The thread for Steven Soderbergh's Che Guevara films, "The Argentine" and "The Guerilla"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-wells/lawrence-of-latin-america_b_99302.html

Motorcycle Diaries was nice. Lepers so rarely are depicted on film.

If only that had been on the poster.

"Two thumbs falling off"

mixed messages in the reviews. no longer even clear this will make it to cinemas in two parts. completely bonkers. can't wait.

Tony Scott:

There is a lot, however, that the audience will not learn from this big movie, which has some big problems as well as major virtues. In between the two periods covered in “Che,” Guevara was an important player in the Castro government, but his brutal role in turning a revolutionary movement into a dictatorship goes virtually unmentioned. This, along with Benicio Del Toro’s soulful and charismatic performance, allows Mr. Soderbergh to preserve the romantic notion of Guevara as a martyr and an iconic figure, an idealistic champion of the poor and oppressed. By now, though, this image seems at best naïve and incomplete, at worst sentimental and dishonest. More to the point, perhaps, it is not very interesting..

from BBC:

"Artists including Steven Soderbergh, Benicio del Toro and Ricky Gervais explore Che's impact."

the two-parts deal seems to be like the 'apocalypse now' farrago, where SS had to rush the edit to get in to cannes. a few weeks prior they were saying it wouldn't happen.

begs question of how mapped out the film was before it was shot, also the literally endless possibilities of digital editing.

"also the literally endless possibilities of digital editing."

^^^ this. I'm shooting a short this summer on a RED One, which shoots in RAW, and I don't even need to decide in advance if it's colour or B/W. This is not obviously a good thing.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/17/beck.che.guevara/index.html
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/US/07/17/beck.che.guevara/art.new.glenn.bcck.cnn.jpg
"If you have any respect for humanity, you shouldn't be wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt," Glenn Beck says.

That's right, the same T-shirts you see Hollywood celebrities, starving pseudo-artists and confused hipster teens wearing around local coffee shops. To all those who decide that you want to be coffee house communist-chic, remember this: When you are wearing a Che T-shirt, you're wearing the same shirt that makes terrorists believe you're just one of the gang. I hope that latte is tasty.

With the exception of the fact that Che killed a lot more people, what's the difference? You shouldn't be wearing an "I heart abortion clinic bombers" T-shirt, and if you have any respect for humanity, you shouldn't be wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt, either.

One night only!

http://www.krod.com/GlennBeckComedyTour/tabid/5833/Default.aspx

xp, yes, and did you know that the things that happen in that Alanis Morrissette song are not actually ironic. Also, 9/11 in the UK is actually the 9th of November.

joeks!

eagerly awaiting Glen Beck RIP thread

This film is not showing in any festivals in the autumn season (Toronto, Telluride, NYC, etc.) because someone, presumably Soderburgh, won't let it be split in two or edited down.

What about if you wear a shirt that has Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry wearing Che's hat? What are the ethics there?

It did wind up being shown at NYFF & TIFF. haven't heard from my friend who saw it this week.

“There are anti-Che people who would not be satisfied no matter how much barbarity we depicted. Do I think all the people who were executed were guilty? No. Do I think that they were all innocent? No. Does every regime when it feels threatened at some point act excessively? Yes. The firebombing of Japan? The dropping of a second atom bomb? I think those are excessive. I think those are on a par with the kind of thing we’re talking about. Che says in his speech to the U.N., ‘This was necessary for our survival.’ Would that have fit your definition of due process? Probably not. You could say that in a lot of trials in the United States prior to 1964, due process was something that only applied to white people.”

http://filmlinc.com/fcm/so08/che.htm

http://www.indiewire.com/buzz/081026.html#013731

Tomorrow's sold out West Coast premiere of Steven Soderbergh's full-length "Che" at AFI Fest in Los Angeles paves the way for a finalized IFC Films hybrid release strategy for the two-part epic about Ernesto "Che" Guevara. The company is confirming today a December 12th date for the opening of its one week "roadshow" screenings at the Zeigfeld in NYC and the Landmark in LA. Soderbergh will be on the East Coast for opening night, while "Che" lead Benicio Del Toro will be on the West with producer Laura Bickford. The film will be projected digitally, a printed program guide will be offered to attendees, and the evening will include a 30 minute intermission between the two-hour plus segments, "The Argentine" and "Guerrilla." After the week-long NY/LA run, the film will return to those two markets on January 9, 2009 in two parts, growing to the Top 25 markets on January 16th and 22nd and expanding further from there with the two parts playing simultaneously. On January 21st both parts will be available separately, in both standard and HD, via the company's cable VOD platform, IFC In Theaters. An exclusive Blockbuster home video release will follow. "This generation's 'Lawrence of Arabia'" is how IFC Films and those involved with Soderbergh's "Che," described the epic film(s) when outlining the acquisition and release strategy back at this year's Toronto International Film Festival.

