I Am Cuba
Encyclopedia
I am Cuba is a 1964
Soviet
-Cuba
n film directed by Mikhail Kalatozov
at Mosfilm
. The film was not received well by either the Russian or Cuban public and was almost completely forgotten until it was re-discovered by filmmakers in the United States
thirty years later. The acrobatic tracking shot
s and idiosyncratic mise en scene
prompted Hollywood directors like Martin Scorsese
to begin a campaign to restore the film in the early 1990s.
The film is shot in black and white, sometimes using infrared film
obtained from the Soviet military to exaggerate contrast (making trees and sugar cane almost white, and skies very dark but still obviously sunny). Most shots are in extreme wide-angle and the camera passes very close to its subjects, whilst still largely avoiding having those subjects ever look directly at the camera.
overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista
, the socialist Castro
government, isolated by the United States
after the latter broke diplomatic and trade relations in 1961, turned to the USSR for film partnerships. The Soviet government, interested in promoting international socialism
, agreed to finance a film about the Cuban revolution.
The director
was given considerable freedom to complete the work, and was given much help from both the Soviet and Cuban governments. They made use of innovative filming techniques, such as coating a watertight camera's lens with a special submarine
periscope cleaner, so the camera could be submerged and lifted out of the water without any drops on the lens or film. At one point, more than a thousand Cuban soldiers were moved to a remote location to shoot one scene — this despite the then-ongoing Cuban missile crisis
.
In another scene, the camera follows a flag over a body, held high on a stetcher, along a crowded street. Then it stops and slowly moves upwards for at least four storeys until it is filming the flagged body from above a building. Without stopping it then starts tracking
sideways and enters through a window into a cigar factory, then goes straight towards a rear window where the cigar workers are watching the procession. The camera finally passes through the window and appears to float along over the middle of the street between the buildings. These shots were accomplished by the camera operator having the camera attached to his vest - like an early, crude version of a Steadicam
- and the camera operator also wearing a vest with hooks on the back. An assembly line of technicians would hook and unhook the operator's vest to various pulleys and cables that spanned floors and building roof tops.
Even though it had such great support, the movie was given a cold reaction by audiences. In Havana
it was criticized for showing a rather stereotypical
view of Cubans, whilst in Moscow
it was considered naïve, not revolutionary
enough, even too sympathetic to the lives of the bourgeois pre-Fidel classes. Also, upon its original release, the movie never reached Western countries largely because it was a communist production.
When the USSR collapsed
in the early 1990s, I Am Cuba was virtually unknown. In 1992, Cuban novelist Guillermo Cabrera Infante
, the guest co-director of the Telluride Film Festival
, screened a print of the film at the festival as part of a retrospective on Kalatazov. The San Francisco International Film Festival
screened the film in 1993. Shortly after the festival, three film professionals who had screened I Am Cuba at the San Francisco screening contacted friends at Milestone Films
in New York. The tiny film distributor had released several "lost" or neglected older films (as it continues to do). Milestone screened a slightly blurry unsubtitled VHS tape of the film and then went about acquiring the distribution rights from Mosfilm in Russia. In 1994, a friend invited Martin Scorsese
to a private screening. Scorsese was amazed by the film, and when Milestone approached him to lend his name to the company's release of the film, he was happy and enthusiastic to do so. Milestone's release was also co-presented by another fan of I Am Cuba, director Francis Ford Coppola
. Milestone's release opened at New York's Film Forum
in March 1995. For the tenth anniversary of the film, Milestone debuted a new 35mm restoration of I am Cuba without the Russian overdubbing in September 2005.
The movie consists of four distinct short stories
about the suffering of the Cuban people and their reactions, varying from passive amazement in the first, to a guerrilla
march in the last. Between the stories, a female narrator
(credited "The Voice Of Cuba") says such things as, "I am Cuba, the Cuba of the casino
s, but also of the people."
The first story (centered on the character Maria) shows the destitute Cuban masses contrasted with the splendor in the American-run gambling casinos. Maria lives in a shanty-town on the edge of Havana and hopes to get married to her fruit-seller boyfriend, Rene. She takes a job as a dancer in one of the bars filled with rich Americans. At these bars she is known as Betty. One night, one of the rich gentlemen at the club asks her if he can see where she lives. She takes him to her small hovel where she reluctantly undresses. The next morning he tosses her a few dollars and takes her most prized possession, her crucifix necklace. As he is about to leave Rene walks in, and sees his ashamed fiance. The American callously says, "Bye Betty!" as he makes his exit.
