Reds

I watched this for the first time in a long time. What an incredible achievement, epic in thrust, gripping, and apparently true in the main. Here, for example, is Louise Bryant herself writing about Reed's last days:

But I must go back to tell you how I found jack after my illegal journey across the world. I had to skirt Finland, sail twelve days in the Arctic ocean, hide in a fisherman’s shack four days to avoid the police with a Finnish officer and a German, both under sentence of death in their own countries. When I did reach Soviet territory I was at the opposite end of Russia from Jack. When I reached Moscow he was in Baku at the Oriental Congress. Civil war raged in the Ukraine. A military wire reached him and he came back in an armored train. On the morning of September 15th he ran shouting into my room. A month later he was dead.

Source

And here is how some on the left view the film.



Even at three and a half hours, it didn't feel long to me. An incredible achievement indeed. Films like this only come by a few times in a generation.