Oscar-nominated screen icon and director Ethan Hawke has been entertaining us in movies and TV shows since the 1980s. Hawke has visited KCRW many times over the years, with appearances on The Treatment, The Business, Guest DJ Project, and Press Play. Most recently, he directed the biopic Wildcat about the writer Flannery O’Connor.
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Hawke's top pick for his second Treat is the 1981 film Reds, a cinematic gem that encapsulates everything he loves about movies. Penned by Elaine May, helmed by Warren Beatty, who won an Oscar for Best Director, and featuring a score by Stephen Sondheim — this epic romance stars Beatty and Diane Keaton. It tells the true story of American journalist and activist John Reed and writer and feminist icon Louise Bryant as they chronicle the revolution in Russia in the early 20th century. He highlights the epic filmmaking, the star performances, and the audacity of making a sympathetic movie about communism during the Cold War.
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This segment has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I just rewatched Reds, which is a movie I've been championing my whole life, because I feel like it's Warren Beatty's masterpiece. Written by Elaine May. Music by Stephen Sondheim. Shot by Storaro.
I mean, we're talking about a major, major work of art. It's everything I ever wanted the movies to be. It's so romantic. It's Diane Keaton and Warren Beatty at their absolute [best] … [Such a] beautiful, epic love story. [A] David Lean-like love story. But it's set in this landscape of the only American buried in the Red Square. He was a communist.
This was made in Ronald Reagan's America. I mean, the height of anti-communism, and he actually makes a sympathetic movie about communists. Jack Nicholson plays none other than Eugene O'Neill. The scenes with the three of them are flat-out, balls-to-the-wall brilliant.
He does the most brilliant thing of narrating the whole film with people who actually knew the characters that we're watching. [It’s] brilliant because they're never pushing a narrative. It's never voiceover like, "and then they moved to Croton on Hudson." It's not that. It's giving you an insight into the time period. And they often say counter information. "She was extremely outgoing. She was extremely shy." And so you start realizing, oh, the truth is this flexible thing. And the movie is so poetic and so beautiful, and it is really worth a revisit. If you haven't seen it, it is cinema.