May 01, 2006
Another Fontova Ass-whuppin'
Our very own Humberto Fontova takes on the critics of The Lost City, via Newsmax:
Movie Critics Aghast at Andy Garcia's 'The Lost City'Humberto Fontova
Monday, May 1, 2006
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, which he both directs and stars in, 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 its crest, they ask. Where are 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 are 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 percent" and especially his "peasant revolution" epitomize the cliched 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 news clips," snorts Stephen Holden in The New York Times. "Political dialogue in the film is strictly of the junior high school variety."
It's Holden's education on the Cuban Revolution that's of the "junior high school variety." Actually it's Harvard Graduate School variety. Many more imbecilities about Cuba are heard in Ivy League classrooms than in any rural junior high school.
"It fails to focus on the poverty-stricken workers whose plight lit the fires of revolution," complains Rex Reed in the New York Observer.
You're better off attempting rational discourse with the Flat-Earth Society, but nonetheless I'll try to dispel the fantasies of pre-Castro Cuba still cherished by America's most prestigious academics and its most learned film critics. I'll even stay away from those "crackpots" and "hotheads" in Miami. In place of those insufferable "revanchists" and "hard-liners" I'll use a source generally esteemed by liberal highbrow types: the United Nations.
Here's a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) report on Cuba circa 1957: "One feature of the Cuban social structure is a large middle class," it starts. "Cuban workers are more unionized (proportional to the population) than U.S. workers. The average wage for an 8-hour day in Cuba in 1957 is higher than for workers in Belgium, Denmark, France and Germany. Cuban labor receives 66.6 per cent of gross national income. In the U.S. the figure is 70 per cent, in Switzerland 64 per cent. 44 per cent of Cubans are covered by social legislation, a higher percentage than in the U.S."
In 1958 Cuba had a higher per-capita income than Austria and Japan. Cuban industrial workers had the eighth-highest wages in the world. In the 1950s Cuban stevedores earned more per hour than their counterparts in New Orleans and San Francisco. Cuba had established an eight-hour workday in 1933 – five years before FDR's New Dealers got around to it. Add to this a one-month paid vacation. The much-lauded (by liberals) social democracies of Western Europe didn't manage this till 30 years later.
And get this, Maxine Waters, Barbara Walters, Andrea Mitchell, Diane Sawyer and the rest of you feminist Castro groupies: Cuban women got three months of paid maternity leave. I repeat, this was in the 1930s. Cuba, a country 71 percent white in 1957, was completely desegregated 30 years before Rosa Parks was dragged off that Birmingham bus and handcuffed. In 1958 Cuba had more female college graduates per capita than the U.S.
The anti-Batista rebellion (not revolution) was staffed and led overwhelmingly by college students and professionals. Unemployed lawyers were prominent (take Fidel Castro himself). Here's the makeup of the "peasant revolution's" first Cabinet, drawn from the leaders in the anti-Batista fight: seven lawyers, two university professors, three university students, one doctor, one engineer, one architect, one former city mayor and a colonel who defected from the Batista army. A notoriously "bourgeois" bunch, as Che himself might have put it.
By 1961, however, workers and campesinos (country folk) made up the overwhelming bulk of the anti-Castroite rebels, especially the guerrillas in the Escambray mountains. And boy, would THAT rebellion make for an action-packed and gut-wrenching movie! If by some miracle it ever got made, you can bet these learned critics would pan it too. Who ever heard of poor country folk fighting against their benefactors Fidel and Che?
The New York Times' Stephen Holden also sneers at Garcia's implication that "life sure was peachy before Fidel Castro came to town and ruined everything."
In fact, Mr. Holden, before Castro "came to town," Cuba took in more immigrants (primarily from Europe) as a percentage of population than the U.S. And more Americans lived in Cuba than Cubans in the U.S. Furthermore, inner tubes were used in truck tires, oil drums for oil, and Styrofoam for insulation. None were cherished black market items for use as flotation devices to flee the glorious liberation while fighting off hammerheads and tiger sharks.