The next story is about a farmer, Pedro, who just raised his biggest crop of sugar yet. However, his landlord rides up to the farm as he is harvesting his crops and tells him that he has sold the land that Pedro lives on to United Fruit, and Pedro and his family must leave immediately. Pedro asks what about the crops? The landowner says, "you raised them on my land. I'll let you keep the sweat you put into growing them, but that is all," and he rides off. Pedro lies to his children and tells them everything is fine. He gives them all the money he has and tells them to have a fun day in town. After they leave, he lights all of his crops and house on fire. He then dies from the smoke inhalation.
The third story describes the suppression of rebellious students led by a character named Enrique at Havana University (featuring one of the longest camera shots). Enrique is frustrated with the small efforts of the group and wants to do something drastic. He goes off on his own planning on shooting Batista himself, however when he gets him in his sights, he sees that the president is surrounded by his young children, and Enrique cannot bring himself to pull the trigger. While he is away, his friends are throwing flyers out to a crowd. They are intercepted by police officers who arrest them and shoot some of them. Later on Enrique is leading a protest at the university. More police are there to break up the crowd with fire hoses. Enrique is shot after the demonstration becomes a riot. At the end, his body is carried through the streets, he has become a martyr to his cause.
The final part shows how Mariano, a typical farmer, ends up joining the rebels in the Sierra Maestra
Mountains, ultimately leading to triumphal march into Havana
to proclaim the revolution.
At worst the interpretation of the American view on Cuba in the film is "indifference".
1964 in film
The year 1964 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 29 - The film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is released....
Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
-Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n film directed by Mikhail Kalatozov
Mikhail Kalatozov
Mikhail Kalatozov born Mikheil Kalatozishvili was a Georgian/Russian film director. Born in Tiflis , he studied economics before starting his film career as an actor and later cinematographer....
at Mosfilm
Mosfilm
Mosfilm is a film studio, which is often described as the largest and oldest in Russia and in Europe. Its output includes most of the more widely-acclaimed Soviet films, ranging from works by Tarkovsky and Eisenstein , to Red Westerns, to the Akira Kurosawa co-production and the epic Война и Мир...
. The film was not received well by either the Russian or Cuban public and was almost completely forgotten until it was re-discovered by filmmakers in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
thirty years later. The acrobatic tracking shot
Tracking shot
In motion picture terminology, a tracking shot is a segment in which the camera is mounted on a camera dolly, a wheeled platform that is pushed on rails while the picture is being taken...
s and idiosyncratic mise en scene
Mise en scène
Mise-en-scène is an expression used to describe the design aspects of a theatre or film production, which essentially means "visual theme" or "telling a story"—both in visually artful ways through storyboarding, cinematography and stage design, and in poetically artful ways through direction...
prompted Hollywood directors like Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
to begin a campaign to restore the film in the early 1990s.
The film is shot in black and white, sometimes using infrared film
Infrared photography
In infrared photography, the film or image sensor used is sensitive to infrared light. The part of the spectrum used is referred to as near-infrared to distinguish it from far-infrared, which is the domain of thermal imaging. Wavelengths used for photography range from about 700 nm to about...
obtained from the Soviet military to exaggerate contrast (making trees and sugar cane almost white, and skies very dark but still obviously sunny). Most shots are in extreme wide-angle and the camera passes very close to its subjects, whilst still largely avoiding having those subjects ever look directly at the camera.
History
Shortly after the 1959 Cuban revolutionCuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...
overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista
Fulgencio Batista
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar was the United States-aligned Cuban President, dictator and military leader who served as the leader of Cuba from 1933 to 1944 and from 1952 to 1959, before being overthrown as a result of the Cuban Revolution....
, the socialist Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
government, isolated by the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
after the latter broke diplomatic and trade relations in 1961, turned to the USSR for film partnerships. The Soviet government, interested in promoting international socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, agreed to finance a film about the Cuban revolution.
The director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
was given considerable freedom to complete the work, and was given much help from both the Soviet and Cuban governments. They made use of innovative filming techniques, such as coating a watertight camera's lens with a special submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
periscope cleaner, so the camera could be submerged and lifted out of the water without any drops on the lens or film. At one point, more than a thousand Cuban soldiers were moved to a remote location to shoot one scene — this despite the then-ongoing Cuban missile crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
.
