Rev Left Radio - Hammer and Camera: CHE (2008) Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Episode Date: October 1, 2021

From Hammer and Camera: "In an extra-special podcasting event, we are celebrating our 50th episodiversary by inviting one of the Original Film Warriors, Breht of Rev Left Radio, back onto the pod for a discussion of Steven Soderbergh's CHE (2008). This unconventional biopic, featuring a legendary performance by Benicio del Toro in the title role, is a perfect way to sum up our first quinquagesimal. MAY THERE BE 50 MORE!" Support Hammer and Camera here: https://www.patreon.com/hammercamera

On today's episode of the Hammering Camera podcast, we are joined by a very special guest to discuss Che parts one and two. Major Ernesto Che Guevara. He is the Marxist, a soldier, a physician, and the power behind Finnel Castro. What is the most important quality for a revolutionary to possess? The love. Love. Love of humanity, of justice and truth. A real revolutionary cause where he is needed.

Assessino! Assertino! Fusilamientos, yes, we've fucilated. Fusilas and we'll still fuciland. Our luch is a war a murder. Patriot or Mewerte.

Oh! Hello, and welcome to the hammer and camera podcast, or a communist podcast for people who love movies, or vice versa, hotly anticipated and long awaited. I am here in the lab with Phil, my co-host, Phil, how are you doing today? Taylor, I've never been better. My spirits are so high right now. Hell yeah. That's the attitude that our audiences have come to expect. Remember for a while? I think it's the opposite. I think it's the opposite. I think there's been like 12 episodes straight where I've said like, oh, I'm okay.

When did this paradigmatic shift occur? Because there was a point when our listenership, like you were the stoner. You know what I mean? You were the lonely stoner. You freed your mind in night. I just got dragged down by the characters of the world. But now I see through those things now. I see through those things. You know, it's just like, it's like dust in the wind. You know, it's like, you know, leaves in the wind. It's just like stuff blowing around the wind. And I don't have to care about it.

That song Despericito was about you. A little known fact. Phil Brown's the original Despericito. But joining us today is another desperacito of sorts, our Campanero, Brett of Lev-Ref-Left Radio. I did it. Absolutely. Yeah, thank you, thank you, boys, so much for having me back on the show. It's been a while, but I'm very excited to be back on and to talk with you today about Che.

One of the original, one of the original three amigos, you might say, the podcast. Can we say that? Can we say that we are the three amigos here? I didn't. Is it fair to say that the film Vanguard was the prelude to Hammer and Cast is prolog? Yeah. Well, I don't know my history well enough to make specific references. Is there like Fidel Castro got jailed for some action early on, early in his career?

Then he comes back with the July 26th. Like film Van Yard was us getting. in jail. No, no, no, no, no. History will absolve the film being in the art. Okay. That's true. That's true. It already has. That's right. It already has. Awesome. Well, that's, that's, that's right. We are here to talk about Che, Stephen Soderberg's 2008 two-part epic. Before we dig into that, Brett, what have you been up to? What have you been listening to? How have you been doing? I've been doing pretty good. More reading than watching lately. I'm actually right now reading the book,

The Climate Leviathan, A Political Theory for Our Planetary Future, a really good book that sets out like three major trajectories that the state, you know, generally in the world order could take in the face of deepening climate crisis. I really recommend that. And then watching-wise, I guess I started peeky blinders

for lack of something better to do. But yeah, I haven't actually, I haven't been able to, you know, get into a theater for a long time, for example. And so, yeah, my, my film watching has sort of been lagging there. Something happened. We have, I didn't, I didn't get to go to a theater for like 15 months. I don't know what was up with the local supply chain, but, you know, it was some of a supply issue.

Yeah, it must have been a supply issue for sure. They just ran out at the movie store. But, yeah, no, I mean, a lot of people are talking about this hot new documentary series, chronicling the rise of the lump in proletary at peaky blinders. So it's good that you've been getting him on that. Absolutely. There is some interesting communist history. You know, they referenced Easter Rising and stuff like that.

There's communist, like communist party agents in the storyline itself. So it's pretty cool to get that little historical peek into all of that history. Absolutely. Well, I believe Taylor buried the lead a little bit. And they'll run up to this, and they run it to this a little introduction. This is our 50th episode, our 50th episode. That's right, the big 5-0. When we're done here, we'll be closer to 100 episodes than we've ever been.

