"I Am Cuba" documentary

Tomorrow, Saturday 2:00 pm (West Coast) the Sundance Channel will screen an amazing 1 and 1/2 hour long documentary on the making of "I Am Cuba". To Cubans this film is apparently like "Citizen Kane" to US cineasts. To Tikiphiles, it contains the best Tiki bar scene ever put on film, using the decor of the defunkt Havana Hilton Trader Vic's.

No reference is made to that, but the lovely actress that goes bananas among the idols is interviewed.

THANK YOU! I must see this, I Am Cuba is one of my favorite films, and I've been frustrated with the amount of info out there about exactly how and why this fascinating film came to be. Now to figure out how to see it, we don't have the Sundance Channel... :/

..I have a vhs new copy going up on ebay this weekend ....

I got the DVD yesterday, thanks to all of you, and I was amazed by this film. Woaw.

"I am Cuba" and "I am Cuba, the Siberian Mammoth" are currently available on Comcast on Demand. Wow!

Gotta see both of those, kids! That beginning! The roof top bikini fashion show-to-swimming pool scene! The Trader Vic's scene! The camera move over the crowd into the cigar factory! A-m-a-z-i-n-g!
..Then, in the docu, when the 76 year old dolly grip of "I am Cuba" is holding the new VHS/DVD of it in his hands, after it being forgotten for over 30 years, that's how it felt when I gave some Polynesian Pop old timers my book.

It's On Demand here as well. I love the "bamboo curtain" in Trader Vic's. The gals at the bar seem more Steven Crane. :wink: Those lights hung at head level around the bar are very interesting. The first 15 minutes of that is just priceless.

A rare viewing in my home town (pop. 10,000)!

"Ribble Film Club -'I AM CUBA'
Date: 23rd Apr 06

Location: St Mary's Centre, (The Parish Hall) Church Street, Clitheroe

Time: 19:30 - 00:00

Start time 7.30pm. Cert PG

The Ribble Film Club meets on the 2nd Monday of the month at the New Inn, Parson Lane, Clitheroe. Everyone is welcome to attend - meetings start at 7.30pm.
Cost: Members £3.50, non-members £4.50 and concessions for students and seniors"

Stunning viewing on a tv screen, so it should be pretty special seeing it on the big screen.
Trader Woody

Both the Doc and the original film are available through netflix http://www.netflix.com/Search?ff2_submit.x=17&ff2_submit.y=12&v1=I+am+cuba&hnjr=1
(it's a pretty cool service, I'm a member).

BTW- Which one has the cool tiki bar scene, the documentary or the original film?

The original has the scene with the Trader Vic's decor...once you have seen it, you're gonna be hooked, and you will want to see the "Behind the scenes".

Here's a YouTube clip of the Copacabana scene that I posted on my weblog this morning. I wanna know who the swingin' band on the rooftop is! Marxism definitely never looked this hip before (or since).

I've also sent the poster of the clip a message, asking him to put up the Havana Vic's scene.

I see the movie is available on Amazon. The doc. wouldn't be one of the special features of the DVD, would it?

Saw it last night (movie-not doc)--WOW! That's about all I can say--I'm speechless. I'll try for a few more descriptive words: Beautiful, sad, hip, TRIPPY! Director Kalatazov is a visionary genius. Some of the camera angles made me feel drunk.

Hope I'm not 'hurting anybodys feelings' by posting a few (poor) screenshots of the bar scene--could be good for business--BUY IT! SEE IT! LOVE IT!

My friend Lili from fwak! animation was nice enough to rip and post the nightclub scene to YouTube in its entirety last night, so I've updated my original post to include it.

Enjoy, comrades!

Update: Lili has added two more scenes shot at Vic's!

¡Viva la Mai Tai revolución!

Floorshow
Loco Amor

Weblog: Eye of the Goof

[ Edited by: MrBaliHai 2006-05-02 10:32 ]

This was so inspiring; it has led me to my next tiki project. I am DEFINITELY carving that big sucker in the clips! He is the coolest thing ever.

I just received my "I Am Cuba" DVD from Amazon, and watched it last night. I loved the cinematography, and the nightclub scenes were glorious. However, the heavy-handed propaganda that suffuses the film got old pretty fast, and the Russian narration that overlapped and drowned out the actors' dialogue on the soundtrack was incredibly freakin' annoying! It's like listening to a constant echo coming back in the wrong language. It came close to ruining the entire experience of watching the film for me.

I'm amazed that the DVD menu doesn't provide any way to turn off this narration. Why couldn't they have stuck this on the SAP track when they remastered it so the viewer could choose to enable or disable it?

