De Palma Blog-A-Thon: Scarface (1983) and Carlito's Way (1993)

by Tony Dayoub



...Cuba y Puerto Rico son
de un pájaro las dos alas,
reciben flores y balas
sobre el mismo corazón...

Translation:

...Cuba and Puerto Rico are
a dove's two wings,
receiving flowers or bullets
over the same heart...
-from the poem "A Cuba" by Lola Rodriguez de Tió

I find it difficult to address two of Brian De Palma's most atypical movies, Scarface and Carlito's Way, because of how closely I, a Cuban American, identify with them. Like the Puerto Rican Carlito Brigante (Al Pacino) I grew up going to school in an Hispanic neighborhood in the late seventies. Miami, back then, was mostly populated by retirees and snowbirds, and the school I went to near Coral Way had a diverse group of students, some from the barrio called Little Havana. While I never faced the kind of violence Carlito experienced in his own barrio firsthand, it was not unheard of. Friends of friends belonged to the local gang, the Latin Kings. Seeing a knife pulled out in a fight was not unusual back then. And there were always rumors of someone who owned a gun.




A lot changed in 1980, with the arrival of those we called the Marielitos. My elementary school's student demographic changed overnight. The once diverse cross-section of students I was familiar with gave way to a huge new subculture of immigrant Cubans, many of them poor, and feeling dislocated. I, who grew up watching The Six Million Dollar Man and Starsky and Hutch, found it difficult to understand why some had never even owned a TV. And though I was fluent in Spanish (indeed, it was my first language), I could never hold, much less keep up a conversation with those that came in the Mariel boatlift. They simply spoke too fast, threw too many puzzling expressions out for me to ever get on the same wavelength. It was all a bit alienating.

Crime went up. Race riots became frequent in some of the poorer neighborhoods (not strictly Cuban ones, I should point out). Drugs became a vehicle for quick and easy monetary success in a society for proud immigrants that wanted to work, yet faced many obstacles in assimilating quickly into society. In retrospect, my school was one of the safer ones facing these problems because of its relative distance from these neighborhoods. But you still saw some of it. My seventh-grade friend Neal, was five years older than all his other peers, because he had been let out of juvie (where he was incarcerated for car theft) on the condition he attend school again. His legs were covered with scars, from dog bites and barbed wire from his attempts to escape detention... or so he told me. Who knew? I was a kid, fascinated by dangerous looking big talkers because of my own deficiencies when it came to defending myself. Neal knew I could help him get in good graces with this pretty young friend of mine, Judy, who everybody had a crush on. And even though I was unsuccessful in my attempts to get them together, he never forgot that I tried. His loyalty, his reputation, and his friendship, were like an invisible shield that helped protect me from getting bullied, and in fact, helped me get along with some of his friends in the Kings. So I've always had sympathy for people like Tony Montana (also Al Pacino) and Carlito Brigante.

You didn't see too many Puerto Ricans in Miami, though. They had immigrated much earlier to New York, where they assimilated much faster than the Cubans ever did in Miami. Nuyoricans, though, were responsible for paving the way for Cubans here in the U.S. Musicians like the Fania All-Stars supplied the soundtrack to our lives, showcasing such stars like the Cuban Celia Cruz and the Puerto Rican Hector Lavoe. Puerto Ricans shared something with us Cubans that the rest of Latin America didn't. They were from the Caribbean. They ate the same food as we did (tacos and nachos are absent in those cultures, where black beans and rice are the staple). Where most of the rest of Latin America was proud of their Native American roots, the Cubans, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans were the product of a culture where Spaniards had eradicated nearly all the Indians and instead integrated with their African slaves. Our music, dance, and even a religion, Santería, grew out of these African roots that were alien to the rest of Latin America. So Puerto Rico and Cuba, it can be said, are a dove's two wings.

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De Palma is always prone to symmetry in his work, often bookending his films with similar visual or thematic concerns: the menstrual blood at the beginning of Carrie (1976) with the pig's blood in its climax; the sexually violent shower dream that opens Dressed to Kill (1980) and the one that ends it; the way an empty gun helps Carlito escape during a shootout at the start of Carlito's Way, and seals his lawyer Kleinfeld's (Sean Penn) fate as the movie wraps up. But with the release of Carlito's Way, De Palma provided not so much an apology, as some have said—for his negative depiction of a Latin gangster in Scarface—as much as he provided a doppelganger, a symmetrical counterpoint to the earlier film that gives it some unexpected depth.





