Movie-Making, Politics Collide in Little Havana

As a television crew in Miami immersed itself in filming the love story of jazz master Arturo Sandoval’s long-burning desire to escape Fidel Castro’s government, only a few miles away Cuba’s newly famous refugee, Elian Gonzalez, had sparked intense reactions from the city’s Cuban exile community.

Last spring’s unexpected combination of immigrant sagas stoked powerful feelings among the crew of mostly Cuban Americans, many of whom were raised on stories of their own families’ journey from Cuba to the U.S.

“It was supercharged,” said Joseph Sargent, who directed HBO’s “For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story,” which premieres tonight.

Along the way, there were moments when the telling of Sandoval’s story intersected with Elian’s drama. Andy Garcia, who stars as Sandoval in the film, and entertainer-actor Gloria Estefan, who portrays a Castro loyalist, joined with others in the Miami exile community to fight for the child to remain in the U.S. At one point, the two joined a human chain outside Elian’s home in Little Havana.

On another occasion, a prop plane parked on the tarmac and emblazoned with the word “Cubana” caused a stir among several Elian supporters, who feared it was part of the aging Soviet fleet still in use on the communist island nation.

“Word got out that Castro had sent the plane to kidnap the kid,” said Sargent, who also directed HBO’s Emmy Award-winning “Miss Evers’ Boys.” “They were mobilizing instantly to throw a human chain around the plane, but if they had gotten that far, they would have seen that on the other side of the plane we had painted ‘Alitalia’ for another sequence out of Rome. We had to do a lot of damage control.”

That damage control meant speaking to a group of exiles who admitted their emotions ran high because the Elian case had made them relive their own journeys, from start to finish. On celluloid and in real life, Sandoval’s defection was fraught with saying goodbye to a parent he might never see again, a friend, a stepson. And for those involved in filming his story, Elian’s case underscored how wrenching it could be to lose contact with family as a result of leaving the island. Elian’s story was further knotted by great tragedy. His mother died during the ocean crossing, and the 6-year-old boy’s sea rescue led to a custody fight between his Miami relatives and his father in Cuba.

“I was 5 1/2 years old, and I left from Havana Province,” said Garcia, recounting the 1961 freedom flight his family took. “I definitely remember when we left.”

Whereas the Gonzalez case was fought publicly by both sides for months, this film about the repression Sandoval experienced as an artist is a quiet exploration of the complexities of those same emotions. Many of the sentiments played out through a controlled yet intense dialogue between Sandoval and a U.S. Embassy official. The conversation serves as a touchstone for the flashbacks that provide a window into Sandoval’s life under Castro. It forces Sandoval to justify his claim of suffering under a Cuban government that provided him with classical training and worldwide touring opportunities.

“It was a torture of denial of freedom to express yourself,” Sargent said. “You don’t get the sense that there’s anything repressive about the government at all, which is usually how it happens. That’s why identifying fascism was difficult in previous [eras]. The subtlety is far more terrifying.”

The movie begins as Sandoval plans to defect in 1976. But just before leaving to tour, he meets Marianela, a devout communist, who is played by Argentine actor Mia Maestro. She admittedly brought to the film a very different frame of reference than Garcia or Estefan.

“Argentina is completely pro-Castro. Instead of seeming like another dictatorship, Cuba seems like a paradise for many Argentines,” said Maestro, who starred in “Tango” (1998), which received an Academy Award nomination for best foreign-language film. “In Miami it’s a completely different point of view. Suddenly, my reality expands and it’s much more complicated than you thought.”

A Love Story Amid the Politics

Although Sandoval despised Marianela’s politics, his desire to leave the island lost its appeal.

“The main arc of the story is the love story,” said Garcia. “Marianela . . . was an ideologue and committed to the revolution. Her arc is of betrayal when she realizes everything was a lie. She was a committed party member. That was the conflict in their relationship: Arturo was trying to enlighten her in their relationship.”

Sandoval was also desperate to grow as a musician, with famed U.S. trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie a key source of his inspiration. When Sandoval heard that Gillespie would arrive on a cruise ship, Sandoval patched together parts for a car. He won Gillespie’s attention by finding the American’s friend in an area of Havana where there are neither paved streets nor addresses.

In the film, Gillespie--portrayed by Charles S. Dutton in what he calls a “glorified cameo”--videotaped street scenes in Havana and some of those images bump along the screen as Sandoval maneuvers his car around town. That footage was actually shot illegally by Sargent, who went down to Cuba for less than 48 hours to soak up the texture and take some photographs for the project.

Donald M. Morgan, director of photography, said Sargent’s hasty “research” became instrumental to creating the film’s lush feel. Morgan, who has worked on several of Sargent’s films for the past 24 years and has won three Emmys, said Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico, were the only places where Cuba’s sensuousness and slow pace could be replicated.

After Gillespie left Cuba for the first time, Sandoval and his band, Irakere, toured abroad for about a decade while Marianela waited at home with their son. Even though Sandoval traveled, his world seemed to be shrinking. In this same compressed period of time, Sandoval learns from club operators that the government had blacklisted him.

This is the story of “the artist in a totalitarian state--how they live and what drives someone to defect to regain his vocal and civil liberties,” Garcia said.

The mid-1980s were Sandoval’s loneliest years, and he felt slowly suffocated as a musician. Garcia, who plays drums, piano and harmonica, learned a little trumpet for the part and kept close to Sandoval on the set to learn his body language.

“He is watching me all the time to see how I move my arm or talk,” said Sandoval, who was an active consultant on the set, also composing and recording the movie’s score. “[But] nobody,” Sandoval added, “has to explain to him how to act like a Cuban. He’s Cuban.”

In its early stages, the movie, which executive producer Jellybean Benitez was developing, was titled “Havana Nocturn” and focused almost entirely on Sandoval’s musical career. Garcia was then approached by HBO. He signed on, took the script and overhauled it to emphasize the romantic and political conflict.

“If you start asking yourself, ‘How badly do you want to tell this story?’ [then] you become a producer out of necessity,” Garcia said. “This story touches anyone who is an exile. Metaphorically, there’s a reason why we’re here.”

By the time Sargent was brought in, he found the script was “very preachy.”

“I was interested in modifying anything that may have been too polemic,” Sargent said. “I suggested to HBO that it got very melodramatic unnecessarily. They showed agents lurking in the shadows in doorways. It was too much of a physical manifestation of something that is far more subtle, than that overt. A lot of it is state of mind. They agreed, so I took it on.”

‘It’s Braver to Change’

In the film, as in real life, Marianela lost faith in Castro as she saw her husband’s musical opportunities diminish. By the time Gillespie asked Sandoval to accompany him on his 1990 United Nation Orchestra tour, Marianela was ready to abandon the revolution.

“It was really important to show that a person is able to change. The Cuban Americans and the Cubans are always doing that gossiping-blaming thing about what you did back there compared to what you will do here, in the United States,” Maestro said. “I wanted to show that a person is really free to change their mind whenever they want to. That’s very brave. Many people think it’s very brave to stick to your ideas, but I think it’s braver to change.”

Arturo and Marianela staged a “family vacation” at the end of the tour, and in an effort to avoid government scrutiny, Sandoval joined the Communist Party three months before leaving with Gillespie.

While that move reassured Cuban officials, it would later stall Sandoval’s application for U.S. citizenship. Even though Sandoval became a cause celebre, won three Grammys, performed at the Academy Awards and played four times for President Clinton, he was not sworn in as a U.S. citizen until December 1998.