comment #1

Geoff says ...

When I first heard of Soderbergh attempting to make an epic film about Che, I fully expected to see this horrific and dark time explored on screen. It's part of what made him so interesting to me.

The true Che Guevara has always been an ambivalent figure. When I would stare at countless posters of Che in college dorms it would make me want to read more about the guy, not just blindly worship the myth.

It's a grey zone. It's his life.

I hope I love what I see, but right now I'm just a little confused.

comment #2

Adonis says ...

We had this fight last month... You can't "not go there." Otherwise you're making a piece of propaganda.

Bart is correct in that a high-end director will be afforded many praises from those, like Wells, A.O Scott, etc., despite essentially making a mythical film about an increasingly mythical subject.

If he has made a film with a purpose of delving into the character of Che, all the while ignoring the thousands butchered and his fierce, psychotic rhetoric regarding the need for mass killing(artfully well-made or not) than he has indeed made a piece of propaganda art. And it should be called that.

comment #3

vansmith says ...

Look whenever you take over a country you have to kill alot of people, im sure che and castro killed a bunch, one man's hero is another one's dictator..

comment #4

MovieBob says ...

"Look whenever you take over a country you have to kill alot of people, im sure che and castro killed a bunch, one man's hero is another one's dictator.."

Someone's tuition-payments at work, right there ;)

I don't think it's necessarily the end-of-days for Soderbergh to take this approach, though it's very much a cop-out. The problem is, when you make a history-based movie you DO have to justify leaving certain aspects out because people know the record and the lack of certain elements can jar them out of the story. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like Soderbergh here has any justification beyond finding fancy ways of saying that he was only interested in making a movie about Che-the-t-shirt, not Che-the-person... he's made the "Marie Antoinette of socialist-revolutionary movies ;)

comment #5

fielding says ...

It is fundamentally immoral of Soderbergh to ignore Guevara's crimes against humanity. Damn him to hell.

comment #6

vansmith says ...

did che kill off a bunch of local peasants or did he try to kill off the land barons the usual "bad guys" in the war against the rich, i mean come on, why are these kids wearing his shirt, he represents the fight against mass commercial and consumerism, he represents the exploited 2 cents a week nike sneaker maker, you know the drill, now whether its that clear cut, it probably isnt it, he was probably a scumbag to a degree but hey it comes with the territory. 'crimes against humanity' - get the fuck out here! every asshole with a gun or stick commits a crime against humanity

comment #7

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

"Look whenever you take over a country you have to kill alot of people, im sure che and castro killed a bunch, one man's hero is another one's dictator.."

Yeah, look at all the people Vaclav Havel put to death.

comment #8

gruver1 says ...

Wells to Soderbergh Finger-Pointers: You guys obviously don't understand the ethical/moral scheme embraced by ruthless Communist regimes who've wasted their enemies in the wake of a takeover. They're figuring that eliminating a few hundred lives (or a few thousand or tens of thousands...where do you stop?) in order to remove reactionary and/or subversive ingredients from a society is cold and ruthless, yes, but it also serves (in their view) a higher moral purpose, which is to create a truly humane society that isn't based upon giving free rein to ruthless Darwinian-capitalistic urges. When a gardener pulls up weeds and dandelions from a muddled lawn, he is clearly doing murder. Does the gardener feel guilty or weep in his bed about this? No, because they're just weeds and dandelions. That's how your hard-core ideological Commie (Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Josef Stalin, Fidel Castro) thinks, or thought in the old days. To allow a revolutionary state's policy to be determined by simplistic moral concepts (i.e., thou shalt not kill) allows for greater evils to flourish, they believe. I myself believe (as do all gardeners) that you must remove the weeds and dandelions to have a perfect green lawn...when you're literally talking about a lawn. Because I also believe what Gore Vidal wrote in The Best Man when he lamented the thinking of politicians who feel that the ends justifies the means. "There are no ends," Vidal wrote. "Only means."

comment #9

buckzollo says ...

I know Jeffrey Wells
I read Jeffrey Wells
You sir, are no Jeffrey Wells
Dream on Bart

comment #10

chicbn872 says ...