Wow. Well, I guess that's something really true from when we started. Let me rephrase that. It's always true. We'll be over halfway to 100. It's a less romantic way of phrasing it, but it's a big moment for us. It's a big milestone. on and we thought who better to celebrate it with than somebody who is there at the very

beginning. So truly honored, truly honored. And we're truly honored to have you on. And now to get back on track to where Taylor was leading us, we are discussing Che, the Steven Soderberg directed film. I actually forget all the time I had the release day. Taylor, do you have that? I know it was released in 2008. It kind of had an interesting release, actually.

I don't know if it ever had a formal release date. So the official date that it premiered at Cannes was May 21st. That is for sure. And then it had sort of a rolling release date, September 5th, 2008 in Spain as the Argentine. and then December 12th, 2008 in the United States. But from what I understand, and I could be wrong about this, because as much as I tried to poke around, you know, I sort of kept turning up less and less,

this film traveled across the United States as a two-part piece, right? So there was no screening of Che part one, and then, like, you know, a year later, Harry Potter and his deathly hallows, you know, there was no part two. It was just, you know, shopped around the United States as this epic with an intermission in between. Can you imagine watching the first part and having to wait a time? What happens? There's a second part to this. For real. Yeah, I was, I was surprised at the lack of like, there are so few core cruxes in this story. You know what I mean? Yeah. So. Well, uh, it, the film has had a strange,

had a strange production and had a strange release I definitely want to go into that later but for now I thought we could get into talking about the films themselves and starting with the first part and I do think it makes sense

to talk about them in several parts because they are very different distinct from each other so about Chee part one what were you guys's first impressions well yeah just bouncing off what you said right there and I will definitely get into

to this later, but the differences between the two. So I was actually kind of surprised to hear Taylor just say that it was kind of shot all at once because there's like some real differences in the cinematography overall and the way that the whole thing was structured between the first and the second. But my initial impression was I loved it. I mean, I think it was a fascinating film. I could not imagine a better actor to play Che than Benicio del Toro. Absolutely just spot on, even the actor for Fidel and all the supporting castor Raul. I mean, just really, really well done. And it humanized Che. I mean, Che is a human, but is obviously also an icon. And people that hate him, view him as this cartoon villain, which is absurd. People that love

them can kind of see him as like that image on the T-shirt and only that. And to bring it down to earth and to show Che as a human being in these situations, especially him struggling with his asthma, his overall selflessness generally, his sort of angstiness after the Cuban revolution with the inability to just live a life of comfort. It was offered him. It was offered him in the beginning as a doctor. He could have went that route. He chose to fight for the Cuban Revolution. And then later, after the victory, he could have easily kicked his feet up and spent the rest of his life in relative comfort and gave it all up once again to go fight for other people across the continent. So my first impression of the film was I absolutely I absolutely loved

it. Taylor, how about you? Yeah. I really, this was the first time that I had seen Soderberg's Che. And actually, I have a very limited exposure to Che. Simply, I mean, because as you said, Brett, Che is an icon. You know what I mean? Like, Che is a brand. Che is, at least to, in my experience, you know, post-90s, post-early 2000s, it's, I mean, I grew up listening to the song, cliche Guevera, you know, by against me. And so, what do I do, but avoid Che like the plague, you know? It's not disinterest or out of disrespect for the Cuban Revolution and everything it accomplish. In fact, you know, I admire Fidel immensely, and I admire, you know, how durable and dexterous Cuba has been. But I felt like I knew enough about Che already just by being in the

room with this, with this culture, you know, by this sort of like secondhand exposure. And so I spend more time on linen, more time on Stalin, more time. time on Mao and these other revolutions, you know, in other parts of the world. And they're, you know, subsequent political ideologies. So to get this, you know, which is all to say after watching Che, I was immediately compelled to do the research and to learn more because I was fascinated by the man more more than I had ever been by the symbol and that to me is the greatest accomplishment of this film is that and saudderberg talks about it in interviews the way it was filmed in particular even in its most

