Warren Beatty would be the first to admit it. When he talks, he tends to ramble and to answer an interview question at such great length that both he and the questioner have forgotten the original query.

At the press conference held on Tuesday afternoon at Alice Tully Hall, following the press screening of his masterpiece REDS, Beatty covered a lot of territory in a wise, witty and rambling style that had the audience eating out of his hand. Such is the power of the movie star who also happens to be a man of engaging intelligence and piercing wit. The legend will also make an appearance at the public screening of REDS, which will be held later this evening, again at Alice Tully Hall.


What follows is an excerpt from the musings and perusings of Warren Beatty:

I never know when something occurs to me….it just sort of happens. I wanted to make a film in Russia. Things tend to gestate with me over an embarrassingly length of time, and I went to Russia to see how feasible it would be to shoot a film there. This was first in 1969, not long after the Czech invasion. I began to think that the only way to think about doing a film in Russia was to simply to start making a film in Russia. Things were thawing slightly.

I became interested in the story of John Reed, one of the few foreigners who is actually buried in the Kremlin. One lucky thing about being a movie star, is that you have a good amount of access. I had access to the Harvard Club of 1910, which included John Reed, journalist Walter Lippman and poet T.S. Eliot, and others….a very famous class.


For quite a while, I thought the film would hinge on the great journalist Walter Lippman, but he had no reason in doing a film, especially in doing a film with me and he was not a big fan of John Reed….he thought he was impetuous and unrealistically idealistic.

I then turned to my friend Averell Harriman, a former Ambassador to Russia, who gave me the slickest and most charming “turn down” I ever had in my career. He told me “this film is really great” and I asked him to get in front of the career, and he replied “I don’t know what’s really in it for me, old chap”. But I did get access to a lot of really great people.

I often compare making a movie to vomiting…..it’s not something I really want to do, and it’s not pleasant, but I always feel better after I’ve done it. The research started in the late 1960s and I made it in 1979. I had never thought this should be a little movie, it should be a big movie. I never thought it would be a commercial film, so I made a few more commercial films like HEAVEN CAN WAIT and SHAMPOO, so that it would be easier to find the financing for this more difficult film.

Movies unlike paintings or books are slaves to their release dates. So if you make a movie and something happens, it can obliterate the chances of the film being seen. I haven’t seen the film with an audience until a few nights ago when I showed the film at the Directors Guild of America screening in Los Angeles. It was an opportunity to show it to my kids, who range in age from 9 to 16.

When I saw the film the other night, I thought that I wouldn’t change a frame, not a shot. For the film to have come out in 1981, at the height of the Reagan victory lap in demonizing the Soviet Union, was certainly a challenge. The understanding of the film would have been better earlier during the Vietnam war, or in our own times when we are fighting another war. The fact that the film was acclaimed in its time is….nice and good but very risky. When I see the film with an audience here tomorrow night, I will be curious how the audience will respond to the stories in the film.

For example, in the first reel of the film, when John Reed comments that he believes the First World I was about “profits”, everyone the other night got the gag and the nuance of how that comment is relevant to our own times.

Nowadays, pictures like LAWRENCE OF ARABIA or DOCTOR ZHIVAGO would have trouble getting made, because they don’t really appeal to a hormonal audience….not knocking the hormones….that would turn out on Friday night at the multiplex. Those films opened in one or two theaters and would stay in the theater for a year. And the most screens it ever played on would be about 200 theaters. We opened in 1981 in 800 theaters, which was very risky for a 3 ½ hour epic film. Luckily, it turned out to be a hit and brought me the Best Director Oscar, of which I am very proud.

I happen to be a believer in the day and date release idea, where a film is released in a theater and also simultaneously on dvd. That way, people who don’t rush out to the multiplex on a Friday night can have a chance to sample the film early on, and contribute to the awareness of the film for audiences of all ages.

One of the remarkable things about this film was the casting, of which I am very proud. There is a yarn connected with each person in the cast. People would say that casting is character. I would say to you that Diane Keaton is plot….she can go in any direction at any moment, going light or dark. Diane and her subtleties and intensity pretty much held the story together….the politics and dialectic are held together by the romantic story.

I asked Jack Nicholson to recommend someone for the role of Eugene O’Neill, someone who could possibly steal Diane Keaton’s affection from my character. He smiled and said “Well there is only one person…and that’s me”. So, we both agreed to work together.


Maureen Stapleton, who I always thought of as one of our great actresses, was claustrophobic and did not fly, so the fact that we were shooting in London was a problem. Finally I said to her, if you don’t do the movie, I am going to have to kill you. We got her on a Polish freighter, which ran out of gas in the middle of the Atlantic. So, that was that story. It's a good thing she showed up. She won the Oscar that year for her performance.

After seeing the film again after so many years, there is nothing I would change, I wouldn’t shorten it, it is what I intended to make. However, I do think it would be a hard film to make in the current marketplace. I'm very proud of it, to this day.


Sandy Mandelberger