Hi, Sweet Baby,
Happy Western Time Zone Late Night. :) Assuming you are still in Arizona, that is, and you probably are. Judging from your photo this morning, it looks like you guys were working out in the woods somewhere, in a beautiful spot. Is this gal a student filmmaker or a graduate like yourself? I am guessing the latter, just because of the distance traveled to the location, not something that would be convenient for a student.
Well, I hope you are having a blast in AZ. This afternoon on Facebook I watched a live feed of Hillary Clinton speaking in Madison, so she has the the home front covered. :)
The crowd response was really good, and I am hoping she will do well in Wisconsin. I can imagine that a lot of folks there are feelin' The Bern, but if Hill can win then maybe he will start to Bern Out, a slogan that I just now thought up. Or how about "Bernt" for short? :)
This evening I watched a film called "Soy Cuba" (aka I Am Cuba). I have had the dvd since last Fall and have been meaning to watch it all this time but put it off for one reason or another. Well, really only one reason : because even though I'd heard a lot about how great it was, I had also heard it was made as a Soviet propaganda piece about Cuba in the early 1960s, and therefore I thought it might come off as a dated docudrama, and as it is 141 minutes long, I just thought...."hmmmm, maybe I'll watch it when I have nothing else to do".
That time turned out to be tonight, because the movie I wanted from Redbox - "Carol" by Todd Haynes - was out of stock. So I finally unwrapped "Soy Cuba" and popped it in the player.
I should've remembered that it was directed by Mikhail Kalatozov, which of course I knew, but more specifically I should have remembered that he made Art Films, not mechanical propaganda pieces. I had seen two of his films before, the classic "The Cranes Are Flying" and also the underrated "Letter Never Sent".
Both feature major league black and white cinematography, on par with anything before or since.
And so I was pleasantly surprised, as I began watching, that "Soy Cuba" is an art film as well.
The other thing about Kalatozov is that he created some of the greatest camera moves in the history of cinema. The reason that most moviegoers are not aware of this is obvious. He was a Soviet director and his films are 50 to 60 years old. To most folks, he is obscure, but to the more artistic of modern filmmakers, he is well known and his moves have been copied.
The cinematography in "Cranes" is some of the best ever, but in "Soy Cuba" it reaches a whole new level. I was Googling after the movie ended, to see "how did he do that"? There are crane shots that seem impossible, because of the heights and lengths they move through continuously during long takes.
I think "Soy Cuba" has got to be a progenitor and a benchmark for current high motion cinematography, where the camera is part of the action rather than a static observer.
The film itself is epic as well, set in Cuba as the Castro revolution is about to happen. The film's politics are presented from a Soviet point of view, but even so, it's hard to argue with them. The only argument could be whether Castro was any better than his predecessor, the guy he overthrew (Batista), and in America the answer was "No" for the last 50 years. I tend to agree with that assessment, but in the film there is no doubt why a revolution happened in the first place - Cuba was always a pawn between capitalist interests like United Fruit Company, which wanted the sugar cane, and the Soviet Union, which tried to put nuclear weapons there, to point at Florida which is only 90 miles away.
That happened in 1962, and was a huge deal. It is why we have had an embargo against Cuba for all this time, a half century. They drive cars that are from the 1950s because we will not trade with them or export goods to them, due to what happened in '62. But now that Obama has just visited, things will be changing.
And The Rolling Stones are gonna play a concert there soon, their first ever show in Cuba.
Communism never works - just look at Soviet-era Russia, and in China, their previous version of Communism under Mao was on the verge of collapse as well, until they switched in the 90s to a hyperactive capitalism for their economic system. Now they are a wealthy nation, but they still have a communist social system featuring horrible human rights abuses and lax industrial standards regarding pollution.
But while communism never works, it always arises as a popular reaction to the excessive greed of capitalism gone out of control, as happened in Cuba.
That's one reason why I am right down the middle politically, because extremes never work, be they right wing corporate 1% super rich capitalism, or the other extreme, full on socialism which is communism by any other name, and leads to the end of the individual.
Sorry about the soapbox, but the movie was really provocative.
I say "Go Hillary"; Viva the Middle Class, and a more moderate capitalism, with no ultra rich nor desperate poor. The way America used to be for a very long time.
That's all I know for tonight. Continued success on your film and on enjoying Arizona!
I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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