Forgotton Cinema.

- PROPAGANDA, POLITICS, CAMERA ACROBATICS…

The DGA screened a newly re-mastered print of I AM CUBA  (SOI CUBA) for its members last week. This link to the trailer will give you an idea of the picture’s epic style.

Most trailers give you the best moments. ( I know because I used to make them, and today, in the desperate competition for first weekend big box-office, these sales tools give away too much) But this trailer leaves you to discover many of its high impact moments when you see the whole film. Amazing use of high contrast infra-red stock and ultra wide angle lenses combine with striking compositions to make I AM CUBA an unique visual experience.

Intellectually the film offers keen political and sociological insights of increasing relevance, given that America’s presently poisonous relationship with Cuba will undoubtedly change during the first term of the next administration. Shot in 1963, during the Cuban missile crisis, this USSR/CUBA co-production was directed by famed Russian film maker Mikhail Kalatozov ( The Cranes Are Flying, Palm D’Or - 1958).

I AM CUBA is a cinema tone poem of idealized moments from the Cuban revolution, yet neither Cuban nor Russian audiences responded favorably to it on its release. In Havana, it was criticized for presenting a stereotypic view of Cubans.

In Moscow, it was considered not revolutionary enough, too sympathetic to the lives of the pre-Fidel bourgeoisie, and soon withdrawn from circulation. Many NATO countries banned it. It was not seen in the US till 1995 when Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola presented its release through Milestone Films. Propaganda has more flavors than you might think. Images of Great Moments in Socialism abound throughout the long unbroken shots, as the camera accompanies a selection of revolutionary characters through key experiences: Undeserved Misfortune, Oppression, Conversion, Activism, Armed Struggle, Martyrdom, before the final reward of Triumphal March.

The choreography of cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky’s shots is complex and continuously imaginative, as the camera probes, soars, glides through a variety of environments. At a dissolute party, the camera descends 2 stories and ends up joining the swimmers underwater.

As a farmer burns his cane field, the camera seems to pass through ever expanding walls of flame. The business end of a bombing raid, during which a father frantically searches for his missing 8 year old son is another stand-out sequence, keeping you on edge, wondering where the next bomb will fall. A sustained sniper sequence generates similar tension.
We were fortunate that the DGA screening was introduced by one of the camera operators. He took questions afterwards as to how some of the shots were accomplished by a combination of specially built elevating platforms, dolly shots, and cable shots, with the camera being invisibly passed from one operator’s hands to another at certain points. Sometimes there were as many as 17 takes of a 4 minutes shot involving hundreds of extras. We filmmakers watched each technical feat, green with envy. Wouldn’t it be great to have those resources and an open ended schedule?

The famous swimming pool shot originally went on longer, with the camera rising from the pool, and moving back into the party. This was achieved without water droplets being left on the lens, by coating the lens with a special soviet submarine periscope cleaner! But this tag to the sequence was ultimately dropped from the final cut by the director.

If, like me, you are addicted to bold image movie making, and I AM CUBA comes to a specialty screening in your city, go see this unique Forgotten Cinema experience. Or rent the DVD, but the big screen is better. Look past the propaganda, or enjoy deconstructing it, and revel in its glorious camerawork.

We owe a debt of gratitude to directors like Scorsese, Coppola, and Tarantino when they use their influence to rescue a splendid piece of bravura film making from obscurity.

Another film maker performing this type of service is Australia’s Mark Hartley, whose feature documentary NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD premieres at the Melbourne International Film Festival. It tells the story of Australia’s genre film makers of the 70’s and 80’s, and without Mark’s 10 year crusade to get the picture made, many of these films would have been buried without trace. I will be there on opening night July 25. As I am in the movie - among many other worthy pioneers of the 1970’s Australian Film Renaissance - vanity being what it is, I am bound to like it. You will have to judge for yourself as NQH is released across the world. Here is a link to the on-line promo. As an old trailer maker, I can attest - it looks like fun! And it does not give too much away.

www.notquitehollywood.com.au

Next blog - from the Melbourne International Film Festival. Then the week after that, from the Brisbane International Film Festival, where I will be on a panel. Till I fly out, I am working on the cut of the webisode pilot FUSION. Ain’t Life grand!