De Palma helped to create the association by surrounding Pacino with characters, situations and backdrops that serve as mirrors between the two films. Tony and Carlito each have Anglo lovers—Elvira (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Gail (Penelope Ann Miller), respectively—that serve to illustrate the men's cultural disconnect with the American path to success. Elvira, no innocent herself, can't understand Tony's excesses, why he stagnates when he isn't reaching for more, more, more. Gail, can't understand why Carlito is locked on his path to failure by his loyalty to a code that repeatedly betrays him.





To lend some authenticity to the film, De Palma cast real life Hispanic entertainers in the roles of Pacino's associates in each film. Steven Bauer was already well known in the Miami exile community as Rocky Echevarría, star of a locally produced "Spanglish" sitcom called ¿Que Pasa USA? before he played Manny in Scarface. Argentinian star Jorge Porcel who played Saso in Carlito's Way was also well known in Miami as the star of the bawdy variety show, A la cama con Porcel. He also brought back three actors from Scarface for cameos in Carlito's Way—Ángel Salazar, Al Israel, and Michael P. Moran (casting Steven Bauer as Lalín instead of Viggo Mortensen would have made the parallels perfect)—cementing the bond between both films.





Both films have a gripping scene of explosive violence that sets the tone for each: in Scarface, it is the "chainsaw" drug buy where his associate Angel (Pepe Serna) is executed; and in Carlito's Way, it is the drug buy where he reluctantly accompanies his cousin Guajiro (John Ortíz).





Each film has one of De Palma's trademark sets and in this case, they are both clubs. Much of the action in Scarface takes place at the mirror-walled Club Babylon which comes to represent the splintered mind of the coke-addled Tony Montana. While in Carlito's Way, a lot of it occurs in El Paraiso, the chrome-walled cruise ship-themed club that symbolizes Carlito's ever present mindfulness of his dream escape to the Caribbean and rent cars.



The most obvious of the affinities between the two movies lie in the casting of their respective protagonists. Al Pacino plays both the Cuban gangster, Tony Montana, and Puerto Rican ex-con, Carlito Brigante. A decade long gulf separates Pacino's performances and the characters. Curiously, Pacino chews the scenery as Montana at a point in time when he hadn't yet become the butt of jokes for his over-the-top histrionics. As Montana, Pacino was not only paying tribute to the operatic interpretation of his predecessor, Paul Muni, in the original Scarface (1932), he was also capturing the flashy, loudmouthed characteristics of the stereotypical Miami Cuban: proud, independent to a fault, and full of braggadocio. Montana tries to create what he deems to be the perfect life, but his overblown sense of self causes him to impose his will and his mark on everything in it, as seen in his monogrammed mansion with the oversized painting of him overlooking a fountain that has a towering globe with the words "The World is Yours" surrounding it in neon.



Pacino's Carlito is Montana ten years later, humiliated by his stint in prison yet still respectful to the code of the streets. The white-suited Tony now gives way to the haunted black-suited Carlito. And it is curious again, that in 1993, when Pacino is constantly criticized for his exaggerated turns, he underplays the doomed Carlito. This man is quiet more often than not; taking in his surroundings with his eyes; guarded without being paranoid; wise enough to realize that he won't last long if he returns to the street life so instead he chooses to pursue the most humble of dreams, to rent cars outside of the country which he was born in, but has always felt excluded from. The character of Carlito is almost but not quite the elder statesman Tony could have grown into had he outlived his impetuous youth. This knowledge contributes to the elegiac tone of Carlito's Way, aided of course by the foreknowledge that Carlito will die at the film's conclusion.



Tony Montana's death is chaotic and magnificent. Carlito Brigante's is nondescript and neat. Each death is a fitting one considering the way each man lived his life. And in this way, too, Tony and Carlito are like a dove's two wings.