My brother had tickets for the London FF screening of this, but I couldn't make it. I'm not convinced it's going to get much of a theatrical release in the UK at all. Glad it's coming out so quickly on download.

So anyone seen this? Doesn't exactly sound like a typical biopic.

will watch at home tonight.

Hoberman says SS recut the first part to make it less "strange"?

DVD didn't play, so I went to the Ziegfeld today. Disappointing I guess. 2nd half is rather a bore. Hi-def looks amazing, but there's no attempt to explain or even understand Che beyond what's generally known.

Isn't that what happens when you admit publicly that you're basing your interpretation on recruitment posters and other bits of 'iconography'?

I didn't read that. I think he's exaggerating.

Part 1 actually works well, esp inclusion of comedy. The urban warfare scenes in Santa Clara (the climax) are very much a la classical Hollywood style.

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2008/12/he_was_a_murder.php

think i recall ebert saying it was one of his top pics for the year?

Ebert can't speak.

xp: along with 50 others, YEAH.

In Bolivia, things get so dull one of Ocean's eleven shows up.

WHATEVER

i am trying to get to the Landmark before it leaves on Thursday but rumor has it that it's all sold out

Variety panned this. (as did Time & Edelstein) but Hoberman stands by it

everyone is saying Part I > II

except Hoberman, and others who think they know what Soderbergh was up to.

The UN speech / NYC visit really anchors the Cuban narrative in the first part.

Hobers: "Guerrilla may be the more realized of the two--and could certainly stand on its own--but it is only comprehensible in the light of The Argentine. Elevating Guerrilla to tragedy, The Argentine puts some hope in hopelessness--and even in history. "

i have a feeling this is going to continue to split more people, but the true-blue professional defenders are going to be quite few, as even the positive reviews sound really lukewarm. no one is crazy about it.... to continue to call it "the nu Lawrence of Arabia" isn't really going to work

SS with the quick save in that clip "we're all lucky to live here!" at the end - how glib! "he was a hardass! oh he wasnt a hardass?" " he was a murderer!" "...okay"

also i don't really even LIKE Lawrence of Arabia, but that's prolly just me

the easiest letdown explanation covers the second half of both Lawrence and Che: defeat (or stalemate) is harder to film.

how is the Cuban Revolution (and Che's role) portrayed?

yay it's not sold out. im glad coz, if i'm going to do this, i'm doing the whole thing 5 hours in a row .....not paying twice to see it in halves

xp: I'm not sure how to summarize that. As a practical visionary in a dogged but incremental heroic enterprise? His key line after the fall of Santa Clara is something like "The war is over, the Revolution is just starting."

SS seems to take Che's demurral seriously that it succeeded bcz of popular support -- several scenes of unarmed teenage peasants volunteering -- rather than giving outsize credit to Fidel and Che... But there are scenes where Che basically acts like a DI in a Marine film.

anyway, Hoberman's comparison to Rossellini's late historical films is apt -- "period documentaries," as he terms them.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-12-10/film/soderbergh-s-the-argentine-and-guerrilla/

ehhhhhhhh

I think "relentlessly prosaic" is a good descrip of the 2nd half esp.

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/moviereviews/090115/

yet The Argentine towers over boring award fodder.

this was pretty good. the showing i went to played both parts back to back with an intermission.

way too much shaky cam

I liked this quite a bit (much more than I thought I would given the poor reviews). Wasn't boring in the slightest (although I did have to split it across three nights to get through it) although Del Toro's performance was uh "restrained" to put it mildly. The complaints I saw that it overemphasized Che's contributions and diminished Castro's seem weirdly point-missing (also not really accurate.)

I wonder what Guerilla would have been like in Malick's hands actually (I mean other than slower and more picturesque and with a million voiceovers.) Hard to see a indisputably great film in that source material in anyone's hands (or really in Che's life frankly) but on its own terms I think Soderbergh's treatment of it is pretty successful. I don't think the picture of Che it paints is particularly heroic (or necessarily even flattering) but I suppose that could be my own biases at work.

Should mention this is another film which was possibly improved (or not) by watching A Grin Without A Cat recently.

I kept thinking about malick too! perhaps over-reading Malickian themes into SS's version.

just saw part one. Still digesting, will watch part two tomorrow. I like it. It's kinda gorgeous....and the disappointed descriptions of part two actually make me kinda intrigued to see it.

Just saw this on IFC and really, really enjoyed it.

gotta get around to watching the 2nd one eventch

Will watch this weekend.

I saw these on TV recently and they were bOOOOoOOoOOoooorrrrrrING!