The learned Mr. Holden is also annoyed by "buffoonish parodies of sour Communist apparatchiks barking orders." Apparently, Communist apparatchiks should be properly depicted as somewhat misguided social workers, or as slightly overzealous Howard Dean campaign staffers.
It's no "parody," Mr. Holden, that the "apparatchiks" Garcia depicts in his movie incarcerated and executed a higher percentage of their countrymen in their first three months in power than Hitler and his apparatchiks jailed and executed in their first three years. As well complain that the guards and police in "Schindler's List," "Julia" or "The Diary of Anne Frank" come across as hackneyed caricatures. Instead let's portray them with more "complexity," as misguided idealists who followed a leader who unshackled the German working class from its subservience to snooty barons, who eradicated Germany's unemployment and who ended Germany's national humiliation at the hands of Europe's premier imperialist powers.
Andy Garcia shows it precisely right. In 1958 Cuba was undergoing a rebellion, not a revolution. Cubans expected political change, not a socioeconomic cataclysm and catastrophe. But I fully realize such distinctions are much too "complex" for a film critic to grasp. They prefer boneheaded cliches. Garcia might have followed the laudable examples of "historical complexity" and "accuracy" shown in previous movies on Cuba. Take two that these critics compare (favorably) to "The Lost City," "Havana" and "Godfather II."
In "Havana," the brilliant director Sydney Pollack casts Fulgencio Batista with blond hair and blue eyes. In fact Batista was a black. In "Godfather II," Francis Ford Coppola, to show Havana streets on New Year's Eve 1958, casts more people than marched in Los Angeles last week and depicts them in a battle scene right out of "Braveheart." In fact, Havana streets were deathly quiet that night.
I don't presume to the exalted position of a film critic. So I don't comment on the dramatic and cinematic criticisms made by these august critics. I'm not saying, or even implying, that "The Lost City" is a better movie than "Godfather II." I'm simply criticizing the critics on their criticism of the historical accuracy of "The Lost City." In these reviews we see – in all its classic splendor – the mainstream media's thundering and apparently incurable stupidity on matters Cuban.
Posted by Val Prieto at May 1, 2006 09:25 AM
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Comments
Right on, Mr. Fontova.
Posted by: FL Mom ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.babalublog.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 1, 2006 09:47 AM
BRAVO! I saw it this weekend and I loved it. It took someone like Andy Garcia with the guts and his love of country to bring the long overdue truth to the big screen! Bravo to Andy Garcia and bravo to Mr. Fontova!
Posted by: Lou at May 1, 2006 09:55 AM
Fontova makes many good points! He is great. But...
Sorry, but that family in the movie was not middle class - they were very wealthy with properties, plantations, and night clubs - most of us and our families were real middle class professionals with jobs - this was Garcia's mistake in the movie to show a wealthy family when the majority of the people who really suffered under castro were middle class to poor. This just gives fuel to our enemies always saying that we were all a bunch of white rich cabaret finca plantation owners who deserved what we got.
Garcia's mistake was also showing too much of Batista and his dirty deeds - granted Garcia showed the evil of CHE - but he should of really shown more Castroite dasderdly deeds which where far more worse than the doings of crooked batista.
Posted by: mandingo at May 1, 2006 10:04 AM
Val do you know if it will come to DVD anytime soon? I doubt AAFES will show it in Europe, and it sounds like it will be very enjoyable to watch (purely because I HATE film critics telling me what to see and what not to see).
You know all you Cubans don't speak English, love Fidel (except for you troublemakers in Miami), you're all poor and adore che and fidel (or rich abusers of said poor Cubans). That's what my 'learned' educators say so they much know right? It's not like YOU actually no anything about Cuba, they get their information straigh from fidel and his tourism board - and we all know papa fidel wouldn't lie! ;)
Posted by: rmschoon at May 1, 2006 10:05 AM
mandingo,
Have you read Tres Tristes Tigres? The movie stays true to Cabrera Infante's work.
