Reappraising Che Scripts

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Given the apparent likelihood of Steven Soderbergh's The Argentine and Guerilla playing at the Cannes Film Festival two months hence, here's a condensed reposting of my impressions of Peter Buchman's scripts which I ran over a year ago.

The scripts, both dated 10.4.06, are "awfully damn good -- a pair of lean, gritty, you-are-there battle sagas, one about success and the other about failure. Together they comprise a strong and properly ambiguous whole.

"Obviously political and terse and rugged, they're about how living outside the law and fighting a violent revolution feels and smells and chafes on a verite, chapter-by-chapter basis. They're about sweat and guns and hunger and toughing it out...friendships, betrayals, exhaustion, shoot-outs and trudging through the jungle with a bad case of asthma. What it was, how it happened...the straight dope and no overt 'drama.'

"If Soderbergh does right by what's on the page, The Argentine and Guerilla (which Focus Features will apparent not distribute, I'm told -- there's talk about Warner Bros. stepping in) will have, at the very least, a Traffic-like impact.

"The films will almost certainly be Oscar contenders, and you have to figure that del Toro, playing a complex, conflicted hero who ends up dead (i.e. executed in a rural schoolhouse by a drunken Bolivian soldier), will be up for Best Actor. The Guevara role is too well written (nothing but choice, down- to-it dialogue from start to finish) and del Toro is too talented an actor -- it can't not happen.

"In fact, I can easily imagine critics comparing Soderbergh's two-part saga to Francis Coppola's The Godfather and The Godfather, Part II -- not necessarily in terms of quality or emotional-impact issues but because they convey two distinct and disparate sides of Guevara's saga, the up and the down, in the same way that Coppola's films are about the youthful ascent and malignant, middle-aged descent of Al Pacino's Michael Corleone.

"Another analogy is the first half of Lawrence of Arabia vs. the second half.

"The Argentine is about Fidel Castro and Guevara's forces leading their small anti-Batista army from their arrival on Cuban shores in 1956 until their victory in late '58. Guerilla is about Guevara's failed attempt to spark a subsequent revolution in Bolivia in 1967. The former is about struggle, strength and triumph, and Guerilla is its opposite number -- the same fight minus the wind in the sails."

comment #1

BurmaShave says ...

Still a big problem if they white-wash it. You can say it's not "about that", but it's totally disingeoneous, even just dramatically.

comment #2

The Pope says ...

Obviously I have read neither of the scripts, but the basic problem for me is that Che was a Marxist loon. No matter which way you try to cut it, the guy was a Marxist loon. Beginning. Middle. Last. I'll say it again, a Marxist loon. Other than repeating myself too much, what I do fear is that both films will feed into this growing Marxist chique so trendy amongst the college crowd.
If Soderbergh's movie can wring some kind of deeper truth about our universal human experience, I will be impressed. If not, I'll merrily go back to saying what I have already said... a Marxist loon.

comment #3

actionman says ...

I would have like to have seen the Terrence Malick version.

But this will be just fine I am sure...

comment #4

abuseintake says ...

Mr. Pope, you might want to take the time to research the sociopolitical context in which Che and his contemporaries came to be. I certainly hope I do not bore anybody with the plain and simple fact that the United States strongly favored political interests that would support unregulated markets in the region, the White House of Truman and Eisenhower had many associates within the private sector that had direct commercial interests and sought to influence foreign policy in the region.
The perception that a covert communist insurgency was afoot in the years after WW2 was something that had been seen not only unsettling as a strategic proposition, but it was the fact that by 1950 the United States was exporting 50% of all durable goods sold in central and South American Markets and was importing an equally staggering 35% of all imported raw materials from this region.
I hope we recall that Castro and Guevara started with a little more that a dozen men hiding in the Sierra Maestro, and the fact that this group was able to march into Havana with thousands of Cubans supporting the revolution says a lot about the economic and political injustice that Fulgencio Batista inflicted on the Cuban people. Batista's own desperation and paranoia to hold onto power was legendary.
You must also understand that Batista came to power not by the will of free elections, but a good old fashioned coup. He started out in a 3-way race for the presidency but when 3 of the top newspapers in the region had him dead last in the polls he sought-out help from his old cronies in the Cuban military and came to power by the gun and not the vote.
I am not a member of the Latte-Left, but I think it is a subject for film that should be handled with a great deal of care and should not be dismissed as left-wing propaganda before anyone sees it.

comment #5

The Pope says ...

Abuseintake,
I think what you said in your final paragraph is what I was trying to get at. If it is handled with a great deal of care and reveals a deeper truth about our universal human experience, I will be impressed. Right/Left doesn't interest me all that much simply because I have pretty much made up my mind about politics... but when it comes to the human heart and what makes it tick and why people do what they do and what compels them to act in such ways (moral or otherwise), in ways that are cruel and exploiitative or ways that are idealistic and empathetic... and most importantly, how power changes people... if the movies deliver those things, I will be impressed. The thing I find interesting about that era is that BOTH sides were wrong... but for different reasons.

comment #6

Rich S. says ...

Or, you could just read Orwell's Animal Farm again.

comment #7

Mgmax says ...

"Mr. Pope, you might want to take the time to research the sociopolitical context in which Che and his contemporaries came to be."

Excusing inhumanity always begins with a sentence like that.

comment #8

gansibele says ...

Well's comparison to the Godfather is a stretch, but accurate in that Guevara was also a psychopatic cold-blooded murdered romanticized by Hollywood.

comment #9

PoisonSkin says ...

the T-shirt is going to be bigger than ever. be a good time to jump on the band wagon.

I heard that the Tom Morello Three is doing the soundtrack!

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