HOLLYWOOD history is often nonsensical, but filmmakers usually have the sense not to whitewash killers and sadists. Steven Soderbergh's new film about Che Guevara, however, does that, and more.
Che the revolutionary romantic, as depicted by Benicio del Toro in Soderbergh's film, never existed. That hero of the Left, with his hippie hair and beard, an image now iconic on T-shirts and coffee mugs around the world, is a myth concocted by Fidel Castro's propagandists: a cross between Don Quixote and Robin Hood.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Hollywood filmmakers blind to Che's brutality
Australian article by Guy Sorman.
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2 comments:
The right hate Guevara because he tweaked their noses. He wrote a letter to Kennedy in 1961 thanking him for the Bay of Pigs because it consolidated the Cuban revolution. He was ruthless when he had to be. His ruthlessness matched that of the Batista regime.
He is admired because of his brilliance as a politician, but he was also a physician, and a poet. He was motivated by belief in a cause, not self-interest. I belong to a generation which remembers fighting for a cause. The generation post Vietnam have no concept of this. Selfishness rules - greed is good, and look where it's got us.
I put him up there with George Galloway, who also tweaked the Republican establishment with style and wit. Besides, like most Aussies, I find the underdog admirable. I'm looking forward to the movie.
Someone obviously missed out on the details: Che never held a position of responsibility in which he exercised any skill or expertise. Gen Alberto neglected to mention his debt to Che's brilliance, but then he was concerned with practice, not rabble-babble. Che's marksmanship was fairly adequate at 150cm range, though.
And he was a fool.
Cheers
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