Posted by: Val Prieto at May 1, 2006 10:09 AM
Whenever typical "movie critics" pan a movie, invariably I find it to be a good, if not great, flick.
It would be nice if someday a movie about che is made, portraying him as the murderous, inept loser that he was, and detailing his well-deserved, ignominious end. That'll get the critics a-twittering even more. Here's a suggestion to cure their angst: get a real job!
Posted by: Alberto-Q at May 1, 2006 10:28 AM
According to Magnolia Pictures' Web site, "The Lost City" will be released on DVD on Aug. 8.
Posted by: Marc Masferrer at May 1, 2006 10:37 AM
Please guys don't hate me - am with you 99.9% of the time - we can disagree right?
Posted by: mandingo at May 1, 2006 10:41 AM
mandingo,
LOL, dude. I love you man. All Im saying is that Garcia was trying to tell a particular story.
Posted by: Val Prieto at May 1, 2006 10:44 AM
I saw the movie Saturday and I have to say I was very disappointed. Not in the story, which I think captures the exile's experience quite well at the end. My Mom was sobbing in the airport scene which she says was spot on with her experience. As a film, though, it needs a lot of work. I have a feeling that Andy had a lot more material he wanted to include, but had to finish it within the given running time the producers told him the exhibitors woulk demand. I think he felt obligated to include a little bit of all of it in the movie. In my view, that made the character development, the plotting, and the dialogue very choppy. The storyline doesn't get a chance to work itself out very well precisely because there is so much stuff left out of critical parts of the film. The film is also hurt by Bill Murray, who plays no discernable role in advancing the story except to serve as a wisecracking Greek chorus that's had one too many martinis. On the positive side, the actor that played Andy's father was superb as was Andy.
I hope he releases a "director's cut" with everything he had to cut. I'll bet the movie improves exponentially with the additions he had to leave on the cutting room floor.
Posted by: George L. Moneo at May 1, 2006 11:13 AM
I urge everyone to tell people about this film because film critics are attempting to keep people from watching it by giving it atrocious 1-star reviews. It is repulsive to have film critics in this country censoring a movie in such an overt manner.
Posted by: barrocas at May 1, 2006 11:17 AM
To all, this is very difficult for me because I am fan of Andy and I am a movie buff. If the critics write what I wrote about above, then I'm OK with the criticism. After all, it has to be judged as "film" and any criticism of it has to be made in that context. However, if the review veers into the overt regurgitation of the political nonsense that has been hammered into these commie drones, then I think it's unfair. Judge it on its merits a film, but unless you know the real story, the critics should shut up and stick to film criticism and not political or historical opinion.
Posted by: George L. Moneo at May 1, 2006 11:24 AM
My very non-Cuban husband and I went to see it Saturday night, he thought it was excellent and wants to see it again. I found the second viewing, this time on a big screen even more gripping and emotional. It's a wonderful film, true to Infante's voice.
Posted by: Ziva at May 1, 2006 11:42 AM
Boy, I am going to get creamed today but here goes. I know that Infante wrote the screenplay. But a "movie" is not a "novel" -- they are two completely different art forms. A movie has to stand on its own, separate from its source while using the source. I can give you many, many examples where the adaptation of the novel was a rousing success and others where it was a dismal failure.
For a novel to be translated to the screen it has to make due without the structure that makes it a novel and create a new structure for what will be the visual medium of film. I haven't read Infante's novel -- I ordered it this morning from Amazon -- but I can tell you from my extensive film viewing that adaptations from novel to film are very difficult to do. The filmmaker has to be true to the book (characters, dialogue, plot, locations, etc.) and add to those the visual elements that will bring “it” to life.
My criticism of The Lost City is strictly based on the fact that the movie did not cinematically achieve what it set out to achieve. Is the story compelling? Yes. Are the portrayals true to life? Yes, and in some cases, no. Is the story told effectively enough to move someone who knows nothing about pre-castro Cuba into questioning the party line spewed by castro's fifth column here? No, I don’t think so.