"Anoche yo tuve un sueño..." - My Favorite Movie Setting

I've been tagged again, by Fletch over at Blog Cabins (who, by the way, should really consider responding to the Dancing Image's Reading the Movies meme I tagged him with, since it has managed to make it all the way to the New Yorker). This tag is one that I think most cinephiles have considered many times since, after all, cinema is a realm that encourages escapism. Originating at Daniel Getahun's Getafilm, here are the rules: 1. Think of a place (real or fictional) and time (past, present, future) portrayed in a movie (or a few) that you would love to visit. 2. List the setting, period, applicable movie, and year of the applicable movie's release (for reference). 3. Explain why, however you'd like (bullet points, list, essay form, screenshots, etc.). If this is a time and place that you have intimate knowledge of, feel free to describe what was done well and what wasn't done well in portraying it. 4. If possible, list and provide links to any related movies, websites, books, and/or articles that relate to your choice(s). 5. Modify Rules #1-4 to your liking. And come up with a better name for this meme. 6. Link back to this Getafilm post in your post, please. 7.) Tag at least five others to participate (Since I'm joining this party kind of late—I'm on vacation at the moment—anyone who reads this can consider themselves tagged)! Place/Setting: Havana, Cuba Year/Period: Late 1950s As Seen In: The Godfather Part II (1974) Why: Growing up in and around Little Havana always made me hyperconscious that, unlike others of ethnic descent, I could not visit my parents' homeland for political reasons. And even if I was successful in getting government approval to visit family still in Cuba, all indications are that the island is a pale shadow of its former self, which hit the peak of its popularity with foreign visitors in the late fifties. Though shot in the Dominican Republic, The Godfather Part II creates a reasonable facsimile of Havana just before the fall in a fleeting chapter of the crime saga. One gets a sense of a city on the edge... of danger, change, rebirth. One is also exposed to the easy temptations that permeated the city, with its nightclub and gambling scene providing the exciting backdrop. Best Aspects of Havana: Old-World architecture; lush tropical scenery; fantastic Afro-Cuban art, dance and music; heightened sexuality. Worst Aspects of Havana: Extreme stratification of the economic classes; rampant corruption; paranoia; grim poverty outside in the rural areas. Further Reading/Viewing: Our Man in Havana (1959) I Am Cuba (Soy Cuba) (1964) Cuba (1979) Havana (1990) The Mambo Kings (1992) Before Night Falls (2000) The Lost City (2005) Che (2008)

The Year 2000: Counting Down The Zeroes - Before Night Falls (Julian Schnabel)

Seeing Before Night Falls (2000) again for the first time in 8 years, I am struck by how timely it still is. With a new administration in the White House far more open in its foreign policy, Cuba is one country that is benefiting from the America's reengagement in the world of diplomacy. The Congressional Black Caucus even sent a few representatives this past week to sniff out its new leader, Raul Castro, and investigate if there is enough cause to consider building bridges between the U.S. and Cuba. As the son of Cuban immigrants myself, I've always had a somewhat more complicated view of the internal realities in Cuba. Director Julian Schnabel captures my own feelings on the subject and presents a story that is somehow both realistic and surreal, political and poetic; a story of a small, beautiful island on the decline under the weight of corruption, yet fiercely surviving because of the powerful will of its creatively spirited people. Writer Reinaldo Arenas (Javier Bardem) is a homosexual who comes of age at the same time as Fidel Castro's revolution comes to fruition. While Arenas at first supports the revolution because of the change it seems to bring, he quickly comes to realize that the new regime is far more oppressive than he first thought. Dissent is not welcome. And the creative community is targeted for its position in society, ideally suited in fomenting dissent among Cuba's free-spirited population. Homosexuals are also targeted for "rehabilitation", placing Arenas in the sights of the island's oppressors. We follow Arenas through his travails in Cuba's prison system, and his eventual exile from the island, ending up in New York where he lives in poverty until his death of AIDS. But Arena's will is never diminished by his troubles, and his story's arc serves as a metaphor for that of Cuba itself. Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), a renowned painter himself, has always specialized in telling the story of artists facing personal adversity, whether real (Basquiat) or imagined (Lou Reed's Berlin). This frees him to use creative license in depicting the story of Before Night Falls. For instance, Arenas isn't always the most reliable narrator. His romantic childhood as told to an interviewer late in the film flies in the face of the impoverished childhood we observed earlier in the movie. We begin to realize that Arenas' art - and in fact, Cuba's - thrives as a result of its existence under oppression. For whether its the poverty that ruled the island before the revolution, or the regime that ruled after, Arenas and his fellow Cubans used the resulting climate as an incentive to create transcendent paintings, literature, music and dance. There are details I relate to, having family that experienced the 1959 Revolution firsthand. In an early scene on the island, Arenas seems to be eating hard-boiled eggs and broccoli because that is all he can afford. We later see him eating the same in New York, where he has freedom of choice, but has perhaps become institutionalized into eating this after his years under Castro. Arenas is often being observed by shadowy government informants, a fact of life in Cuba. Once in New York, he extols the virtues of baby food by pointing out how simple it is to eat for a writer since it can be eaten right out of the jar, a tall tale used to cover up his embarrassment that it is also a cheap source of nutrition for the penniless author. Schnabel shows us how the Cuban people have survived through times of great political repression by continuing to indulge their creative spirit. And though there are many opposed to lifting America's economic embargo against Cuba, I believe that once it is lifted it will allow a subtle shift to occur. No longer will the United States be seen as aiding in the punishment of Cuba's economically depressed people. It will be seen as contributing to the dialogue among its artistic community, as democracy begins its slow invasion into the island and pushes new sources of ideas to the forefront of the Cuban consciousness. Only then will the Cuban people have a chance to escape the oppression of their daily lives that they have grown accustomed to. This post was first published at Film for the Soul for its continuing series on the best movies of the 2000s, Counting Down the Zeroes, on 4/14/09.

