--- shempmcgurk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Peter
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
> >
> > Having lived in south florida for 13 years and
> having
> > gone to graduate school with many second
> generation
> > Cubans who fled Fidel's revolution and having
> > professors who taught in cuba before and after the
> > revolution I have learned quite a bit about Che
> and
> > Fidel and their revolution. I am in full agreement
> > with Mr. Fontova. Fidel ruined that country.
>
>
>
> Peter, do you think that most Americans -- other
> than Cuban-
> Americans -- have the wrong impression about Cuba
> and Castro? That
> is, that it is some sort of socialist paradise?
No, of course not. However, within some liberal or,
more accurately, radical circles, the revolution in
Cuba is viewed as some sort of wonderful change that
brought about the "liberation" of the masses. But I
have to admit that I only found this perspective in my
socialist sister and her friends, and in graduate
school in the late 70's and early 80's at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. Marxism, socialism
like anything else can look great on paper, but the
actual practice can get real messy and corrupt as it
did in Cuba.
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> > --- shempmcgurk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > > Movie Critics Aghast at Andy Garcia's The Lost
> City
> > > by Humberto Fontova
> > >
> > >
> > > Andy Garcia blew it big-time with his movie The
> Lost
> > > City. He blew
> > > it with the mainstream critics that is. Almost
> > > unanimously, they're
> > > ripping a movie 16 years in the making. In this
> > > engaging drama of a
> > > middle-class Cuban family crumbling during free
> > > Havana's last days,
> > > in which he both directs and stars, Garcia
> insisted
> > > on depicting
> > > some historical truth about Cuba � a grotesque
> and
> > > unforgivable
> > > blunder in his industry. He's now paying the
> price.
> > >
> > > Earlier, many film festivals refused to screen
> it.
> > > Now many Latin
> > > American countries refuse to show it. The film's
> > > offenses are many
> > > and varied. Most unforgivable of all, Che
> Guevara is
> > > shown killing
> > > people in cold blood. Who ever heard of such
> > > nonsense? And just
> > > where does this uppity Andy Garcia get the
> > > effrontery to portray
> > > such things? The man obviously doesn't know his
> > > place.
> > >
> > > And just where did Garcia get this preposterous
> > > notion of pre-Castro
> > > Cuba as a relatively prosperous but politically
> > > troubled place, they
> > > ask? All the Cubans he portrays seem middle
> class?
> > > Where in his
> > > movie is the tsunami of stooped and starving
> > > peasants that carried
> > > Fidel and Che into Havana on it's crest, they
> ask?
> > > Where's all those
> > > diseased and illiterate laborers and peasants my
> > > professors, Dan
> > > Rather, CNN and Oliver Stone told me about, ask
> the
> > > critics?
> > >
> > > Garcia � that cinematic bomb-thrower � has
> > seriously
> > > jolted the
> > > Mainstream Media's fantasies and hallucinations
> of
> > > pre-Castro Cuba,
> > > of Che, of Fidel, and of Cubans in general. In
> > > consequence, the
> > > critics are unnerved and disoriented. Their
> > > annoyance and scorn is
> > > spewing forth in review after review.
> > >
> > > Garcia blew it. If only his characters had
> spoken
> > > with accents like
> > > John Belushi's as a Saturday Night Live Killer
> Bee!
> > > If only they'd
> > > dressed like The Three Amigos! If only they'd
> > > behaved like Cheech
> > > and Chong! If only they'd mimicked the
> mannerisms
> > > and gait of
> > > Freddie Prinze in Chico and the Man! If only the
> > > women had piled a
> > > roadside fruit stand on their head like Carmen
> > > Miranda in Road to
> > > Rio! If only the cast had looked like the little
> guy
> > > who handles my
> > > luggage when I visit Cancun! Or the guys who do
> my
> > > lawn! Everybody
> > > knows that's what Hispanics look like!
> > >
> > > If only masses of Cubans had been shown toiling
> in
> > > salt mines like
> > > Spartacus, or picking crops like Tom Joad or
> getting
> > > lashed by a
> > > vicious landlord like Kunta Kinte, or hustling
> for a
> > > living like
> > > Ratso Rizzo!
> > >
> > > "In a movie about the Cuban revolution, we
> almost
> > > never see any of
> > > the working poor for whom the revolution was
> > > supposedly
> > > fought,"sniffs Peter Reiner in The Christian
> Science
> > > Monitor. The
> > > Lost City misses historical complexity."
> > >
> > > Actually what's missing is Mr. Reiner's
> historical
> > > knowledge. Andy
> > > Garcia and screenwriter Guillermo Cabrera
> Infante
> > > knew full well
> > > that "the working poor" had no role in the stage
> of
> > > the Cuban
> > > Revolution shown in the movie. The Anti-Batista
> > > rebellion was led
> > > and staffed overwhelmingly by Cuba's middle �
> and
> > > especially, upper �
> > > class. To wit: in August of 1957 Castro's rebel
> > > movement called for
> > > a "National Strike" against the Batista
> dictatorship
> > > � and
> > > threatened to shoot workers who reported to
> work.
> > > The "National
> > > Strike" was completely ignored.
> > >
> > > Another was called for April 9, 1958. And again
> > > Cuban workers blew a
> > > loud and collective raspberry at their
> "liberators,"
> > > reporting to
> > > work en masse.
> > >
> > > "Garcia's tale bemoans the loss of easy wealth
> for a
> > > precious few,"
> > > harrumphs Michael Atkinson in The Village Voice.
> > > "Poor people are
> > > absolutely absent; Garcia and Infante seem to
> have
> > > thought that
> > > peasant revolutions happen for no particular
> > > reason�or at least no
> > > reason the moneyed 1 percent should have to
> worry
> > > about."
> > >
> > > What's "absolutely absent" is Mr Atkinson's
> > > knowledge about the Cuba
> > > Garcia depicts in his movie. His crack about
> that
> > > "moneyed 1 per
> > > cent," and especially his "peasant revolution"
> > > epitomize the clich�d
> > > idiocies still parroted by the chattering
> classes
> > > about Cuba.
> > >
> > > "The impoverished masses of Cubans who embraced
> > > Castro as a
> > > liberator appear only in grainy, black-and-white
>
=== message truncated ===
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