In another scene, the camera follows a flag over a body, held high on a stetcher, along a crowded street. Then it stops and slowly moves upwards for at least four storeys until it is filming the flagged body from above a building. Without stopping it then starts tracking
Tracking
Tracking can refer to:*Tracking , separating children into different classes according to their academic ability*Tracking, in computer graphics, a vital part of match moving...
sideways and enters through a window into a cigar factory, then goes straight towards a rear window where the cigar workers are watching the procession. The camera finally passes through the window and appears to float along over the middle of the street between the buildings. These shots were accomplished by the camera operator having the camera attached to his vest - like an early, crude version of a Steadicam
Steadicam
A Steadicam is a stabilizing mount for a motion picture camera that mechanically isolates it from the operator's movement, allowing a smooth shot even when moving quickly over an uneven surface...
- and the camera operator also wearing a vest with hooks on the back. An assembly line of technicians would hook and unhook the operator's vest to various pulleys and cables that spanned floors and building roof tops.
Even though it had such great support, the movie was given a cold reaction by audiences. In Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
it was criticized for showing a rather stereotypical
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
view of Cubans, whilst in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
it was considered naïve, not revolutionary
Revolutionary
A revolutionary is a person who either actively participates in, or advocates revolution. Also, when used as an adjective, the term revolutionary refers to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.-Definition:...
enough, even too sympathetic to the lives of the bourgeois pre-Fidel classes. Also, upon its original release, the movie never reached Western countries largely because it was a communist production.
When the USSR collapsed
History of the Soviet Union (1985-1991)
The history of the Soviet Union from 1982 through 1991, spans the period from Leonid Brezhnev's death and funeral until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Due to the years of Soviet military buildup at the expense of domestic development, economic growth stagnated...
in the early 1990s, I Am Cuba was virtually unknown. In 1992, Cuban novelist Guillermo Cabrera Infante
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
Guillermo Cabrera Infante was a Cuban novelist, essayist, translator, and critic; in the 1950s he used the pseudonym G. Caín.A one-time supporter of the Castro regime, Cabrera Infante went into exile to London in 1965...
, the guest co-director of the Telluride Film Festival
Telluride Film Festival
The Telluride Film Festival was started in 1974 by Bill and Stella Pence, Tom Luddy and Jim Card in the town of Telluride, Colorado, United States. It is operated by the National Film Preserve....
, screened a print of the film at the festival as part of a retrospective on Kalatazov. The San Francisco International Film Festival
San Francisco International Film Festival
San Francisco International Film Festival is the oldest continuously running film festival in the Americas. Organized by the San Francisco Film Society, the International is held each spring for two weeks, presenting an average of 150 films from over 50 countries...
screened the film in 1993. Shortly after the festival, three film professionals who had screened I Am Cuba at the San Francisco screening contacted friends at Milestone Films
Milestone Films
Milestone Films is an independent company, founded in 1990 in the United States by Dennis Doros and Amy Heller, dedicated to researching and distributing quality cinematographic material from around the world, including silent movies, films of the postwar foreign film renaissance, to contemporary...
in New York. The tiny film distributor had released several "lost" or neglected older films (as it continues to do). Milestone screened a slightly blurry unsubtitled VHS tape of the film and then went about acquiring the distribution rights from Mosfilm in Russia. In 1994, a friend invited Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
to a private screening. Scorsese was amazed by the film, and when Milestone approached him to lend his name to the company's release of the film, he was happy and enthusiastic to do so. Milestone's release was also co-presented by another fan of I Am Cuba, director Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
. Milestone's release opened at New York's Film Forum
Film Forum
Film Forum is a nonprofit movie theater located at 209 West Houston Street in New York City. It began in 1970 as an alternative screening space for independent films, with 50 folding chairs, one projector and a US$19,000 annual budget. Karen Cooper became director in 1972 and under her leadership,...
in March 1995. For the tenth anniversary of the film, Milestone debuted a new 35mm restoration of I am Cuba without the Russian overdubbing in September 2005.
Story
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
about the suffering of the Cuban people and their reactions, varying from passive amazement in the first, to a guerrilla
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
march in the last. Between the stories, a female narrator
Narrator
A narrator is, within any story , the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for...
(credited "The Voice Of Cuba") says such things as, "I am Cuba, the Cuba of the casino
Casino
In modern English, a casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions...
s, but also of the people."