Director Steven Soderbergh on Che, Part 2

In Part 1 of this discussion, Steven Soderbergh spoke of the logistics of making and presenting his latest film, Che, starring Benicio Del Toro as revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. The full question and answer session covered a lot of ground. Here in Part 2, we conclude the discussion, as he gives us his take on the real-life Che and his ideology. On Soderbergh's impression of Che before he took on this project: "I think like most people in this country, I first heard Che’s name in history class at school, when you would get that sort of quick sketch of the history of Cuba. One of the great things about having this job is that, more often than not, I get paid to educate myself. A lot of the details of the Cuban Revolution, obviously, were not known to me. I thought that it was basically all Fidel. I didn’t know anything about these other groups that were trying to do the same thing. "My idea of Che was from those images of him, near the very end of the Cuban Revolution, with the beret and this cast on his arm. I had no idea about this transformation from being the medic to becoming a leader. I think the thing that I learned about him that was interesting to me was what a hard-ass he was. Talking to the people that fought alongside him, one of the doctors that he fought with also had a great quote. He said, 'You had to love him for free.' He just described how uncompromising he was. Most people wanted to be in Camilo [Cienfuegos]’s column, because he was fun. Che was just a very, very strict disciplinarian, and there was no moment where he sort of dropped the ideology, even in a certain personal one-on-one situation. A lot of people found him sort of cold and distant. So Benicio and I talked about that, a lot. That he really only reserved the warmer side of his personality for when he was in the doctor mode. When he was in the sort of leader-comandante mode, he was really, really harsh. I can understand why. The stakes are pretty high." On research regarding Che: "If you’ve read about Che at all, if you go to the bookstore, there’s an entire wall of Che material. There’s a lot to go through. We tried to get through all of it. We spoke to everyone who’s still around, and willing to talk, that fought with him, and knew him. And research can be… I think J.G. Ballard once said, 'Research is the refuge of the unimaginative.' There were times when I thought he was absolutely right. We were just overwhelmed with information. "As Jon Lee Anderson [author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life], who was one of our consultants, said at the press conference in Cannes, 'Look, there’s a billion Ches. He means something different to everyone.' And at a certain point, we, the core creative team, just had to decide what to use and what not to use. Frankly, a lot of it was by exclusion. I went in with more of an idea of what I didn’t want to do than what I wanted to do. At least that’s a start. I mean, you can begin to shape it a little bit. "I was trying as much as I could to avoid scenes that I thought were too typical. I didn’t want to have the scene where somebody says, 'Hey, why do they call you Che?' Or, you know, him in battle and his hat blows off, and he runs over and picks up a beret. I didn’t want to do that, so that helped, too. "We’d find these crazy little stories. One of our favorites we found very late in one of the memoirs written by the Acevedo brother, who we see at the end of the film driving the car to Havana. Che stops him and says, 'Turn around.' We found that story very late in the process. It’s such a perfect Che scene, a perfect expression of who he was, so I was always on the lookout for scenes like that." On Che as a political film: "I believe that any movie that accurately presents anyone’s life, or any situation; any movie that’s not a fantasy; that isn’t just a pure entertainment; any movie that makes an attempt to show things the way they are, is to me, by definition, a political film. Whether you’ve made a cop movie or whether it’s Erin Brockovich, any movie that attempts to look at things in a straightforward fashion, and not polish it up, I think you could argue, is a political film. Obviously, these are political films, in the sense that there’s an ideology that’s being expressed. But that isn’t what drew me to it, ultimately. "I’m obviously not a communist. As I said to someone a couple of weeks ago, there isn’t even a place for me in the society that Che was trying to build, literally. In Man and Socialism in Cuba [sic], he says, 'There is no great artist who is also a true revolutionary.' He didn’t have a lot of use for the kind of stuff that I do, and I think personally, he probably would have hated me. But again, I can still look at him, and find him one of the most compelling political figures of the last century. I do think the ideas are fascinating to debate, and to look at in the context of the world we live in now. "One of the things that was interesting to me about the Cuban Revolution is that is the last time you’re ever going to see a revolution like that, fought. That’s what I call the last 'analog' revolution. Today, that would have been over in two weeks. Technology just makes it impossible to fight a revolution the way they did, as we see even seven or eight years later. That doesn’t mean revolutions don’t happen. I’m just saying I don’t think they’re ever going to happen that way again. That was kind of interesting, to make a period film about a type of war that can’t really be fought anymore." On Cuba today: "As far as what’s going on in Cuba now, I think that the relations between [our] two countries… I don’t think we’ve been very smart in how we’ve played this. I think there are other moves that could have been made, on our part, to make a dialogue more inevitable. I’m still stunned that this embargo is still going on. It’s just shocking. It doesn’t seem to make much sense. It’s my personal belief that if you wanted the embargo to end, and you wanted to see some change there, you should flood them… There’s nothing like exposure to new ideas to get people thinking about new ideas. So in fact, our policy is the opposite of what I would be doing." On Che's ideology: "I don’t think the economic policy that flows from Marxist-Leninist doctrine works. I don’t think it works. That’s a core principle of his belief system... I don’t think you can build an economy that’s going to function when you base it on this ideology. It’s an ideology that worked in a very specific place, in a very specific time, in an industrialized situation. Mostly it works on paper because as soon as you start adding human beings to it, it falls apart. Do I support his ideas when a system is in place in which profit is only possible through the exploitation of the weak and the poor? I’d say, yeah, I want to see that eradicated. But his methodology, and his economic belief system, I don’t think work." Click here for Part 1 of Soderbergh's discussion. Still provided courtesy of Getty Images.