Well said Jeff...oddly enough, aren't you describing what has & is happening in Iraq, which you vehemently disagree with?

I also believe you must remove the weeds (Saddam Hussein Regime in Iraq) & dandelions (Taliban) to have a perfect green lawn (democracies in the Middle East)...now, a better plan on what to lay down after removing those weeds & dandelions would have been nice.

comment #11

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

If I read you correctly, Jeff, that's the best condemnation of Soderbergh's whitewashing of Che yet.

comment #12

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

I realize that even mentioning this book will bring out all the lefty kneejerkers who think "Doughy Pantload" is a hilarious nickname, but this is where it would be of real value to have read Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism. One of the side benefits of the book is a well-made, if somewhat implicit, historical argument that the real fault line in politics has never been between left and right; it's between an English conception of limited government and a Franco-German conception (rooted in Rousseau, much amplified by German philosophers and put into practice by both the French Revolution and Bismarck) of the total state, to which we all belong, whose ends we serve (and in turn have our own needs taken care of).

The problem with the latter is that when everything is within the state's purview, the state can justify anything by its needs, so it gives absolute authority to those smart folks who happen to be in power, and anyone who isn't part of their solution becomes a problem who must be dealt with. And then it just becomes a matter of how ruthless the folks in charge happen to be. Robespierre, Stalin, Hitler, Mao-- very ruthless. Mussolini, Woodrow Wilson, the eugenics movement, the dissent-suppression of the environmental movement-- somewhat ruthless. "It Takes a Village" and Obama's beyond-partisan-politics-- not ruthless in that sense at all, but clearly intrusive into new areas of our home life, and given some of the tools at hand (ie, the ability of the state to take children away), potentially very scary nonetheless. (If it takes a village to raise my child, then I'm dispensable...)

So the thing about Castro and Che is, it's not that they fought the bad guys like Robin Hood, then messed up when they got into power. They were successful at establishing exactly the sort of state they envisioned, and for which they had many models. Cheering them on in the good fight without acknowledging what they were fighting for and that it was not, in fact, good at all (even if its enemies weren't either) is... well, there's no other word. Propaganda, not history.

comment #13

SaveFarris says ...

Based on this post, I can only surmise Jeff didn't really like "Godfather II". Because instead of focusing on Michael's laudible goal (protecting his family), the movie went ahead and portrayed all those dark, nasty (and apparently irrelevant) repercussions of his actions.

Less shootouts and scheming, more of Michael and the kids playing in the yard with puppies !!

comment #14

Joe Leydon says ...

Jeff: Isn't Bart's complaint somewhat similar to the complaint you had a few years back regarding We Were Soldiers?

comment #15

Joe Leydon says ...

http://www.reel.com/reel.asp?node=movienews/confidential&pageid=20084

comment #16

gansibele says ...

A perfectly green lawn is the most putrid form of artificiality, so as somebody who knows by personal experience how communism (doesn't)work, Jeff's analogy is spot on.

The question then becomes; is Sorderbergh's an "ends" approach? And if it is, why can't it be criticized as lacking in artistic clarity? Contrast it to "Traffic' which is pretty much about the "means".

Mgmax: Golberg isn't the first one to establish the fault line between the extremes of totalitarianism and libertarianism. (See Karl Popper for example). If Goldberg wanted to be taken seriously he shouldn't have ladled his tome with so much pre-ordained ideological associations. He started the book with the title.

comment #17

gruver1 says ...

Wells to Leydon: Uhhh...no. I don't see my "We Were Soldiers" comments as similar to Bart's. Okay, somewhat...but not really.

comment #18

D.Z. says ...

Adonis: "You can't "not go there." Otherwise you're making a piece of propaganda."

Did anyone go there with The Patriot?

gruver: "I myself believe (as do all gardeners) that you must remove the weeds and dandelions to have a perfect green lawn...when you're literally talking about a lawn."

