Reed: Insurgent Mexico

American journalist John Reed became world famous through his reporting of the Russian Revolution in The Ten Days That Shook the World. This deals with his earlier conversion to the cause of social upheaval, a result of his observation of the Mexican Revolution. The strength of Paul Leduc's dramatised reconstruction lies in its authenticity (the sepia wash is suitably appropriate) and its refusal to indulge in myth-making. Instead, the struggle is presented in terms of the people involved, and reflected in Reed's own crisis of conscience and gradual commitment (via a somewhat Hemingway-like path) to the uprising.