Director Steven Soderbergh on Che, Part 1

After the recent press screening for Che, starring Benicio Del Toro as revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, director Steven Soderbergh gave a captivating discussion of the film. This was no easy feat given that we had started seeing the film at 10 a.m. and hadn't finished it until about 3 p.m. with only one 20-minute break for lunch. His discussion was so interesting, I've left most of it intact. Today, I present Part 1 in which he discusses the logistics of making and presenting the film. On what interested Soderbergh about the story of Che: "The making of this film was so extended. We started talking about it when we were working on Traffic… Producer Laura Bickford, Benicio and I started talking about it. That’s eight years ago. And what I found… why you said yes... That reason changes… during the course of the film. "It really wasn’t until the films were finished… around the time of Cannes, that I realized what they were really about to me, or what they really meant to me, was this issue of engagement versus disengagement. That every day in our lives, on a personal level, on a community level, on a local level, we are making a decision about how engaged we want to be, or how disengaged we want to be. Do we want to participate, or do we want to observe? I realized that what was compelling about Che to me was once he made the decision to engage, that he engaged fully... You have to remember he also was an atheist. A lot of times when you have figures that can sustain this sort of level of engagement, they attribute it to a higher power, or there’s some other element that they can call upon. He didn’t have that, or at least he expressed it in terms of only being concerned with what people are doing to each other here." On financing Che: "All I can say is I’m glad I’m not looking for money right now. It was complicated, but we knew it would be. I mean look at it. It took a couple of people sticking it out for a long time, and just believing in the ultimate commercial viability of the brand of Che. That’s the weird paradox about this guy. "Here is the icon of Marxist-Leninist economic ideology, and you stick his face on anything and it sells. It’s a very weird situation. And I believed if we could just get this thing made, that ultimately it would find enough of an audience to get its money back. The amount of money we had dictated a pretty strict shooting schedule. "We had 39 days for each part. To put that into context of something else that I’ve made, that’s fewer days than it took me to shoot the first Ocean’s film. So we had to move very, very quickly. There are aspects of that I really think are great. And there are aspects of it that are difficult to accept. But we didn’t have any choice. "Wild Bunch, which is a French sales and production company, and Telecinco, which is a very large Spanish television and film production company, both came in. Wild Bunch has been there since the beginning, and Telecinco came in a couple of years ago." On the logistics of shooting Che: "We had a ten day gap between the two shoots. We shot part two first, and we shot it backwards, so it was confusing. As far as casting goes, look, I was trying to stack that thing with as many well known people as I could. I put a lot of calls out. I think a lot of people see the movie, and don’t even know it’s Matt [Damon, as the American missionary]. I wasn’t really worried that it would pull them out of the film, because they were supporting characters. They didn’t carry the film on their shoulders. I was absolutely looking to cast it up. I had to. "Unfortunately, as an American, I’m not allowed to shoot in Cuba. We made many trips there that were licensed through the state department. So at least we got a look at where events actually took place. Bolivia, we were able to shoot in. Part one was shot in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and New York, obviously. Part two was Bolivia and Spain. We shot all over Spain in some very remote areas. As it turned out we had somebody working on the film who grew up in La Higuera [the Bolivian town where Che was executed]. We built that La Higuera set in the top of this mountain in the middle of nowhere. When he came to the set he was stunned. He said, 'It’s exactly where I remember growing up.' Our production designer, Antxón Gómez, did a really great job." On the aesthetic differences between the first part, The Argentine, and the second part, Guerilla: "I was trying to find a very simple way to create a different sensation for each part. The wider frame, what I consider to be a more 'Hollywood' format, I felt was more appropriate for the Cuban Revolution because it really had the trajectory of the classic Hollywood war film. 82 guys start out. Then they’re down to 12. It looks like they’re not going to make it, but they do. Everything that needs to go right goes right. They get all the breaks, and I obviously wanted it to have more of a traditional Hollywood aesthetic, including the music and the cutting. "In the second film, I want it to feel less settled where you felt that the outcome was not clear, even from the beginning. So