I doubt those children killed by AIDS in Romania from uncleaned needles, the intellectuals killed through slave labor under the Khmer Rouge, and the poor bastards killed by an unchecked nuclear power plant in the Ukraine count as "weeds". There's a difference between changing the system and changing it against the will of the people. You don't seem to get the irony that Bush is using your very argument for the occupation of Iraq.

Mgmax: '"It Takes a Village" and Obama's beyond-partisan-politics-- not ruthless in that sense at all, but clearly intrusive into new areas of our home life, and given some of the tools at hand (ie, the ability of the state to take children away), potentially very scary nonetheless.'

You claim Obama and Hillary are as intrusive as those fascists, but then you advocate wire-tapping and illegal detainment, which they are completely against. Also, I don't see why children who've been raped by Texas cult members should be allowed to stay with their family-members.

comment #19

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

Gansibele, I know that, heck, there's not that much of his argument that's not in The Road to Serfdom (though his historical examples are very different-- and well worth reading for them alone), but hey, there's the book that said it first and there's the book that reached a popular audience. I don't find "he shouldn't have said it in a way that was basically valid, but too attention-getting" a very compelling argument.

D.Z., as a matter of fact, I do favor wiretapping a small number of terrorism suspects, while leaving the vast majority of American parents to raise their children as they see fit, and not only that, I find that point of view consistent with a general respect for liberty. But perhaps you would prefer to argue the opposite, that we must respect the rights of terrorists to plot attacks unhindered, but every child is merely on loan to his or her parents pending the whim of a bureaucrat?

comment #20

gansibele says ...

Nope, it's not the "attention-getting" part, is the fact that he started with a conclusion instead of a theory and then he gets beffudled trying to prove it backwards. Smae thing Hitchens did with "God Is Not Great". But now that you bring it up, yes, his penchant for attention getting holds him down.

Jeff: It is exactly the same argument.

comment #21

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

Well, suffice it to say I don't really agree about that, without and think on the whole, his case is made pretty well-- that "total state" ideas, which have at least a tinge and often much more of that of fascism, have been more prevalent on the progressive left than the right they're customarily associated with, a fact which is unexamined by those who proclaim that, for instance, a certain candidate will unite us all, end partisan politics, and (as his wife said) not allow us not to be involved. That's pretty much been the promise of every fascist candidate over the last 100 years or so, so here's to the disunited, constantly bickering, stubbornly resistant to mass movements peoples of the English-speaking world who've resisted such calls, even at the risk of being called uneducated hicks by the intelligentsia.

Now, I think there's a legitimate question to be raised about whether every point on a slippery slope is truly dangerous, and you could argue that he's getting too worried about benign things (of course, none of that ever happens on the anti-Bush side!), but-- well, legitimate questions which have gone unasked are exactly what the book is about. You don't have to be convinced by every page to find a book worth thinking about. In fact, didn't I just say that about Gore Vidal?

comment #22

Josh says ...

"True -- the movie doesn't do this. Soderbergh and his screenwriter, Peter Buchman, obviously weren't interested in going there"

Lets conveniently forget all the stuff where our main character is a savage and a mass murderer. But we'll fill 4 hrs with his goodness?

It would be like doing a bio pic on Manson and leaving out his killings.

comment #23

D.Z. says ...

Mgmax: "D.Z., as a matter of fact, I do favor wiretapping a small number of terrorism suspects, while leaving the vast majority of American parents to raise their children as they see fit,"

Except that the reverse is happening.

"and not only that, I find that point of view consistent with a general respect for liberty. But perhaps you would prefer to argue the opposite, that we must respect the rights of terrorists to plot attacks unhindered, but every child is merely on loan to his or her parents pending the whim of a bureaucrat?"

No, actually I respect the right of people to be innocent until proven guilty. We didn't need to wiretap to catch the Millennium Bomber, and we don't need to do it to catch Al Qaeda. As for children, I feel that parents are entitled to have them, as long as they are responsible.

Josh: "Lets conveniently forget all the stuff where our main character is a savage and a mass murderer. "

*cough* Swamp Fox *cough*

comment #24

BurmaShave says ...

Regardless of your politics, ignoring Ernesto Guevara's dual nature is just bad drama.

comment #25

BurmaShave says ...

