Plots(1)
With exceptional access to the people behind the American Communist movement of the 1930s to 1950s, Seeing Red chronicles the movement’s participants, as individuals reflect on their impetus for joining, how Stalinism influenced their thinking in the mid-1950s, and their thoughts from the vantage of the early 1980s. A potent and searing score (including original music from singer and activist Bernice Johnson Reagon) enlivens archival images of newspaper headlines and protest footage, placing the viewer succinctly into the charged historical era. Filmmakers Julia Reichert and Jim Klein have an ease that coaxes sheer honesty from their interviewees, and with each individual’s story, we gain an informed perspective on their attraction to the Communist Party. For some, this political affiliation still stands, and directors Reichert and Klein gracefully challenge these more complicated viewpoints with the dexterity of talented storytellers. What remains is an illuminating portrayal of the everyday humans who defined a tumultuous movement in American history. (Full Frame Documentary Film Festival)
(more)Cast
Pete Seeger
USA
Best movies:
Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970)
Alice's Restaurant (1969)
We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial (2009) (concert)
Adolf Hitler
Austria-Hungary
Best movies:
Dangerous: The Short Films (1993) (video compilation) - a.f.
The King's Speech (2010) - a.f.
Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001) (TV movie) - a.f.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin
Russian Empire
Best movies:
Velikij polkovoděc Georgij Žukov (1995) - a.f.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) - a.f.
The Victors (1963) - a.f.
Cab Calloway
USA
Best movies:
Les Frères Blues (1980)
Janet Jackson: Design of a Decade 1986/1996 (1996) (music video)
The Cincinnati Kid (1965)
Howard Fast
USA
Francisco Franco
Spain
J. Edgar Hoover
USA
Best movies:
The FBI Story (1959)
Papa Hemingway in Cuba (2015) - a.f.
Nikita Khrushchev
Russian Empire
Best movies:
Velikij polkovoděc Georgij Žukov (1995) - a.f.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) - a.f.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Russian Empire
Best movies:
Eisenstein in Guanajuato (2015) - a.f.
Richard Nixon
USA
Best movies:
American Gangster (2007) - a.f.
The Doors (1991) - a.f.
All the President's Men (1976) - a.f.
Ronald Reagan
USA
Best movies:
Storm Warning (1951)
'Weird Al' Yankovic: The Videos (1996) (video compilation)
Trumbo (2015) - a.f.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
USA
Best movies:
The Roaring Twenties (1939) - a.f.
Un pont trop loin (1977) - a.f.
Contact (1997) - a.f.
Winston Churchill
UK
Best movies:
Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001) (TV movie) - a.f.
And Now for Something Completely Different (1971) - a.f.
Un pont trop loin (1977) - a.f.
Harry S. Truman
USA
Best movies:
It's Always Fair Weather (1955)
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) - a.f.
The Victors (1963) - a.f.
Douglas MacArthur
USA
Best movies:
Holiday Inn (1942) - a.f.
Truman (1995) (TV movie) - a.f.
Time After Time (1979) - a.f.