I use the 1:85 frame which is a little less wide, and went all handheld. Gradually through the second part, the camera finally starts to get closer to him, until he’s in the schoolroom, and we end with the biggest shot of him in the film, which is the last time we see him. It seemed to me a very simple way of sending a different message to the audience about what each part was going to feel like." On the English dialogue voice-over used over Del Toro's Spanish dialogue in the New York sequence: "It seemed organic to me, because we used the actor who was his interpreter following him around in New York. It seemed appropriate to use that idea to continue hearing this guy translate Che. More importantly, there are sequences in which he is speaking, in which I do not want an English speaking audience to be reading. I want them to be able to watch the images, and hear the words, without having to read, especially during, for instance, the Battle of El Uvero, where he does the Tolstoy quote. I’ve seen the film with English subtitles. You cannot watch both things at the same time. You just can’t. That’s the reason I did it. I felt by bringing in his New York interpreter at least it was in line with this conceit of the interview, or the idea of this series of interviews that Che is doing throughout his New York trip." On Che's time in Africa, which is not covered in the film: "If this film makes a $100 million, I’ll make the third one [tongue-in-cheek]. We talked about it. The story of Che in the Congo is absolutely fascinating. We actually sort of sketched an idea for a very small film that would take place in the Congo, and in Prague, where he went after fighting in the Congo, to lick his wounds, and write a very self-critical book on what happened in the Congo. The answer is that we didn’t have enough money to do that. Also, it’s a fascinating chapter, but it didn’t really fall into the kind of bookend idea that we ended up with. "When the film was first being developed, it was only about Bolivia. And it was a little more than halfway through the process of working on that, that we decided Bolivia doesn’t really make a lot of sense unless you’ve seen Cuba. Because you keep wondering, why doesn’t he quit? It’s going so badly. You have to see what happened in Cuba to understand why he still thought they were going to pull this off. "So it grew from one manageable film into one giant film. Overseas it’s going to be split in half. So we just couldn’t fit that in. We read all that material, and in fact, there was a quote from one of the African rebels that fought with Che, Victor Dreke, which was fantastic. He said, 'Che would rather face a bullet than reality.' And that’s a perfect description of him I think." On the 268-minute roadshow version vs. two films: 'Here’s our plan, currently. Whenever the movie enters a specific market, New York, L.A., San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, that for one week, on one screen, you can see it like you just saw it. There will be a specially printed program with the credits for both films. We’re referring to that as the roadshow version, the way they used to do in the fifties and sixties. "Yeah, sure, I think that’s the ideal way to see it. It’s a lot to ask of someone to throw away an entire day. I guess my only argument is, cinematically, we’re making a demand on the audience that’s very similar to the demands that Che made on the people around him [tongue-in-cheek]. It’s a big commitment, and it requires a certain kind of personality to want to experience it like that. It was certainly designed that way, so that you could get the full effect of the kind of call and response between the two parts." [Update]: Part 2 of Soderbergh's discussion has been posted. Still provided courtesy of Brooklyn Bridge.

Movie Review: Che - Soderbergh's Take on Guevara Is Surprisingly Even-Handed

by Tony Dayoub



In the 8 days since I saw Che, my already high estimation at the sheer audacity of its director, Steven Soderbergh, has only grown. To take such a polarizing leftist figure, and dedicate over 4 hours of Spanish language film to him, despite its audience being primarily made up of a populace that is slightly right of center, is courageous enough. But to do it in such a way that experiments with traditional narrative structure, as he does in Che is bold and not just a little quixotic given the state of cinema today. The version premiering at the New York Film Festival tonight is the “roadshow” version. That is to say, it’s a 268-minute version with a 30 minute intermission between the two parts that make up the film, The Argentine, and Guerilla.


The first part, The Argentine, follows Ernesto “Che” Guevara (Benicio Del Toro), the famous Argentinean Marxist, as he rises up the ranks of Fidel Castro’s revolutionary army in Cuba to eventually lead his own column of troops. The film climaxes with the decisive Battle of Santa Clara, which Che’s troops won, and led to the flight of Cuba’s president, Fulgencio Batista, in January 1959. This portion of the film is told in color, with black-and-white flash-forwards to Che’s December 1964 visit to the United Nations framing the central story.