DZ I've done my best to stop engaging you, but THE PATRIOT was A)ficiton, B) poorly reviewed and C) not much of a hit. Really poor comparison.

comment #26

D.Z. says ...

Burma: "Regardless of your politics, ignoring Ernesto Guevara's dual nature is just bad drama."

No one seemed to pay attention to Bush's hypocrisy as a "compassionate conservative".

"DZ I've done my best to stop engaging you, but THE PATRIOT was A)ficiton,"

Based on historical fact, but fictionalized for the sake of not being protested.

comment #27

Adonis says ...

Mr. Wells,

I am stunned that in your answer "defending" che's policy of mass murder (and yes, he killed, peasants, middle-class, upper-class and everyone in between), you would quote the logic of STALIN and MAO... I repeat STALIN and Mao.

"You guys obviously don't understand the ethical/moral scheme embraced by ruthless Communist regimes who've wasted their enemies in the wake of a takeover. They're figuring that eliminating a few hundred lives (or a few thousand or tens of thousands...where do you stop?) in order to remove reactionary and/or subversive ingredients from a society is cold and ruthless, yes, but it also serves (in their view) a higher moral purpose, which is to create a truly humane society that isn't based upon giving free rein to ruthless Darwinian-capitalistic urges. When a gardener pulls up weeds and dandelions from a muddled lawn, he is clearly doing murder. Does the gardener feel guilty or weep in his bed about this? No, because they're just weeds and dandelions."

It is precisely because of Che's emulation of Stalin and Mao that Bart takes offense to Soderburgh leaving out the mass murders from his films. Precisely that.

Wells, "killing for a higher moral purpose," is Facism defined... removing the weeds of society to leave only the pristine, the Godly, or in Che's case, the INDOCTRINATED.

It is precisely, to use your own analogy, the depiction of "Che the gardner" that Bart feels simply cannot be missing from a Che film.

And I agree with MgMax entirely: Your own words are exactly why we point fingers at Soderburgh. I'm surprised you don't see that.

comment #28

Sweetbubba says ...

[Wells to Leydon: Uhhh...no. I don't see my "We Were Soldiers" comments as similar to Bart's].

Yeah, it's really difficult to see the similarities:

"The reason I'm bringing up Hollywood and Mr. [Soderbergh] is because I've seen [Che], which he directed.

It's hard to put your finger on it, but the film gives the impression — deliberately, I have to assume — that there was something pretty darn noble and honorable about fighting not just this particular battle, but the nearly decade-long war that followed.

[Che] isn't exactly [Triumph of the Will]— one of the most ill-informed and absurdly jingoistic films about [tyrannical oppression] ever imagined, much less made and exhibited — but it feels like it came from the same philosophical gene pool. It doesn't exactly say [Che was] fighting on the side of God and the angels, but it vaguely implies this. Very cleverly, I might add. Which is why I half-admired it. It's very rare to run into an effective, smartly made, gung-ho propaganda film.

The main characters — [murderous revolutionaries] who get caught up in the firefight that comprises nearly two-thirds of the film's running time — are definitely likable, sturdy and courageous. Nicely portrayed, they're brave and focused, but mainly distinguished by the compassion and back-watching vigilance they show for each other in the heat of battle. If you were unlucky enough to be involved in [a revolutionary movement] and your life was on the line, you couldn't ask for a more dutiful or dependable bunch to cover your ass in a pinch.
So after watching them come through a terrible battle in such exemplary fashion, and sharing their relief and seeing the horror in their eyes, you can't help but feel a certain awe. And from that point it's only another step or two to try to reconsider the meaning of their [creating and oppressive, murderous, tyrannical regime], and that there had to be something at least semi-worthy about their mission. How could this conflict have been ignoble with guys of such high caliber manning the [AK-47s] and tossing the grenades?

In short, [Che] subliminally and sentimentally nudges you into thinking [creating a murderous, tyrannical regime] was sort of an okay thing, which most historians, to be completely neutral about it, have taken issue with. Even [Michel Gorbachev], the former [Head of the Supreme Soviet], started to see the truth of this even while he was still on the job in the late [‘80s], and was said to be haunted later in his life by his responsiblity for it.