Posted by: George L. Moneo at May 1, 2006 12:14 PM
George, I think the movie does exactly that. The critics are challeging the movie politically, not on artistic merit, here's a review that gets it right.
Posted by: Ziva at May 1, 2006 12:52 PM
I think that Mr. Garcia did a pretty good job considering the limited funds he had AND he shot the entire film in 37 DAYS, a very, very short time period...
Posted by: Go-Go Dave at May 1, 2006 12:56 PM
I know everyone hates me today for "slamming" The Lost City as I've done, but it would have been unethical and dishonest of me if I had given the film a positive review.
My hat's off to Andy Garcia for telling this story. That said, I think the movie falls short of even his vision. Hell, if I had the money, I'd make him executive producer and have him hire the best f'ing talent in the world to tell the story the way it deserves to be told.
He did a hell of a job with what he had. It just wasn't enough in my view.
Posted by: George L. Moneo at May 1, 2006 01:02 PM
No George we love you, and expect nothing less than total honesty from you. :)
Posted by: Ziva at May 1, 2006 01:08 PM
rmschoon, The website for AAFES movie listings is http://www.aafes.com/ems/default.asp . I checked it and the movie is not currently showing but many other new releases aren't either. I am hoping they decide to show it in my area, but if not, I'll just have to wait for it on DVD.
Posted by: Greg at May 1, 2006 01:12 PM
Please, amigas and amigos. I'm NOT a drama critic and made that very clear in the last para. of the article. I'm only concerned with the historical accuracy of what's portrayed in the movie. And--more importantly--with skewering the media numskulls who question it.
Posted by: Humberto at May 1, 2006 01:53 PM
And, IMHO, on those two counts you get your usual A+, Mr. Fontova...
Posted by: Miguel-O-Matic at May 1, 2006 02:00 PM
It's an absolute SHAME that the people that NEED to read and understand this the most would likely shrug it off the same way they shrugged off the accuracy of the movie.
I wish I knew how to make bigger, sweeping changes in mass public opinion. If books, and articles and blogs and even a $10 million dollar hollywood movie can't do it, what can? It's infuriatingly frustrating to encounter so many individuals ignorant to the realities of Cuba, castro, Che, and the vast differences among "Hispanic/Latino" peoples.
What will it take?
Maybe we should all wear white and boycott U.S. business... That should be a sure-fire way to win some American supporters.
Posted by: machete at May 1, 2006 02:33 PM
Humberto, I thinks I'll use "media numbskulls" from now on when talking about the MSM.
Posted by: George L. Moneo at May 1, 2006 02:57 PM
I am eating fricase de cuervo.
Posted by: Charlie Bravo at May 1, 2006 03:58 PM
And I will soon be drinking Jose Cuervo...
Posted by: George L. Moneo at May 1, 2006 04:48 PM
As usual, Fontova "se la comio!" he really hit the nail on the head. Many of the reviews that I've read about "The Lost City" have had a horrible political bend. There was the one in "The Strand" by some jerk named Ed Gonzalez who started his critique by talking about the unfair treatment that he says Mexican migrantss receive as opposed to Cuban refugees! [Yea, right! tell that to the Cuban balseros who landed on that bridge in US territory and were turned back to Cuba!]. Some like the Village Voice review have criticized the movie because the Cubans in the movie speak properly instead of speaking a patois! How racist and ignorant can you get! Anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of Cuba and linguistics knows that Cubans speak castellano, not patois or anything similar to that. But of course, the image that the ignoramuses have of Cuba is that we are some kind of jungle people.
Anyway, all that aside, I was disappointed with the movie. I believe that Andy Garcia missed a good opportunity to make a great movie. I believe that he simply bit off more than he could chew. He is just not a good director. If he would have gotten Leon Ichaso to direct the movie, I'm sure that it would have been really good. Remember Ichaso's "Bitter Sugar?" Now, that was a superb movie!