The Argentine is presented in anamorphic widescreen, with smooth Steadicam tracking shots. If you pair that with the heroic depiction of Guevara and the Cuban revolutionary cause, the film comes off as a very traditional Hollywood war epic. As a viewer, you are placed in the position of rooting for Che, and if you were to only see this part of the film, an objective viewer could find it to be biased on the side of Guevara’s legendary status as a countercultural hero.

Soderbergh paints a quite admirable picture of Che as a political leader and warrior. Guevara, a doctor by profession, is at the fore when it comes to bringing basic healthcare to the poor guajiros living in Cuba’s rural areas. He is dedicated in his pursuit of deserting soldiers who steal and rape in the name of Fidel’s revolution.

The second part, Guerilla, is a very different experience from the first. It follows Guevara in his abortive attempt to foment revolution in Bolivia in 1967. Where the first part has a mainstream flavor, a la Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Guerilla has a more circumspect and abstract view towards Che and his cause. Guerilla is shot mostly with handheld, grainy Super 16mm. Alberto Iglesias’s melodic inspirational music of the first part gives way to a darker minimalist tonal score for the second part. Tonally, it has more in common with the subjective nightmare depicted in Apocalypse Now (1979), where the greater objective of the mission is sacrificed to the basic directive of simply surviving.

Guevara is rarely shown to speak, and in fact, the viewer spends less time with him than looking at him through the eyes of his comrades. Hoping to duplicate his success in Cuba, he tries following the same rulebook in his warfare. But infighting and disloyalty within his ranks, and from the local leader of Bolivia’s Communist Party, Mario Monje (Lou Diamond Phillips), contribute to the breakdown of his organization. Where in The Argentine, Che’s well-reported asthmatic condition is treated as an interesting oddity in the leader, in Guerilla its continued resurgence throughout his campaign is a metaphor for the wheezing implosion of his cause.

Midway through Che, I, a first-generation Cuban American, was disappointed that so much of Guevara’s darker aspects had been ignored. While I believe the Cuban Right is too quick to ascribe villainous qualities to what I think was simply a misguided idealist, I am constantly disappointed to see Che Guevara idolized by the entire world despite some of the atrocities he committed in the name of the Cuban revolution. I was fearful that Soderbergh would present the same heroic perspective on Guevara that previous stories have. The film even looked to be living up to my expectations at the intermission, when only the first half of the film had been screened. But after seeing the second part of the film, I find that my fears regarding this were unfounded. Soderbergh portrays a complex Che in line with what I feel the individual to honestly be, and Del Toro is terrific in the part.

Seeing the film’s two parts presented together helps the film attain what Soderbergh refers to, in the succeeding press conference, as a "call and response" quality. Che's persistence in the lost cause of the Bolivian revolution is rationalized by his near-impossible success in the Cuban revolution. Filmically, to show the "darker" Che and his executions of dissidents, homosexuals, etc. would have been to tip one's hand storywise as to the downward stubborn, and isolated, spiral Che travels on in Guerilla. Besides, like in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), there are enough references to the darker side of this "hero" to present what I thought was a balanced picture. Indeed, there are multiple references to the executions at La Cabaña after the Castro’s victory, primarily in scenes depicting protesters during his UN visit. And his famous homophobia is also referred to, when he calls a deserter no better than a maricón, (the English equivalent would be the expletive, faggot).

But I have to disagree with Soderbergh on this format for presenting the film. I think the film plays better, as two films not one. The films are so stylistically distinct from each other, one classic, the other more formal, and have very few characters that carry over from each other for more than a few minutes. Maybe with their recent rerelease it's all The Godfather (1972) films on my mind of late, but The Argentine reminds me of Coppola's first part, building up Che the "hero", with Guerilla reminding me of Coppola's second part, tearing Che down to some extent, while also serving to deepen the experience and story of the previous part.

Soderbergh hopes to release the film in each major market in its entirety for at least a week, before breaking it up into the two separate films, The Argentine and Guerilla, to be released in January and March, respectively. I don't have enough confidence in the average moviegoer to expect them to commit to a 4-hour presentation. Like in the two parts of The Godfather, what I saw was a very commercial first half, and a very "arthouse" second half. As edited, I feel there is a structural problem with making it one film. The first half has a "call and response" of its own with the UN framing sequence. That is one editorial decision that is not stylistically duplicated in the second half. Are there any other long-form films out there with a similar conundrum that I'm forgetting?