It's not just that [Soderbergh] and his men seem to be fighting in a bizarre vacuum of some kind,it's that the [portrayal of Che’s actions] seem to provide very little in the way of echoes or lessons about the [Cold] War. "

Yep, nothing applicable at all

comment #29

SaveFarris says ...

DZ keeps mentioning The Patriot, but I'm not sure he's ever seen it. Because the version *I* saw started with the words:

"I have long feared that my sins would return to visit me, and the cost would be more than I could bear."

In the very first line, he alludes to the atrocities that he committed. Hard to say the film whitewashes his record...

comment #30

gansibele says ...

Mgmax: I don't disagree with you (or Goldberg) that totalitarian systems have sprouted more on the left than on the right. Facism, communism, etc; they all start with a populist ideology -but they are also extremes. Where the crack on the reasoning happens is in fusing the ideological drive with the historical practice; e.g: saying that one inevitably brings about the other. That's just a book selling tactic.

I think basically we agree. And hey, I'm a liberal, I didn't like the book, but I read it.

comment #31

D.Z. says ...

Farris: "In the very first line, he alludes to the atrocities that he committed. Hard to say the film whitewashes his record..."

Alluding to isn't the same as showing it.

comment #32

fielding says ...

There is nothing humane about communism. Its ultimate endpoint is totalitarianism and mass murder.

comment #33

lipranzer says ...

I understand the mere mention of Che Guevera is always going to start an argument both here and elsewhere, but the fact of the matter is Peter Bart is an ignoramus who thinks the only good movies are movies that make over $100 million, and who still thinks the success of THE GODFATHER was all his doing. Why anyone would take anything he says seriously is beyond me.

comment #34

SaveFarris says ...

"Alluding to isn't the same as showing it."

Moving the goalposts isn't the same as winning an argument.

comment #35

Adonis says ...

Folks, Sweetbubba's post was outstanding. Has no one else caught that yet?

Wells, I'm dying for a response from you regarding that. Just dying.

comment #36

D.Z. says ...

fielding: "There is nothing humane about communism. Its ultimate endpoint is totalitarianism and mass murder."

It's no more inhumane than an unregulated market.

Farris: "Moving the goalposts isn't the same as winning an argument."

And thus you haven't really won, since your argument for The Patriot still indicates the film is as unbalanced as that of Che, since it's not clear what are his "sins".

comment #37

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

"It's no more inhumane than an unregulated market."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine

See if you can spot any trends in where famines did happen, and did not.

comment #38

D.Z. says ...

Mgmax: It's ironic you bring up famine, what with that currently happening due to high food prices from an unregulated market, high oil prices and global warming.

comment #39

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

Yeah, because prices going up a little and 30 million people starving to death are exactly the same. Free markets are why it's nowhere near as severe as the horrific disasters that seem inevitably to accompany communism.

Anyway, what is it that you exactly think is unregulated, the ability to drill for oil? The ethanol market?

comment #40

Adonis says ...

Jesus Christ, D.Z. Capitalism won. It. Won. Every country that tried to implement true, doctrine-oriented communism has suffered economic meltdown.

Why is China a power now? Because it's no longer a doctrine-oriented communism. After Mao's death it moved back towards private wealth private enterprise, etc.

Vietnam is finally a thriving econonmy again having finally let go of its communist airs from the '70's.

Complete unregulation of course offers monopoly and the potential for bad things... but it's so far superior to communist attempts at market regulation, which have gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Mao's cultural revolution killed millions of Chinese from starvation alone. This is not a debate. It's crazy person on the sidewalk talking and the rest of us foolish to stop and listen feel the worse for it.

comment #41

D.Z. says ...

Mgmax: "Yeah, because prices going up a little and 30 million people starving to death are exactly the same."

Actually, they're starving right now, due to the high food prices.

"Free markets are why it's nowhere near as severe as the horrific disasters that seem inevitably to accompany communism."

