Pago 12
Daily Nebraskan
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Filmmakers J ulia Reichert and James IQein. Together, they have made such films as Seeing Reds and Union Maids.
Reichert's films depict 'the living realty5
By Eric Peterson
For 15 years, Julia Reichert and'James Klein have
made strong documentaries about the effect of
social movements upon individual lives.
Growing Up Female, made and distributed in 1970
and Men 's Lives, co-produced with Josh Hanig and.
Will Roberts in 1974, helped educate many Ameri
cans about repressive sexual roles. Union Maids,
about three women labor organizers, was made
from 1974 to 1976; and Seeing Red, a look at what
involvement with the American Communist Party
meant for the millions of Americans who were
members from the 1930s to 1950s, was a six-year
project now in its first release. Reichert was in Lin
coln last week as part of a Sheldon Film Theatre
filmvideo showcase.
"I think we were interested in presenting people
with the living reality of what it meant to be a Com
munist in this country" Reichert says of Seeing Red.
"Our real interest was the people and their life sto
ries which was-more powerful than the actual
history . . .'We wanted to reveal something of the
radical response to the world."
Seeing Red fills out the picture of labor organizing
and social commitment in Union Maids, and is a
much more complex exploration of political involve
ment. "I think of Union Maids as a kind of rah-rah film.
It's very straight ahead, it goes forward like a locom
. otive almost. It just takes off and goes and you feel
great by the end and you're cheering at the end and
they're wonderful, you're right with them and you're
in love with them and that's it.
"Now, Seeing Red has its crisis that people go
through, it has a lot of pain in it; they had to go
through rough periods of disillusionment. There
was a lack of questioning (among American Com
munists). Maybe there was a fanaticism. It's a much
more complex film, and in a way by the end of it I
think it's a little less satisfying. You don't feel so
cheerful about it. And that's OK I don't think it
answers all the questions that it raises."
This dissatisfaction b surely related to the ambig
uous issues of Leftism in the 19303 and 1940s rather
than the artistic excellence of Seeing Red, which is
powerful in its technique and in its (somewhat
troubled) train of thought.
Reichert said the Communist Party U.S.A. was
extremely important as a labor organizing and grass
roots movement.
"All the women in Union Maids, we didn't know
that at the time, but they all had been members of
the Communist Party at the time they were doing
that work. It's what shaped their work. It's a little
misleading, I think, that those three women kind of
individually, on their own, were brave enough to
stand up to the boss, say 'Let's turn off the machines
and call the strike.' While these three were very
courageous women, they were all members of the
Communist Party, which helped educate them, give
them ideas about tactics, advise them."
Reichert noted that while the Socialist Party,
which had shrunk in size by the 1 930s, concentrated
on elections and putting out a newspaper, the
Communist Party was instrumental in forming the
C.I.O. and other grass roots activity. "The CP. was
the main game in town for most of those people ... It
led strikes, picket lines, demonstrations at the wel
fare office."
Finding the meaning of this movement for its rank
and file was Reichert's and Klein's purpose.
"We wanted you to meet these people and kind of
"Our real interest was the people
and their life stories which was
more powerful than the actual his
tory ... we wanted to reveal some
thing of the radical response to the
world."
see the world through their eyes. They were a lot of
ordinary people they did extraordinary things.
They were maybe a little more courageous, a little
more daring than the person who worked next to
them in the factory."
Reichert said that of 400 people interviewed for
the film, most of them former rather than present
members of the Communist Party, nearly all still
consider themselves Leftists. She said the myth of
burnt-out radicals who go through a phase in their
rash youth, then put on suits and ties and become
Republicans ;The Big Cliill is a Holloywood por
trayal of the myth), has little to do with the gray
haired former or present Communists who are
active at anti-nuclear and Central American demon
strations. A fascinating shot in Seeing Red shows rio,t
helmeted, mounted police charging demonstrators"
just as they are shown attacking strikers in the
1930s.
"Cops are still using those long nightsticks and
still charging into the crowds. People are still being
carried away hurt from the scene . . . It's not so
different. People with radical ideas are still there
and they're still influencing our democratic society,
trying to make it more democratic. These people
(former Communists) are a very important part of
that legacy."
Seeing Red brings the filmmaker 'particularly
Reichert, who does a lot of on-camera interviewing
out into the open, "Most filmmakers don't let you
in on their end of the relationship. I really object to
that. Let people know the filmmaker's in on it, too."
A particularly sensitive sequence near the start
shows Reichert on the phone to a potential inter
viewee who in the end decides not to risk the
adverse publicity his invlovement m:;;ht bring.
Reichert says that Seeing Red emulates The Word
Is Out, a documentary on the coming out experien
ces of gay men and women made by the Mariposa
Film Group and Peter Adair, "in terms of that real
intimate, intense personal interviewing style." Rei
chert said being gay or Communist were both abso
lutely taboo involvements in American society, so
one task of her folm was to defuse the prejudices
and resistance of viewers, and reveal "the character
of the individual because that's important . . . People
say, 'Well, they're gay they're bad.' It's the same
thing with Communists "
Reichert says that Adair is someone she admired
from her days in Antioch College in Ohio, where he
went to school and where she became politically
aware and involved.
Some reviewers one from the Progresive, ironi
cally enough have called Seeing Red a naive and
uncritical look at a regimented and undemocratic
movement, despite considerable exploration of this
same blind devotion in the bst part of the film. .
"I think when you say it's as if they don't see parts
of it, that's actually true I don't think they do see
parts of the film because of preconceived ideas. Reg
imentation, lack of democracy, following the Soviet
Union ... I think it's real clear that's what caused
that whole movement to collapse."
In spite of the secrecy and stiHed thought which
Communist involvement often necessitated, rank
and file Communists are still limited heros for Rei
cftert, people who committed their lives to effective
popular organizing. She quotes Pete Seeger's line
the -fiim - "Don,t mourn for a fighter who
made a mistake and lost but mourn for suckers who
never bothered putting up a fight "