I like the long-form, don't get me wrong, and wish Che could be shown that way. But the reality is that I think it will reach a greater audience the other way. And besides both films being bold and exemplary of Soderbergh's abilities, I think The Argentine could have a real shot at success if marketed correctly, which might lead to interest in the more difficult Guerilla.

Che is playing at the 46th New York Film Festival, at 6:00 p.m. tonight only, at the Ziegfeld Theatre, 141 West 54th Street, New York, NY 10019, (212) 307-1862

This screening will include a 30-minute intermission.

Photo Credit: IFC Films / Wild Bunch / Film Society of Lincoln Center

Tribeca Film Festival 5/1 (UPDATED) - Angelica Blandon Lights up Paraíso Travel

by Tony Dayoub


11:47 am - Waited for my table at Asiáte (80 Columbus Cir., New York, NY, 10023, 212-805-8881), one of the very best restaurants in Manhattan, and definitely the best view. It sits on the 35th floor of the Mandarin Oriental on Columbus Circle, with floor to ceiling windows that overlook Central Park. As I wait, I see comedian Richard Lewis checking out of the hotel.

11:55am - The maitre'd invites me in to the restaurant. The crisp and clean dining room, separated from the kitchen by a wall of wine bottles, is decorated in soothing beiges and whites. The service is impeccable, with my waiter being knowledgeable about each of the plates I ask for. For the first course, I have a Red Snapper sashimi served over daikon and an avocado mousse cucumber melon gelée, in a mustard ponzu vinaigrette. It was so tasty that I was lamenting the fact that the portion was only enough for a taste. But happily, this was helpful in keeping me open to the more generous main course, Suckling Pig prepared three ways, with braised kale in a sweet plantains smoked ginger jus. The pork is prepared as a croquette (which was not heavily fried), roasted (with its crispy skin still attached), and finally, as a broiled tenderloin, which was the most rewarding.

I follow my waiter's recommendation and get the Chocolate Fondant for dessert. It is the perfect end to the meal, essentially a molten chocolate souffle, arriving in a tall cup, served next to a bowl of marscapone sorbet, with raspberry granité (shaved ice). And the biggest surprise, for a restaurant of its kind it was not too expensive. Very heartily recommended!

4:20 pm - I arrive to the Village East Cinemas to watch Celia the Queen, the new documentary by Joe Cardona and Mario de Varona. I anticipated this one with some interest, as the subject is very near and dear to me, a Miami-born Cuban. It covers the rise of the singer, Cuban guarachera Celia Cruz, starting in Cuba, then New York, and eventually Miami. This has been the only film I've arrived at so far where I've had to wait in such a long line.

The doc doesn't disappoint. It's biggest strength is the charismatic Cruz herself, and her music, of course. There is also very interesting footage of her time with Johnny Pacheco, Willie Colón, and the rest of the Fania All-Stars, the famous 70's Nuyorican conjunto, which is the unspoken heart of the film. The only drawbacks, which are easily remedied, are some unnecessary bridging sequences starring Christina Christian (formerly of American Idol) as a young Celia Cruz. I'd lose them, because the material is strong enough to stand on its own.

With fascinating interviewees, from here in the US (including David Byrne, Wyclef Jean, and Quincy Jones) to far-flung Tokyo, Celia the Queen proves that "Azucar!" can be found anywhere in the world.

6:45 pm - Paraíso Travel (pictured at top) is an accomplished Colombian film by Simon Brand, starring Ana de la Reguera (Nacho Libre), John Leguizamo (Love in the Time of Cholera), and two bright relative unknowns, Aldemar Correa and Angelica Blandon. Correa and Blandon play a young Colombian couple that become separated after arriving illegally in New York. As we follow Correa's Marlon through his travails in New York, and his search for his girlfriend, Blandon's Reina, flashbacks inform us of their painful, laborious, journey to get here after visiting the titular travel agency.

Correa is sympathetic as Marlon, haunted by the ghost of his long-missing girlfriend in a way that no one seems to understand. No one save for us, who see the sorrowful experience they went to in order to reach the U.S., only to be separated hours after their arrival. The fact that Marlon was perfectly content in Colombia until Reina convinced him to join her adds to the tragedy of their separation.

The real discovery is Angelica Blandon, whose lusty Reina is so alluring and vivacious, that her absence is deeply felt whenever the story switches to the present. Blandon is honest in her portrayal, showing Reina's desperation to come to New York to us, if not to Marlon. She is unafraid to reveal Reina's more manipulative moments, moments which could easily turn us against the character, except somehow, we are just as in love with the missing girl as Marlon is. Sly and seductive, Blandon is an actress I predict will become a big star, both in her native country and ours.

Paraíso Travel is one not to miss, and probably the best film I've seen at the festival.