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Warren Beatty breaks his long silence about ''Reds'' | 132755__keaton_beatty_l
LOVE AND WARREN ''If you have an active life politically or romantically, attention will be paid to those hot-button subjects, which is antithetical to perceiving a movie,'' says Beatty (shown with Keaton) now
Reds: Paramount/Everett Collection

Yes, there was a lot of baggage. I was living a life [laughs]...dissimilar to the life I lead now. But it wasn't just that. I believed then, and now, that if you have an active life politically or romantically, attention will be paid to those hot-button subjects, which is antithetical to perceiving a movie.

You mentioned earlier that you wouldn't mind if movies came out in theaters and on DVD at once.
It's not a question of minding it. If we have an interest in salvaging the possibility of making serious, expensive movies, we should strongly advocate it, to benefit from the massive advertising expense of, as Mr. Rove would put it, a ''new product.''

But TV's tough on a movie as vast in scale as Reds.
Television sets are getting bigger and shopping-mall movie screens are getting smaller, so...I do think there's a third alternative — a large, large [moviehouse] screen that really gives you the mutuality of a moviegoing experience that you can't have either on your own or in a small art house.

Since we're talking about the DVD release of Reds, which is over three hours long, how do you feel about the pause button?
Of course, I would prefer that people not be able to interrupt me in a sentence! [Laughs] But interactivity is what we're living in. And it's great that you can have a movie in your library.

Are there any downsides to DVDs?
You can't do a remake anymore. You better remake a bad movie, because if you remake a good one, you're a shmegegge. The comparison's right there — they're gonna look at it and say, you're no Cary Grant, or Audrey Hepburn. Of course, we still do them. Remakes of serials are what we do predominantly now.

You're talking about multipart franchise movies.
Yes. Nobody takes them seriously, they make everybody feel better when they come out of the theater, and they're fun. Much better than drugs or alcohol. I'd have to sit and think a minute about sex...

While you do that, let's talk about how your interest in John Reed started.


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