triumphant moments they avoid these close-ups on chae they avoid making chae any bigger than the audience member but the events that he participates in are so big nonetheless it's an incredibly compelling incredibly moving movie and just giving my first impressions couldn't recommend it enough really quick does anybody know stephen sotterberg's politics why did he become interested in chay do anybody have any insight on that i do not i do not um yeah i couldn't figure that out either i think like because it's very like it's very very like sort of sympathetic you know that you would maybe not yeah and i really want to get into that later like for sure because i i i i watched the i i got the criterion uh to two two dual blu-ray edition uh which comes with a little

feature that they made documenting the the creation of the book or creation of the film uh the development of the film and yeah there's definitely uh that question of of how they approached the film of how they were treating the subject in terms of the politics in terms of the reaction that they knew they would get. There's definitely a lot about that in that little featurette that I definitely want to talk about. But speaking more general terms and about my first impression of the film, like I agree with both of what you said. I really, really like it, especially the first part. And like you mentioned, Brett, like Benicio del Toro is so, so incredibly good in this film. Like, he completely disappears into that role. And you don't even see, you don't even, you don't even

see del Tori, you just see Che, and it's just a magnificent performance. And that granularity as well that they bring to this character. And as you said, Brett, like they humanize the character in a way that, as you were saying, Taylor, just makes him more compelling and more interesting and demands, like, further engagement and further research. So, yeah, I definitely have very positive. first impressions as well there's another yeah I'm sorry I don't mean to interrupt but there's another there's another Blenkin you miss it moment did anyone you

know we talk about Benetio del Toro that's appearing into this character but did anyone else catch Oscar Isaac I did yes oh yeah Blinken you miss him I did not he is so there are several there are several sort of the first you Yeah, and in kind of foreshadowing a little bit of how different the two parts are, the first part, you know, sort of interweaves like three different sort of threads. There's like the story of the, I guess, there's the initial setting in Mexico where they're contemplating revolution. Where Fidel and Chei first met. before they board the grandma and sail to Cuba.

There's the insurgency in the Sierra Madre Mountains. And then there's the post-victory speech at the UN that Che gives and interviews that happened around that time. Basically, Che in America. And those things are interwoven pretty liberally. There's no, it doesn't proceed, you know, with strict linearity. And as Taylor mentioned, Oscar Isaac shows up as the translator at the UN. And I guess, yeah, I think that's a good place to start on getting more into detail about this film.

These three sort of three or four even interweaving narratives, personally, I thought it was really effective. I think, you know, you get, you know, he, the filmmakers are shooting these scenes in Cuba with a rich color color palette, you know, with a wide angle, really, really giving you those, I guess, Apocalypse Now slash, you know, the type of war movies that were made in the 70s, I think Soderberg is drawing like a real, inspiration from and then at the UN it's all black and white uh and you know you get a different vibe from that i think it uh i think it's really interesting um and i almost a little grainy the black and white's almost a little grainy too it's like yeah yeah i guess you like uh you know you lose a little you lose a little uh you lose a little fidelity once you uh head up north to the to the united states i guess yeah absolutely and i just wanted also say about the film in general uh and this is true for for both parts obviously but the setting the way that they reconstructed these these different

places at these slightly different time periods the costumes particularly um out in the in part two when he goes to bolivia and you know the bolivian peasants how they dress how they live how they talk what their little land looks like um it was just spot on It really brought you in and it made it feel so authentic in a way that is completely entrancing. Yeah, and I guess they, and this is spoiling, I guess, a little bit more of the production discussion, but they filmed the UN scenes at the UN right before they remodeled it. So they actually had the sort of UN hall as it appeared, you know, when Che actually made the speech. and it was immediately afterwards changed so that's a that's a fun fact um they also staged the

train derailment uh at the at the sort of climactic santa clara battle the famous train derailment that basically won them the city they staged that as a practical practical effect with you know real train cars and all that stuff. And fun fact, when I visited Cuba a few years ago, I got to visit Santa Clara and visit the site of that train derailment. And they actually have several of the original derailed cars from that train still in that town square.

