REDS: PROPAGANDA, DOCUDRAMA, AND HOLLYWOOD.

UNITED States; SOVIET Union

GOLDMAN, Emma, 1869-1940; KOSINSKI, Jerzy, 1933-1991; STAPLETON, Maureen

The article focuses on the motion picture "Reds," and portrays tension between the Soviet Union and the United States in the context of the film. "Reds," in fact attacks ideology of communism, through characterization and openly in several dramatic highpoints. The martinet, Gregory Zinoviev is played by Jerzy Kosinski who makes suppression of intellectual dissent of business for Bolshevism triumphant. Zinoviev's document that Bolshevism in practice meant replacing one form of repression with another. The American anarchist, Emma Goldman who was deported to Soviet Union as an undesirable alien is played by Maureen Stapleton. In real life Red Emma was the bogeyman of the American press. In "Reds" she is the mother figure who gives order to smart older women who have lost their looks. Goldman did become bitterly disillusioned with the revolution, but in the film her comments, and her acting, give such compelling evidence of betrayal that any other conclusion seems a logical impossibility. This film describes the relation of John Reed and Louise Brytant. It contains some lavish crowd scenes, shot in Finland and Spain.