For instance, when Fico's brothers attack Batista's Presidential Palace, that was so cheesy! It was done in slow motion with cheap pyrotechnics in the background and it looked as bad as one of those horrendous Bollywood movies. Then Fico's sister-in-law becomes a revolutionary symbol and Fico just goes to some party where she is at with Che, Castro and some Russian dignitaries and just nonchalantly grabs her by the hand and drags her out of there. That was so phony. We all know that those blood-thirsty SOB's would have blown his brains out without even batting an eyelash. I could go on and on. There was little chemistry btw Andy Garcia and Sastre, the brothers weren't well-developed as characters, the acting was generally bad and Garcia unintentionally {I am sure} falls into the trap of the stereotype of the dancing singing Cubans. Caballeros, Cuba is more than just un toque de tambor, Santeria and una rumba!
Please do go see the movie, there are good parts. I loved Elizabeth Pen~a's portrayal of an evil miliciana. Andy Garcia, also, portrays Che as a sneering, cynical SOB which is what he was...but unfortunately, the movie is flawed artistically. To Cuban Americans and those non-Cubans familiar with Cuban history, it will be refreshing to see the accurate portrayals of Castro's goons and the injustices of the "revolution", but to many who are not familiar with Cuba, all of this will be lost within the clumsy direction and poor editing.
Posted by: Ray at May 1, 2006 04:54 PM
"I know everyone hates me today for "slamming" The Lost City as I've done, but it would have been unethical and dishonest of me if I had given the film a positive review."
I think a lot of people could learn from your honesty. A lot of the critics comment that many filmmakers struggle when making "labor of loves", as did Garcia (supposedly, I haven't seen the movie). Just because he supposedly was accurate factually doesn't mean the movie HAS to be given artistic merit.
Posted by: Fielding at May 1, 2006 06:06 PM
I agree with George that the movie wasn't as good as it could have been but for the opposite reason. I think he tried to cram too much in there. The first 30-45 minutes of the movie could have been more fluid. And frankly I had a lot of problems with the dialogue in the beginning of the movie. It sounded very scripted not realistic at all. "I've called you all here for this meeting..." Nobody talks like that. And the scenes of Andy romancing his brother's widow could have been reduced to maybe one or two. It was definitely overkill.
If it were my movie I would have started with the attack on the palace. Then you could have used flashbacks to learn some of the backstory. I also would have incorporated the use of supers to let people know how time was elapsing.
The attack on the presidential palace was on March 13, 1957.
Batista fled on Jan. 1 1959
Etc.
Posted by: conductor at May 1, 2006 10:12 PM
Henry, you and I should be the new Siskel & Ebert. In one of my first comments above I wrote the following:
I have a feeling that Andy had a lot more material he wanted to include, but had to finish it within the given running time the producers told him the exhibitors woulk demand. I think he felt obligated to include a little bit of all of it in the movie. In my view, that made the character development, the plotting, and the dialogue very choppy. The storyline doesn't get a chance to work itself out very well precisely because there is so much stuff left out of critical parts of the film.
You are absolutely right about him cramming in too much; the issue is what stuff? There's a lot going on in a little bit of time that prevents the plot from moving along from scene to scene in a way that makes sense. That's why I think he has more -- much more -- of the story in film he left out because of time constraints. That prevented him from including it in the finished product. That is, IMHO, the fatal flaw of the film. As an example, I'll say this. I cannot imagine one minute added or removed from Lawrence of Arabia or Dr. Zhivago or Citizen Kane that would improve it. The story on screen was a finished product. This isn't. I hope Andy releases a four-hour director's cut to show the whole story. I'm buying the DVD in any event. It deserves to be in my library if only for it being the first movie to attempt to tell the truth about the Cuban revolution.
BTW, I neglected to mention that the music scenes were excellent. I especially liked Roland Laserie towards the end of the film.
Posted by: George L. Moneo at May 1, 2006 10:28 PM
"I called you all here for this meeting" I know people of a certain age who do talk like that! Familial relationships were much more formal back in the 1950's than they are now. Just a thought, I concede that some really love the movie and others don't, that's the way it is with any movie, no matter how popular.
Posted by: Ziva at May 2, 2006 12:46 AM
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