And they've made like a, they had a Cuban sculpture create these sort of abstract sculpture sculptures around it to represent the sort of violence and explosion uh of uh of it but you can you can you know see and touch these train cars and clamber around inside them and i got to do that which is a fun which is a fun little experience you can play you can play defeated batista foot soldiers you know oh no um so that's fun that's awesome that's a that's a that's a that's a popular children's game in the Santa Clara neighborhoods, you know. It's like, no, you always get to be Che and I always have to be the, uh, Baptiste, the traitor. So, yeah, you know, there's nothing like,

you know, here in the United States, we have, you know, the famous game of, um, you know, cowboys and indigenous people in Cuba, they get to play, um, you know, um, um, Campaneros and, um, you know, Stormtrooper. So, uh, no, this is, um, I was, you know, particularly reminded of, or the sequences in Cuba reminded me particularly of some films from the 50s and 60s, in particular battle for Algiers and Wages of Fear. You know, both are films in a similar family, but both are, you know, have a distinct identity. You know, Battle for Algiers, of course, being one of the first films to famously, you know, eschew the boundary between documentary and fiction. You know, it was a fictional film attesting to the Algerian revolution against French colonists. Shot almost entirely in the style and form of a documentary,

you know, lending credence and legitimacy to, at least on the level of form, the cause of these people. And then the Wages of Fear is a film made just about a decade earlier about a South American mining town in which a couple of down on their luck Europeans have fallen with a couple of locals. they agreed to drive nitroglycerin across a mountain pass to earn a paycheck, essentially. It's a film about the disposability of lives in South and Central America, especially these mining towns, made actually that around the time that Che would have been planning the Cuban Revolution with Fidel in Mexico. So I thought that Che is, and just like I don't have much to this observation beyond that,

Che is a, I think a welcome entry into this specific genre of film, which was, I think, really exciting to see in at least 2008. You know, at that time we're seeing the Mira Maxification. Okay, this was what happened before Disney took over. when it was Harvey Weinstein, you know, this mere maxification of cinema, which I think, you know, yielded results like gangs of New York, okay? You know, these big, sprawling, maybe a little over-polished epics that were, you know, that feigned some sort of reality, but were still incredibly, like, very stagey. You know, they were meant to introduce, they really introduced the four

quadrant theory of cinema to the Hollywood marketplace, which is to say, you can have art house, you can have it be brainy, you can have it be intellectual, but something about it should appeal to be every man too, you know, grandma, grandpa, mom, dad, sunny, Jim, and baby Jill should all be able to go see this picture, and the critics have to love it too. And you get things like gangs of New York and other films. But this is a distinctly different kind of film. Not only is it five hours long, okay? And absolutely on that basis, not going to be everyone's cup of tea. But it's this movie, this very specific movie about anti-fascist, anti-capitalist, anti-American interests being taken seriously on the level of form, like Battle for Algiers,

being lent that credence and that authority and that legitimacy of the documentary style. But told and a, you know, but told as a fiction, told as a story, historical fiction, if you will. And so given that same sort of a thread of, I don't know, legend, myth, you know, storytelling, which I think is like a really potent combination when you're talking about revolutionaries. So in this field of, you know, commercial experimentation and I think, you know, the sort of, you know, the sort of commodification of art on a scale we had never seen before we have chay you know who derails cinema in 2008 like the actual che Guevara derailed those train cars long ago yeah nicely done i i i that's insightful and uh yeah i mean you know i think you're a hundred percent

correct i've never seen wages of fear but i have seen and i do love battle of is a battle of or Battle for Algiers, I don't remember, but in any case, Che and Battle of Algiers are perfect as a sort of a way to use film to understand real historical events and I think to understand the realities of guerrilla warfare in two different contexts. In Battle for Algiers, it was in a settler colonial context. And in that situation, you had urban guerrilla warfare was the primary method of guerrilla warfare. And you saw how the city was, you know, divided into two and how you had to use women to go to the settler colonial part to get bombs. And so that's guerrilla warfare in an urban environment. And Che does an equally amazing job at depicting guerrilla warfare in