I'm curious what others think regarding the filmmakers' intentions in the early scenes like the rooftop party and the pool and the fantastic TVics interior.

Do you think they want the viewer to be disgusted with the extravagance, excess, and debauchery? In other words, look at the sharp contrast with how the have-nots live on the same island.

But if so, why'd they make it look so great? Was it actually intentional to present those scenes in an appealing light, somehow? Maybe the viewer is supposed to be turned off not so much by the environs, but by the behavior of the people in them (decadent Americans and such)?

I didn't watch the whole movie, so maybe this is all obvious. But I was just kinda intrigued by what seemed like conflicting purposes in the beginning.

-Randy

I'm kinda with you, but I'm sure the director (like most 60s directors ) wanted some glam LA DOLCE VITA style decadence and also wanted to make a GREAT looking film; but still point fingers at the native-spoiling decadent capitalist SWINE of the West. Unfortunately, dismantling all that hedonist stuff was one of the worst things they could've done economy-wise to Cuba--hopefully they stored it all when Castro kicks off its gonna be a GRANDE party.

I'm sure that the intent of those who authorized the making of this film was to juxtapose the decadence of the tourist trade and the island's elite with the grinding poverty that the vast majority of Cubans had to endure. Whether or not director Mikheil Kalatozishvili intentionally made the nightclub and Copacabana scenes look so fabulous is an interesting question. Directors often tried to subvert the strict limitations that the Soviet propaganda officers placed on them, but I don't know enough about Kalatozishvili's dedication to the Party's ideals to make that call.

It is exactly this schizophrenic message that makes this film so endearing to me- I once called it THE best Tiki Bar scene ever captured on film- the irony being that it was meant by the filmmakers as a condemnation!

It ultimately proves that true ART transcends politics: The director and cinematographer came from a cold, forbidding country, and they were seduced by the Cuban sensuality to create something beyond propaganda, even though they were convinced they were supporting the class struggle with their work. They took TWO YEARS to shoot this movie, what THEY thought was their masterwork, and it changed them.

But, what irony, the film was a FLOP in the communist world: In Cuba, the Cubans thought it was an over-dramatizing cliched way of portraying them, and in Russia, the Russian party members thought it was way too fun-loving, so it was shelved. So the director and cinematographer died thinking their opus had been a failure!

To ad to the irony, if you check some of the contemporary internet reviews of the film, some Americans complain about the cliche way THEIR countrymen are portrayed as loud, insensitive buffoons, while others, who have been abroad, concur that such portrayals are sadly accurate.

Which brings me back to my LOVE for cliches, and my belief in their intrinsic folk/pop wisdom, because they are based on truth.

Which brings me back to the mixed Spanish/Russian narration as being an essential surrealist element of the film, which, much like the Brechtian concept of viewer alienation, allows you to step back and see the work of art from a standpoint of bewildered wonderment.....which is my attitude towards Tiki in general.

This film is a testament that if there is one TRUTH, it is ART, not ideology, because the "ideologies" in this example are right AND wrong, proving that there is no simple Black and White reality, as many a leader will want you to believe, but that to embrace duality is much closer to life....

Whew, see what a couple of hours of overwork and some Hefeweizen can do to you....

There is a new 3-DVD set of 'I Am Cuba' currently available. (Retail price $45, amazon price $34)

The entire package comes in a cigar-box!

Disk 1 contains a new high-def version of the full movie (141 minutes) along with a lengthy interview with Martin Scorsese. Also included are the Cuban version of the opening credits, and the original trailer.

Disk 2 contains a 91 minute Brazilian documentary about the making of 'I Am Cuba', along with a 10 minute interview with the film's screeenwriter.

Disk 3 contains a 120 minute documentary about Mikhail Kalatozov, the director of 'I Am Cuba'

Also included is a book on the making of the film and its history since its release.

I saw this film a few months ago, and will likely order this box set very soon.

Vern

Thanks Vern...just ordered my copy. :)

Thank you, Vern, very cool. That documentary about the making off is great (for the I AM CUBA fan), because they dug up some of the crew members (like the dolly grip, who still works in his job in Havana!), and reveal how some of those amazing (for that time revolutionairy) shots in the film were done.
This set is a definite on my Christmas list.

Thanks for the tip Vern.

I have been writing DVD reviews for this web site...

http://www.therewindforums.co.uk/forums/

...and will beg the webmasters to let me have a crack at the new I Am Cuba!

Maybe I will enjoy the film (again) while sipping some of the Havana Club that I got at Duty-Free in Paris, 24 hours ago (had to throw that in!)

I was enjoying this film on Netflix this evening and took a few screen captures of the Tikis in the film.

This guy might be a distant cousin to Disney's Pele.

