Capturing Castro in his own words
HBO is set to air “Looking for Fidel,” filmmaker Oliver Stone’s long-in-the-works documentary on Cuban leader Fidel Castro, on Wednesday.
Actually, to be more accurate, “Looking for Fidel,” is the second Castro documentary from Stone, although it will be the first to be seen by all but a few early festival attendees.
The story behind “Looking for Fidel” features the crossroads of a still-notorious filmmaker working in a new area, an even more notorious political leader nearing the end of his long reign of power, and a powerful pay cable network that wouldn’t settle for the former’s film on the latter.
Stone’s first film on Castro, “Comandante,” was designed to “probe behind the man the world saw as an icon for 50 years,” the filmmaker told a crowd at a March 29 dinner screening co-hosted by HBO at the Council on Foreign Relations. For that film, he said, he spent 30 hours over six days “head to head, face to face” with Castro.
“Comandante” was a bit of a coup for Stone, who made his name -- and earned the first of his two directing Oscars -- with the 1986 Vietnam film “Platoon.” He made such buzzed-about films as “JFK,” “Wall Street” and “Born on the Fourth of July,” but by the late ‘90s it seemed his interests had drifted elsewhere. Although 1999’s “Any Given Sunday” showed he could still pack a commercial punch, and he has the big-budget “Alexander,” a historical drama on Alexander the Great, due this summer, Stone’s efforts shifted more toward documentaries once the 21st century started.
A filmmaker not shy about tackling divisive political themes, it’s fitting Stone tackled the enduring conflict in the Middle East with “Persona Non Grata,” which HBO aired last June, and “Comandante,” a largely favorable portrait of Castro that was set to air on HBO last spring.
But between the film’s screening at Sundance in January 2003 and its planned HBO debut last April, Castro imprisoned 75 journalists, librarians and political activists and executed three men who hijacked a ferry in a failed attempt to escape to the U.S. HBO pulled the film and asked Stone to update it before it could be aired.
Returning to Cuba, Stone said he spent another 30 hours with Castro over three days and chose instead to make a second film rather than modify “Comandante.”
Asked why Castro had agreed to the second interview, Stone said the Cuban leader liked his films and “trusted me,” unlike the rest of the American media, to give him a “fair shake.” Responding to the criticism, Stone said, Castro should be given credit for doing the interviews. “He did the time, 30 hours and 30 hours. I don’t think I’d get 30 minutes with [President] George Bush.” He added that “for better or worse, whether he is lying or not lying, he’s speaking in his own words. Let him be heard.”
That is just what “Looking for Fidel” does. Over its 60 minutes, the film primarily consists of Stone’s various interview sessions with Castro, where the focus was on Cuba’s human rights record -- which Castro strongly defends -- particularly a detailed discussion of last year’s round-up of dissidents. The film is shot with Stone’s trademark jittery camera, which swirls around Castro and the other interview subjects, sometimes zooming in for close-ups on pores, other times pulling back for broad shots.
In a brief interview after the March 29 screening, Stone said he probably would not have gone back to Cuba if HBO hadn’t insisted but was now happy he had. He said he chose to make a separate film because “Comandante” “is a complete portrait of a man.” Indeed, aside from some brief archival footage showing Castro just after the 1959 revolution and with former President Jimmy Carter when he visited Cuba in 2002, all of the footage of the leader in “Looking for Fidel” was shot on Stone’s later visit.
Stone said the criticism he received that “Comandante” was too soft on Castro had depressed him. “Ninety-five percent of the criticism I received was from people who had not seen the movie. I felt very depressed. I went through a low point.”
The new film won plaudits from two scholars at the screening, including Marifeli Perez-Stable, a professor at Florida International University, who called it a “historical document of enormous importance.”
But former New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal criticized the work, calling it “not a great piece of journalism,” for, among other things, failing to depict any inside view of the Cuban prison system. The rest of those who spoke up were similarly divided over whether the film was favorable publicity for a skilled propagandist or a nuanced portrait of an aging dictator.
Other critics have been even harsher. Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal wrote that “Looking for Fidel” reveals “virtually nothing we haven’t seen before” and contains “lethally dull streams of speechifying and self-aggrandizement” from the dictator.
Stone told the gathering that “I am not a journalist,” but he had been told that the second film was Castro’s only on-camera interview since the crackdown where he had been asked to defend himself. “I hope it will illuminate to some degree the situation in Cuba,” Stone said.
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‘Looking for Fidel’
When: Wednesday from 8 to 9 p.m.
Where: HBO
Rating: The network has rated it TVPG (may be unsuitable for young children).
Scott Collins in Los Angeles contributed to this report.