I am Cuba by Mikhail Kalatozov - Essay Example

I am Cuba Introduction ‘I am Cuba’ is a masterpiece that celebrates communism and the revolution, mixing Soviet solemnity with Cuban sensuality. The plots explore the seductive, degenerate world of Batista’s Cuba, deliberately contrasting images of rich Americans and bikini-clad girls sipping cocktails with scenes of dilapidated slums filled with hungry children and elderly people. ‘I Am Cuba’ succeeds in exploring the innermost feelings of the characters and their often-desperate situations while, cinematographer Urusevsky achieves unusual, remarkable angles with long continuous shots all with a handheld camera. Whether the film can be considered as third cinema can be decided only after considering what third cinema is, and deliberating if ‘I am Cuba’ matches the requisite criteria of film making. Types of cinema Cinema has been divided into three categories, first, second and third cinema. Theses terms had their birth at the Bandung Conference of 1955, the first conference of the Non-Aligned Movement. China propagated the theory of the three distinct worlds. The first world i.e. the advanced capitalist countries included Western Europe, North America and Australasia; the second world i.e. the previous socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Soviet Union. The remaining countries were thus the third world, to which China stated its commitment. (1) First Cinema refers the model identified as the Hollywood movie. Also known as commercial or popular cinema, it corresponds to an ideology which the particular relationship between film and spectator is superfluous, where cinema is conceived as pure entertainment. Aim of this cinema is to maximize profits. This kind of film is made for display in large theatres, with a standardized duration either feature-length or blockbuster. All types of films come under this category even scientific documentary is susceptible to the aspirations of big money. Second Cinema is also known as art or parallel cinema. Parallel cinema has its own structures, patterns of distribution and exhibition, and its own ideologies. Art has become a cinema made by and for the limited social groups. It expresses the aspirations of the middle layers, the petty bourgeoisie and consequently is often revolutionary but pessimist and sometimes mystical. Like first cinema all categories of films may be found in this category. Third cinema There is a deliberate uncertainty in the term ‘Third Cinema’ which requires clarification. The term ‘Third Cinema’ is derived from the correspondence with the term ‘third world’, referring to the underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. In the dependent countries, third cinema is a cinema of de-colonization, which expresses the will to national liberation, anti-mythic, anti-racist, anti-bourgeois, and accepted. Originally the criteria of third cinema included strong political views, usually in opposition to the regime and signification of the images concerned. The idea of third cinema, in which the camera is often, equated, to the gun constituted militant cinema proper, an internal category of Third Cinema. Militant cinema required the film crew to operate with a radical notion not only of the content of the film and of the production process, which is the team’s internal relations, the role of the producer and director, and of personal skills. According to Solanas and Getino“every member of the group should be familiar, at least in a general way, with the equipment used, and must be prepared to replace each other in any phase of production. The myth of the irreplaceable technician must be exploded.” (2) The original third cinema was based on mass political movements of a type which barely exist any longer, and upon beliefs (socialist and communist) which have taken a significant historical beating. Third cinema is not restricted to the first/second/third world. It is the expression of a new culture and of changes in society. In a general way, third cinema renders account of reality and history. All types of film can be considered third cinema: cultural genre or a clearly political approach, any story, any subject can be taken up by third cinema. (3) In regard to third cinema film makers like Joris Ivens says “we realized that the most important thing was not the film and the information in it so much as the way this information was debated. One of the aims of such films is to provide the occasion for people to find themselves and speak of about their own problems. The projection becomes a place where people talk out and develop their awareness. We learnt the importance of this space: cinema here becomes humanly useful.”