Cuban And The Cameraman Essay

I went to the showing of Nadie at the Woodland Theater. This film was apart of the Latin American Studies week at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. This film was a documentary about Rafael Alcides, a poet from Cuba. This film was mostly an interview with Alcides, who talked about his life and living through the Cuban Revolution. This in-depth interview ranges from the struggle of how Alcides, a once famous person, is now nadie or nobody. Alcides is currently in the process of trying to save his work as most of his writing is written in fading ink. Additionally, his interview discusses at-length about how he views the revolution like an “old-girlfriend”. After Fidel Castro died, he and many others realized their lifelong fight was for

Cuba is merely one example of a society. Juan Cabrera is simply an ordinary example of an individual. What The Lonely Crossing of Juan Cabrera by J. Joaquin Fraxedas bring to light is the extraordinary effects of stepping outside the comfort zone of following the expectations of those that lead our governments. Although the situation was unlike our own it highlights what could very well could have

During that time Fidel Castrol was controlling over Cuba and all its citizens. Since he was a strict communist, many families with children wanted to escape from his control because crime and drug rates increased. Many people feared for their lives. The Cuban country, states, communities, and streets were not safe any longer. As the country is torn apart, this young ten-year-old Achy Obejas got on a boat and reached the united states.

The parallels between the theme of the film and rising fears of communism and related topics of concern during that time are captivating. Communism was an ideology originating in the Soviet Union with the ideas of establishing a

In Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni’s essay “Cinema/Ideology/Criticism,” they put forward the central argument that film is a commercial product in the capitalist system and therefore also the unconscious instrument of the dominant ideology which produces it. In opposition to the classic film theory that applauds camera as an impartial device to reproduce reality, they argue that what the camera reproduces is merely a refraction of the prevailing ideology. Therefore, the primary and political task for filmmakers is to disrupt this replication of the world as self-evident and the function of film criticism is to identify and evaluate that politics. Comolli and Narboni then suggest seven categories of films confronting ideology in different ways, among which the second category resists the prevailing ideology on two levels. Films of this group not only overtly deal with political contents in order to “attack their ideological assimilation” (Comolli and Narboni 483), but also achieve their goal through breaking down the conventional way of depicting reality.

So the question arises, What is the role of cinema in the struggle for Cubans to be heard?

There are Cuban groups that, despite not actually living in Cuba, are to be considered Cuban and have followers all across the globe such as Orishas. The documentary does an outstanding job following these groups throughout their daily lives, and to the different performances they have been to such as the Cuban Hip-Hop Festival, which was the first time many of these Cuban born artists were able to travel abroad, perform and record in New York City. As the artist said in the opening minutes of the documentary, the Cubans are very humble people due to living in such poor conditions. Upon their trip to New York, they know that they do not have the same access to benefits that Americans have, so they have to get creative and think out of the box to leave a lasting footprint in an ever-growing

Discuss the voice of the film from the Critical Social Science paradigm. What the story told through the voice/lens of the oppressed or the powerful?

Analytically, the film does not hide to viewers what message it is trying to portray. Unlike the other documentaries the film does not use rhetorical strategies to bounce around the point it is trying to make, it is blunt. The film connects deeply with the emotions of the viewer and uses many different methods like burst of cell phone footage, testimonies, news broadcast, and displays of photos with dramatic effects. The construction of the film and its scenes tell each tell a specific story but tie into the overall theme of the video, by using these methods to portray a blunt message engrains in the mine of the audience of what is happening and what the reality is for many people. The story is crafted to ignite intense emotion in viewers and

This project’s purpose is to record a people who have lived through the promises and outcomes of the Bolivarian Revolution, an idea that captured Venezuela’s spirit and spread across 16 Latin America nations as the Pink Tide. The poor and working class will be a fundamental component of this story as I investigate the role the revolution has played in shaping the lives of this perpetually overlooked group of people. Simultaneously, the nature of these issues will create a portal into the world of Venezuelan heritage, traditions, and political and civic culture. What I write will be the reality of the situation; the interpretation will be left up to the reader.

It draws the viewer beyond questions of individuality and identity formation, reflecting upon the political consciousness for the conditions of work in Cuba in the 1970s. These are symbolized by the relationship between slave and master, ideology and its instrumentalization respectively. The interventions to Christ’s Last Supper shape The Last Supper into a revisionist Marxist text that reflects upon the ills of the culture of the sugar plantations. Alea’s desire is to make a film on Cuba’s slave history in order to know and understand the past: ‘[…] we needed (and are going to continue to need for some time) to know how we were, how we lived, and how we fought in order to recover the broken temporal thread of our traditions, and to enrich it in this new historical epoch’ (Alea cited in Mraz 1993).

The Cuban Revolution was touchy topic for the United States and Cuba. America’s alienation of Cuba didn’t help when communism from the USSR was brewing over the revolution. When the revolution gained Castro as its leader, the worry and hatred from the United States was unbearable, especially when the Soviet Union landed in Cuba to interest Castro in its aid. The US’s fear of communism, Fidel Castro, and aid from the Soviet Union was significant because it changed the US’s political role in Cuba during the Cuban Revolution.

I agree with this, particularly because it’s relevant during this time of trump trying ban refugees. It’s very wrong and immoral to marginalize a huge group of people, and this movie really illustrates that. It doesn’t matter if you’re a musician, or someone with talent, if you are alive struggling in your country you should be able to leave that country and seek a safe refuge. Arturo may have been someone with talent and Marianela may have had a little talent, but their talents don't over shine the fact that these people are trying to escape. I think this movie helps people who don’t care about refugees to start caring, but for people like me who already cares about refugees, it justifies the fact that it wasn’t just Arturo and his family struggling it was all of Cuba.

“The struggling masses agree to robbing banks because none of them has a penny in them.” He tries to justify his actions by saying that they are in aid of those living in poverty, giving him a type of power that people cannot oppose due to being seen as someone who has no morality. Che tried to regulate the lives of the people living in Cuba, but failed to abide by the same regulations on alcohol, informal gambling and relations between men and women. Cuba is still a communist country, but it still battles with people living in poverty (I). An image of a run-down street in Cuba is an example of the Cuba Che has left behind and that his efforts were in vain because his main reason for having a communist takeover was to eradicate poverty, and yet that is still the reality in Cuba today.

Like the much used stencil of Guevara's determined visage, the general perception of his life is flat and two-dimensional. No where more so, it seems, then in the country richest in Guevara's history, Cuba. An article printed July 21st 1997 in Newsweek, entitled 'Return Of The Rebel', explored Cuban society in the wake of the long-awaited discovery of Guevara's skeleton in Bolivian town of Vallegrande. In it journalist Brook Lamer explains how 'the Cuban Government played a pivotal role in creating the Che mystique, and it is not about to let its franchise slip away'[2].