"Che" Director Has an Eerie Feeling. Wonder Why?

I rarely read the newspaper. Today, however, my husband got his usual Philadelphia Inquirer on the way back from church and I actually read it over breakfast with him. I won't be doing that again, because all I got was indigestion. "Che" opened in Philly at one theater this weekend so it warranted an article by Steven Rea: "On Movies: 'Che' Doing Better Than Director Dreamed." It's all about how Steven Soderbergh's epic on the Butcher of La Cabaña has broken records on both coasts, performing better than he had hoped, and how difficult it was to condense all his hours of material into one movie.

Explaining how he had so much material to work with, Soderbergh tells how "Che" went from a story about his (bungled) mission in Bolivia to an epic saga about his rebel spirit and rag tag revolutionaries, and how capturing it "in small moments the epic achievements of this revered and despised figure, is extraordinary."

He later says about the coldness of the film: "He was not a very embraceable character." Really? Che guevara? NOT warm and fuzzy? Shut up! No me tomes el pelo!

A few gems from Soderbergh:

"I think anyone who's passionate is compelling," Soderbergh explains. "And when you're taking passion to this level of self-sacrifice, then it really becomes interesting."

Self-sacrifice? Doesn't he mean HUMAN sacrifice? As in, offering up the lives of others to fidel?

"...And I think that's why I started to gravitate toward those periods in his life, because at least I had a sense of knowing what it's like to be responsible for a group of people, and being in a situation in which they're feeding off of your energy and are looking to you to guide them. . . .

Responsible for a group of people's deaths, I think is what he meant to say.

"I guess I felt comfortable in that context. Whereas, in many other areas of Che's life, I just felt like I had no idea."

No idea. That's about right. Soderbergh has no idea at all. He researched what would be best consumed by the media, by the che-loving masses, no doubt knowing that the reality would have cost him millions to tell.

The very best part, however, is the weird opening to the article:

'It's like that scene at the end of Carrie," says Steven Soderbergh, describing the feeling he's had - and keeps having - when it comes to the long and complicated production known as Che...You know when the hand comes out of the ground and grabs Amy Irving by the throat?"

I wonder if that feeling Soderbergh is really caused by one of the thousands that guevara killed, reaching for Soderbergh in his dreams, trying to get him to tell their story, instead of that of their murderer.

Posted by Claudia4Libertad at January 18, 2009 09:00 PM

Comments

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