(4) The plot ‘I am Cuba’ depicts a generalized, impersonal mass hero rather than individual characters, in the stylized sort of persuasive, emotional, epic melodrama once known as agitprop. “The main heroine would be the revolution — the hero would be the people.” The aim was not to promote any one character but to show the “historic necessity” of the people’s break from Batista’s American-backed government. Four screen plays depict the following: 1) Colonialism and its affects on the city: In Havana, a beautiful and symbolically virgin Cuban girl Maria is forced to sell her body to the Americans to whom she introduces herself as Betty. She even changes her to name to please the patrons. Maria faces shame when a man who loves and courts her discovers that she earns her living as a prostitute. 2) The tragedy of the peasants: the suffering of a sugar cane farmer is detailed when the landowner announces he has sold his property to an international fruit company. 3) The gestation of the workers/students’ struggle: A student faces down a crowd of arrogant U.S. sailors and then watches friends shot by police when they try to hand out pro-Castro leaflets. The scene reaches a climax when the student is murdered by the police. 4) The struggle in the mountains and the final triumph: the final scene illustrates the conversion to the cause of a family of peasants. The war arrives on the doorstep of peasants Mariano, Amelia, and their four children when Batistas forces bomb the hills. Mariano wants peace, so he looks for out the rebels to join the fight. (5) These four vignettes in Batistas Cuba play up the need for revolution; extensive, variable shots tell nearly wordless stories. Therefore it would be correct to say that the content of the film does adhere to the basic criteria for third cinema. The making Soviet director Kalatozov made the film ‘I am Cuba’ about the Cuban revolution. He worked with scriptwriter Yevtushenko because of his “youthful innovative spirit.” and because the poet had worked as a correspondent in Cuba for Pravda and was a friend of Castro’s. For the Cuban perspective, he chose a well-known novelist Enrique Pineda Barnet. Kalatozov pushed the writers for more insight into the characters and urged them to go outside stereotypes to discern the virtues and limitation of each man and woman in the film. Cinematographer Urusevsky was assisted by cameraman Calzatti.Calzatti set up the technical requirements for the many complex and intricate shots in ‘I am Cuba’. They use wide-angle lenses that distort, magnify and filters that convert palm trees into massive white feathers. Another unbelievable tracking is the scene of the students’ agitation where the camera moves across a room at the top of a house, goes all the way through the window and feels as if its flying over the road where a parade is carrying the body of the revolutionary martyr. Kalatozov assembled his cast in Cuba. They came from all walks of life, but he always chose students to play students, peasants to play peasants, et cetera. ‘I am Cuba’ was virtually silent, with remarkable music, natural sound, and Yevtushenko’s impressionistic poetry initiating each event and linking them together. (6) It is now amply clear that ‘I am Cuba’ completes the criteria for third cinema even at the production level. Conclusion Mikhail Kalatozov’s ‘I am Cuba’ glorifies Cuba’s liberation from Batista and his tyrannical U.S.-backed dictatorship. Kalatozov created a new cinematic language to express his political beliefs and personal vision. Meant to prosecute the Batista regime ‘I am Cuba’ was a film whose images, photography and poetry overshadowed its political intent. Cunning in its simplicity ‘I am Cuba’ demonstrates some essential truths about imperialism and globalization. The Cuban government thought it was too artistic and not heavy enough on the propaganda, whereas the Soviet government did not want its citizens to view scenes of American depravity in Cuba, thus it was not screened for 30 years. This radical yet poetic masterpiece revolutionized filmmaking. Its got cinematic history, political history, literary history; this film can definitely be classified as third cinema. Reference: 1. Micheal Chanan ‘The changing geography of third cinema’ Screen Special Latin American Issue Volume 38 number 4 Winter 1997 2. ‘Towards a Third Cinema’ in Chanan, 1983, p.24 (translation revised) 3. ‘Le troisième cinéma de Solanas et Getino’ revised ed. in CinémAction 1, p.66, 1991 4. ‘Cinéma d’auteur ou cinéma d’intervention?’ Table Ronde avec Fernando Solanas et.al. in CinémAction I, Paris, 1978, p.60 5 & 6. ‘I am Cuba’ Read More