Except for when a bridge or a levee collapses, or a state gets overcharged for power, or a corporate scumbag loots his employees' savings....

Adonis: "Jesus Christ, D.Z. Capitalism won. It. Won. Every country that tried to implement true, doctrine-oriented communism has suffered economic meltdown."

Huh? Communism is still in China, N. Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba.

"Why is China a power now? Because it's no longer a doctrine-oriented communism. "

You're kidding, right? It still subsidizes the hell out of everything.

"Vietnam is finally a thriving econonmy again having finally let go of its communist airs from the '70's."

Um, no, it's still a communist country.

"Complete unregulation of course offers monopoly and the potential for bad things... but it's so far superior to communist attempts at market regulation, which have gone horribly, horribly wrong."

Except for Black Water and Halliburton turning Iraq into a third world country, and screwing our troops out of benefits...

"Mao's cultural revolution killed millions of Chinese from starvation alone."

Yes, and our corporate bombs killed millions of Iraqis. What's your point?

comment #42

Adonis says ...

Like I said, I am now a dumber person for having continued to read this thread.

comment #43

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

"Actually, they're starving right now, due to the high food prices."

Who's starving, the fat people next to Jeff on planes?

Okay, I just want to savor the following in all their I-have-no-fucking-clue-what-I'm-talking-about-but-that's-never-stopped-me glory:

"Except for Black Water and Halliburton turning Iraq into a third world country"
Ah yes, Iraq the Switzerland of Mesopotamia until we wrecked it...
"Yes, and our corporate bombs killed millions of Iraqis."
Fucking Nike, saturation-bombing Bagdad. Glad to see this is up to "millions" now. Millions I say! What airbase are those bombing raids being flown out, day after day, squadrons of dozens of B-52s in tight formation, dropping millions of tons of ordinance on city after city?

comment #44

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

Oh, and I missed this one:

"Except for when a bridge or a levee collapses, or a state gets overcharged for power, or a corporate scumbag loots his employees' savings...."

All of which killed at least as many people as the Great Leap Forward! Millions! MILLIONS!

comment #45

SaveFarris says ...

We seem to have gotten lost in the weeds. To sum up:

DZ thinks that a serious "for your consideration" film about Che advertising itself as the truth that ignores his slaughterous and brutal record is no different than a Mel Gibson summer popcorn flick about a ficticious character that admits in the first lines of the film that he's commited "sins", has all the other characters in the film ask him "Hey, aren't you the guy that slaughtered all those Indians?, and closes the 2nd act with a blow-by-blow description of the atrocities he committed.

The Patriot was more honest about it's (again, FICTIONAL) character than Che' is about it's real subject.

comment #46

D.Z. says ...

Mgmax: "Who's starving, the fat people next to Jeff on planes?"

No, people who live on subsistence wages in third-world countries.

"Ah yes, Iraq the Switzerland of Mesopotamia until we wrecked it... "

*cough* Bush let a museum get robbed, and the place has less power and clean water than before occupation. *cough*

"What airbase are those bombing raids being flown out, day after day, squadrons of dozens of B-52s in tight formation, dropping millions of tons of ordinance on city after city?"

They're just letting the depleted uranium finish the job.

"All of which killed at least as many people as the Great Leap Forward! Millions! MILLIONS!"

No, that's just free market health care which is doing that.

Farris: "DZ thinks that a serious "for your consideration" film about Che advertising itself as the truth that ignores his slaughterous and brutal record is no different than a Mel Gibson summer popcorn flick about a ficticious character"

Except that he's not fictitious. He's just been fictionalized.

"that admits in the first lines of the film that he's commited "sins", has all the other characters in the film ask him "Hey, aren't you the guy that slaughtered all those Indians?, and closes the 2nd act with a blow-by-blow description of the atrocities he committed."

Probably because there are seven sins, and genocide is generally not one of them.

"The Patriot was more honest about it's (again, FICTIONAL) character than Che' is about it's real subject."

It was so honest, that the British complained about how they were portrayed, and the studio had to change the main character's name.

comment #47

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