From the Chicago Reader (December 8, 1995). — J.R.
I Am Cuba
*** (A must-see)
Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov
Written by Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Enrique Pineda Barnet
With Luz Maria Collazo, Jose Gallardo, Sergio Corrieri, Maria Gonzalez Broche, Raul Garcia, and Jean Bouise.
Undeniably monstrous and breathtakingly beautiful, ridiculous and awe inspiring, I Am Cuba confounds so many usual yardsticks of judgment that any kind of star rating becomes inadequate. A delirious, lyrical, epic piece of communist propaganda from 1964 — at least three years in the making and 141 minutes long–it is simply too campy and too grotesque to qualify as a “masterpiece,” but I’d probably care less about it if it were one. A “must-see” may come closer to the mark, but it certainly isn’t a must-see for everybody. This movie has been rattling around in my head since I first encountered it 16 months ago, yet I can’t say it won’t enrage some people and bore others. Worth seeing? Has redeeming facet? Worthless? It fits all and none of these categories. To put it simply, the world doesn’t make allowances for a freak of this kind.
A Russian-Cuban production, it reportedly was hated in Russia and Cuba alike in the mid-60s, at least among government officials; in Cuba it was commonly known as I Am Not Cuba. Read more
From the January 29, 1999 Chicago Reader. — J.R.
This 1992 French feature by Leos Carax (Boy Meets Girl, Bad Blood) could be the great urban expressionist fantasy of the 90s: like Sunrise and Lonesome in the 20s and Playtime and Alphaville in the 60s, it uses a city’s physical characteristics to poetically reflect the consciousness of its characters. Carax daringly and disconcertingly begins the film as a documentary portrait of the homeless in Paris, but it becomes a delirious love story between two people (Denis Lavant and Juliette Binoche) who live on one of Paris’s most famous bridges and experience the whole city as a kind of enchanted playground, a vision that reaches an explosive apotheosis during a bicentennial fireworks display over the Seine. To realize his lyrical and monumental vision, Carax built a huge set in the French countryside that depicted Pont-Neuf and its surroundings, making this one of the most expensive French productions ever mounted. So the film seems an ideal subject for a lecture by former Chicagoan Stuart Klawans, film critic for the Nation and author of Film Follies: The Cinema Out of Order, a new book with a witty and highly original sense of film history. Read more
From the Chicago Reader (April 10, 1992); also reprinted in two of my collections, Placing Movies and Discovering Orson Welles. — J.R.
OTHELLO
**** (Masterpiece)
Directed and written by Orson Welles
With Orson Welles, Micheal Mac Liammoir, Suzanne Cloutier, Robert Coote, Fay Compton, Doris Dowling, and Michael Laurence.
Sustained until death at 70 by his fame as the prodigy with the baby face, Orson Welles always appeared to abide by words he put in the mouth of Citizen Kane: “There’s only one person in the world to decide what I’m gonna do — and that’s me.” — from a two-page magazine ad for the Dodge Shadow that appeared last month under the heading “Amazing Americans . . . a celebration of people who have lifted our nation’s pride”
I guess this describes the official Orson Welles we’re all supposed to love and revere. The ad demonstrates how even the recalcitrance of a wasted and abused artist can wind up as a handy marketing tool. Chrysler, a corporation that never would have dreamed of sustaining, much less supporting Welles as an artist when he was alive — and surely wouldn’t pay a tenth of what this ad cost to help make his unseen legacy available today — proudly invites us to join it in celebrating his artistry. Read more
