This is a collection of my favorite controversial videos and award-winning films, both American and foreign films. I do not own these movies, so if you have any copyright issues, let me know and I will be glad to delete it in this blog. If you like this blog, please feel free to share it with your friends and perhaps you can buy me a cup of coffee.
Thursday, December 31, 2020
Enjoying Award Winning Old Movies_Before Night Falls
I
was searching for old critically acclaimed movies that I have not seen
before just recently. I discovered this 1990 film featured in my Starz
Channel. I found it very entertaining and worth my time. Here's what
Wikipedia says and a review by Roger Ebert.
Review by Roger Ebert: This
is an artistic and visually bold film about the life of a gay talented
poet and writer in the time of the Cuban Revolution. Javier Bardem is
excellent as poet Reinaldo Arenas, a peasant child who becomes one of
Cuba's great writers. The film takes us from the first days of the Cuban
revolution to the dark days of totalitarian repression of all sexuality
and creativity that is not condoned by the state.
This is an
excellent film, visually compelling with a narrative flow that is not
smooth or consistent, but totally engaging all the same. The film
artfully and entertainingly deals with the concept of whether and how
the work of the artist and the actual life of the artist and then the
later artistic depiction of the life of the artist are integrated.
Schnabel does an excellent job of taking on this challenge, revealing
the passages in the life of the artist that impact his work. Reinaldo
Arenas made art from his life experiences but was able to maintain a
surreal and absurdist aspect to the writing.
Schnabel does this
perfectly with his short collage like film-making, that is almost dream
like with its entrances and exits of characters with little introduction
or resolution. At first I thought this was a weakness of the film. Why
were so many handsome men coming into Arenas' life and then leaving his
life? Why were so many artists and writers his friends and allies and
then they disappear?
The more I thought about the film the more it
became evident to me that this is the nature of both homosexuality and
homosexual relationships as well as the voice of dissident artists in a
repressive totalitarian dictatorship. This is terror indeed if we are
afraid to know the names of our lovers or of our fellow sympathizers for
fear that we will be turned in by them or forced to reveal their names.
In the end the film is a great achievement in the ability to depict repression and the human forces that resist it.
No comments:
Post a Comment