Word: denouement
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Marx had foreseen a chain reaction of spontaneous uprisings by the working classes against the powers that be in their own countries. Yet Russia's Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 was primarily the denouement of a tumultuous interaction of events-World War I, the dry rot of the Romanov dynasty, mutinies against the Tsar's commanders and German machinations to encourage Russia's withdrawal from the war-none of which had anything to do with the class struggle. The working class in Russia, to the extent that it existed, ended up a bystander rather than...
...Jack, the film instead takes testimony from 32 "witnesses"-old friends and colleagues like Henry Miller, Adela Rogers St. Johns and Rebecca West, who offer a Kane-like kaleidoscope of memories. The rest of Reds is a nonstop narrative that climaxes with skyrockets over Red Square and finds its denouement in a lovely Liebestod. The script, by Beatty and British Playwright Trevor Griffiths (with help, reportedly, from Elaine May and Robert Towne), is a series of small quick steps that deftly transport Reed from Pancho Villa's Mexico to Emma Goldman's Greenwich Village to Eugene...
...much to the script. Hailed by other characters as vivid, brilliant, sensitive, this Viola does little but throw up her hands in despair as she is mistaken for her brother, attacked by Toby and Aguecheek, adored and insulted, and made a pawn of. The play's grand denouement scene falls prey to this gradual slowing of pace, seeming just a bit too serene as a set of twins and two pairs of lovers are reunited...
Many had trouble accepting this motivation, especially when Nicholson's character did not receive the retribution Cain had planned, the (unjust, but plausible) charge of murdering Nora Papadakis, who dies when their car crashes. Rafelson explained his modified denouement as sufficiently powerful: seeing Jack Nicholson cry makes you feel rotten enough, and seeing him (as the book would) sentenced to death for following his passions would be too much...
...Bernard is determined to return their relationship to its old obsessive level. When Mathilde resists emotional imprisonment, he creates a scandalous scene at a party. The incident cauterizes his wounds, but it opens hers. This role reversal leads to her breakdown, and to the film's surprisingly tragic denouement...