irishmen against Irishmen, brothers against brothers, Teddy against Damien.
Trailer
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