The first story (centered on the character Maria) shows the destitute Cuban masses contrasted with the splendor in the American-run gambling casinos. Maria lives in a shanty-town on the edge of Havana and hopes to get married to her fruit-seller boyfriend, Rene. She takes a job as a dancer in one of the bars filled with rich Americans. At these bars she is known as Betty. One night, one of the rich gentlemen at the club asks her if he can see where she lives. She takes him to her small hovel where she reluctantly undresses. The next morning he tosses her a few dollars and takes her most prized possession, her crucifix necklace. As he is about to leave Rene walks in, and sees his ashamed fiance. The American callously says, "Bye Betty!" as he makes his exit.
The next story is about a farmer, Pedro, who just raised his biggest crop of sugar yet. However, his landlord rides up to the farm as he is harvesting his crops and tells him that he has sold the land that Pedro lives on to United Fruit, and Pedro and his family must leave immediately. Pedro asks what about the crops? The landowner says, "you raised them on my land. I'll let you keep the sweat you put into growing them, but that is all," and he rides off. Pedro lies to his children and tells them everything is fine. He gives them all the money he has and tells them to have a fun day in town. After they leave, he lights all of his crops and house on fire. He then dies from the smoke inhalation.
The third story describes the suppression of rebellious students led by a character named Enrique at Havana University (featuring one of the longest camera shots). Enrique is frustrated with the small efforts of the group and wants to do something drastic. He goes off on his own planning on shooting Batista himself, however when he gets him in his sights, he sees that the president is surrounded by his young children, and Enrique cannot bring himself to pull the trigger. While he is away, his friends are throwing flyers out to a crowd. They are intercepted by police officers who arrest them and shoot some of them. Later on Enrique is leading a protest at the university. More police are there to break up the crowd with fire hoses. Enrique is shot after the demonstration becomes a riot. At the end, his body is carried through the streets, he has become a martyr to his cause.
The final part shows how Mariano, a typical farmer, ends up joining the rebels in the Sierra Maestra
Sierra Maestra
Sierra Maestra is a mountain range that runs westward across the south of the old Oriente Province from what is now Guantánamo Province to Niquero in southeast Cuba, rising abruptly from the coast. Some view it as a series of connecting ranges , which joins with others extending to the west...
Mountains, ultimately leading to triumphal march into Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
to proclaim the revolution.
American Presence in the Film
Whilst there is a degree of American presence throughout the film, despite the Communist roots of the film, it is hard in any way to classify the portrayal as "anti-American". Most such appearance may even be classified as "accidental", such as the continuous presence of American built cars. Scripted presence is represented by:- Story 1 - The clientele in the nightclub are all American. It is an American who takes Maria home to her shack and pays to deflower her and gives her extra money to cover taking her crucifix (clearly her only treasured possession). Unlike his coworkers, the American wears a beard (to indicate that he's "liberal" circa 1964) and appears more sympathetic and understanding.
- Story 2 - Whilst there is little direct American presence here, the company buying the farmer's land is United Fruit, but this is done through a ruthless Cuban landowner. Strangely any negativity implied to American companies is counter-acted by his son and daughter at the same time going to a local open-air bar and specifically ordering two Coca Colas, and then listening to an American-made juke-box. However, it could be argued that the children are being "alienated from the tools of production": while harvesting sugar cane they drink the juice but then capitalists expropriate their father's land and sells the children what was formerly free.
- Story 3 - In that this story starts with a group over rather over-boisterous American sailors on leave, this story looks as if it may be going to end differently. The sailors surround a teenage girl and then pursue her down the street. She is rescued by a student, the focal figure of the third story. However any potential battle is defused and the sailors "give him a break" and continue on their way singing. However, it could be argued that the sailors are cowards and that the film is saying that Cuba merely needs to stand up to the USA.
- Story 4 - Arguably this has no American presence. However, when Mariano joins the rebels the Castro figure explains that they do not "sow Springfields", referring clearly to the American Springfield rifleSpringfield RifleThe term Springfield Rifle may refer to any one of several types of small arms produced by the Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts, for the United States armed forces....
. Ironically his gun appears to be an ex-service U.S. M1 GarandM1 GarandThe M1 Garand , was the first semi-automatic rifle to be generally issued to the infantry of any nation. Called "the greatest battle implement ever devised" by General George S...
rather than a Springfield. There is a mix of Russian and American weapons in the final scene of marching rebels.
At worst the interpretation of the American view on Cuba in the film is "indifference".