I know some of these pics may already be on TC in some form or other.

Aaaah, my fave film!

Here are the photographs that the giant idols in the nightclub were obviously carved from, taken from the vintage art book "Exotic Art", an English reprint of the Czech original (I believe).

I also believe that, though the nightclub was obviously a set (with partly Trader Vic's Havana Hilton decor), these statues might have originally stood in this Havana Bar. Their menu cover certainly fits the African primitive art look:

Awesome Poly-Caribbean history detective work as usual Bigbro.

On 2010-09-25 21:23, TIKI-TONGA wrote:
I was enjoying this film on Netflix this evening ...

Thanks for the Netflix heads up. Very cool, it's available to watch instantly! I just added it to my "instant watch" queue and will watch it later this evening.

Here's a couple of working links that focus on the nightclub scenes...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUINE6CrrDc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aT3Ii3hWM0

It's all about the Lounge Culture.

Maybe we should start banning Aloha Shirts (unless you're the bartender) and shorts from the Tiki Bar. :)

In a recent thread, the question came up why I vote this film to be the best depiction of Tiki Culture on celluloid. That I do so does NOT mean that mid-century Cuba = Tiki.

I have always spoken of the IRONY of this: A RUSSIAN film shot in CUBA in a nightclub setting depicting AFRICAN idols with CUBAN singers and dancers in my mind does the best job to capture THE SPIRIT of Tiki in the mid-century. None of these things ARE "Tiki", but in its portrayal of a Zeitgeist (Time Spirit) it comes closer to the essence of Tiki Culture than any other original footage I know.

It should have been shot at the Mai Kai, but it wasn't. Factually (location, ethnic style, music) it is not Tiki, but artistically it wonderfully represents the SPIRIT OF TIKI.

CCCP TIKI BAR TV FOR PEOPLES
http://www.tikibartv.com/?page_id=110

Aloha comrades.

[ Edited by: martian-tiki 2010-10-28 22:50 ]

Tomorrow, Thursday, November 12, 2015, Turner Classic Movies (USA and Canada) will devote the entire evening to Milestone Film & Video in celebration of its 25th anniversary.

9:15 pm EST: Mikhail Kalatozov’s I Am Cuba (1964, a Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola presents)

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0150/7896/files/IamCubaPK.pdf?1009&mc_cid=ba8f6b41d4&mc_eid=ccdc708b68

Set to record. Thanks for the heads up!

Thank you for the heads up.
Did watch it, was odd.
The best part is shots of old Trader Vic's.

Thank god they got rid of the oppressive regime and replaced it with
a oppressive regime.

Odd, TCM plays movies that are reflective of what is going on in the world at
the time they play said movie.

A movie about civil unrest, Hmmmm.

They had like tons of lights in this movie but pic's of people who have been to Trader Vic's Cuba do not show as many lights.
Have they lost some?

bump

While in Havana to shoot a German TV movie last April, I searched out some of the locations of this great, favorite movie of mine:

The (longest continuous tracking shot) opening roof top pool sequence at the Capri Hotel:

...which is now nicely renovated mid-century style:

(my photo)

The elevator, by the way, never existed.

The Tiki club ENTRANCE, shot across from the Capri:

(my photo)

...at yes, what is now the 21 Club/Bar (with nothing left inside):

(my photo)

The cigar factory cable cam shot to the funeral procession:

…which was shot at the "Five Corners" intersection in Havana:

(my photo)

My grip truck on my film had been used as the grip truck on "I Am Cuba":

To top that, the father of the production manager of our TV movie had actually been the production manager on "I Am Cuba", so I was fortunate to get to interview him:

The crew:

He still had the original script:

Here is the opening page:

It was a very moving experience for me.

Sven, that's great! What are you going to do with the interview recording?

It's ll in my head :)

There is a whole documentary about the man, he was instrumental in establishing the new Cuban film agency

Sven, wow, that's amazing. Even more amazing that there's a 50 year old grip truck running in Cuba (coming from an ex-grip). Love the photo side by sides.

Excellent post Sven. How exciting for you! I recorded the movie when TCM aired it and have only been able to watch the first three "stories" thus far. I'm no movie buff or cinematography expert but some of the camera techniques were blowing my mind. That opening sequence was absolutely incredible and I'm amazed how perfectly choreographed a lot of the extended scenes were that used one long camera shot over several minutes. I can't wait to go there this spring.

So I was watching Mrs Maisel on Amazon last night, I believe Episode 5 from Season 3, and they cut to a scene that seems like a frame for frame copy (tribute?) to the club scene in I Am Cuba. It really came out of nowhere and is just so obscure and random, I can’t imagine many people would get the reference. I snapped a couple shots...