444
PARTISAN REVIEW
to
B last,
a San Fra ncisco a narchi st weekl y... .
R eds,
however,
shows Bryant dragging R eed off to he r stud io whe re she serves coffee
whil e he educates he r on revolutiona ry ideas, as though she was n't as
informed as he was ... . T he film depicts Bryant as uninformed and
not accepted by R eed's rad ical crowd , but actua ll y she was never
without a n opinion or a vo ice."
The day a fter I saw
R eds,
I saw on my T V set
Nicholas and
A lexandra,
a 19 71 British film whi ch was sympa the ti c to the Czarist
side a nd which I found more mov ing a nd much mo re spectacular
th an
R eds.
It had shots of the sto rming of the Winter Palace, the crux
of R eed's book.
R eds
has none, its camera be ing limited to the
interior of the Smoln y Inst itute whe re the debates betwee n Bolshe–
v iks a nd M enshev iks .took place.
Nicholas and A lexandra
even quotes T ro tsky's phrase abou t the
M a rch revolu tion , the real one: "Powe r was lyin g in the stree ts a nd
no one picked it up. " T hey even have the famous shot, from E isen–
stein's
October,
of the crui se r
Aurora
a nchored in the Neva to shell the
Pa lace. Such in tima ti ons of reality a re not to be found in Beatty'S
politicall y unsophisticated film .
R eds
does have some good poin ts. T he pho togra phy is beautiful ,
the colors muted ye t vivid . But , as I've remarked elsewhe re, you
can't li ve on photography.
T he re a re some good perfo rmances. Bea tty holds down J ack
Ni cholson , as O 'Neill , to hi s bes t ac ting in yea rs -none of those
ma nne ri sms tha t have become hi s trademark . Geo rge Plimpton is
good as a n a rt expe rt with a le tch fo r Loui se a nd J e rzy K ozinsky i
supe rb as Zinov iev. Unlike Beat ty, Koz insky is a n intell ectual a nd
so he gets inside the bureaucra tic mind with fri ghte ning effect. And
M a u ree n Staple ton is unex pectedl y convin cin g as Emma Goldman.
Bea tty also had the brillia n t not ion o f usin g throughou t the
film , as a sort of G reek C horus, con temporaries o f R eed who
comment on him a nd on the revo luti on from ti me to time: H enry
Mil le r, Rebecca West, George J esse!, Will Dura n t,
et al.
(H e tried
but fa il ed to ge t Wa lte r Lippma nn , who was a H a rvard classmate of
R eed's .) Unfortunate ly, these a ncestra l vo ices are n't ide n tified on
the sc reen - onl y on a stand in the lobby - a nd so one can't tell who's
speaking, Mille r or J esse! - it docs ma ke a diffe re nce. Eve n when he
has a good idea, Beatty ma nages to louse it up .