rural contexts, you know, the peasantry plays a huge role in the Cuban Revolution, in the Bolivian resistance, obviously in the Chinese Revolution. In the Philippine and Indian Maoist movements go ongoing right now peasants continue to play an important and large role and so there's there's a shift and there's a difference in tactics and there's a different way of life if you're living in an urban environment and conducting guerrilla warfare versus a rural one and in both instances as mao says the guerrilla fighter has to be ingratiated with the people with the masses or as he put it you should be able to the gorilla should swim among the masses like a fish swims through the sea as naturally as ever. And you can see that that's not always easy. And Che, what they did a really

good job of, is showing the difficulties of reaching the average people. You know, Che is also a doctor. So he goes into that one little area and helps the son with the eye infection, right? He cures the eye. And so that's one way of ingratiating yourself with the people. You're coming. You're meeting their interests. You're helping them out. Next time, any situation arises where they have to pick a side, you know, they're more likely to decide with yours. And there's a left-right distinction. So how does the left deal with the peasants and the poor people on the edge of the conflict? They help them. They reach out to them. They try to say, we're on your side, blah, blah, blah. How does the military dictatorship do it through peer violence and

threat of intimidation, right? Fascists generally, they don't have, and they never even really seek to obtain the friendship with the masses, the ingratiation with the masses themselves. The left has to do that especially if you're fighting a bigger more powerful more funded force and so just seeing the nuances of that and without any easy answers because the same people that they helped later turned them in because the military dictatorships pressures on that family in the negative direction like the stick was was more motivating than the carrot of the guerrillas trying to to help them and be with them so I think both of those films are really amazing they're really great ways to understand the historical context and that they're historically accurate but they're

fleshed out through the beauty of really well done cinematography as well and that's that's a rarity for sure i hadn't thought about that but you're right you can think about these films to in ways that help to explain communist or left-wing political praxis and in theory i mean even between in, you know, Che part one and Che part two in Cuba and Bolivia, one of the texts that I like to go back to to explain, you know, my, the particular kind of practice that I like to practice is the revolutionary Communist Party of Canada's essay, the mass line, and revolutionary methods of mass work. And in this text, they explain, or is it, It might not be this one. It might be Scott Harrison's online publication, the mass line, and the American Revolutionary Movement. Both are great. I encourage everyone to read both. But in between the two, these authors talk about left and right deviations within, you know, a communist method of mass work, way within communist political practice. And, you know, that right wing, largely adheres to the slogan, follow the masses, the masses know what's good for them, abide by what they already know to be true.

And if you do that, you don't get anything done. But the left wing is just as unproductive, which is to say to the masses, follow me, I have all the answers, and that's about as far as it goes. And it can be difficult to decide whether or not you're making a right or not you're making a right or left wing deviation.

I think Che Guevara is an excellent example. After Cuba, why wouldn't you think, okay, I figured it out, I've got this down to a science, I know what works, and I know what doesn't. But when you try to lift that model and put it on another political context, they don't show this in the films, but he tried and lost in the Congo

following the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. And then in Bolivia, you know, the method that of revolution that he tried to apply, there was a left deviation. You know, he arrived and he said to the masses with his click of maybe 20, 30 revolutionaries, follow us. We have all the answers. But the conditions were such that the locals didn't believe him, or they were at least not persuaded by him. And the work that he administered in these material conditions, you know, were not suitable to the conditions like they were in Cuba. And so I think that that's a great illustration of that point, which is to say if you're a

practicing revolutionary, say, in the United States, be careful what you do. What works in Kansas City, Missouri might not work in Minneapolis, Minnesota. That might not work in Detroit, Michigan. That might not work in Austin, Texas. So, you know, it's an apt vehicle for real practical political, political, observations, which is to say watching Chase and not only this enthusiastic revolutionary experience, but it's educational too, informative. It can be used to explain these ideas that are relevant to us even now.

Yeah, and to your point really quickly, in Bolivia, the Communist Party itself was actually against armed struggle because their argument was that the conditions are not right. and you know and what you're articulating is you know right or left wing deviations are also can also be framed as tailism versus commandism you know tailism being lowering yourself to the level of the intermediate or backward and command isn't is like another word for adventurism we're getting too far ahead of where the people are at and you can't blame chay because when you have successes like Cuba you'd be very like as you said taylor very like leaning in the direction of this should be applicable in most places you know we It was so successful here. It has to be successful there, and you learn that lesson. And Che gave his life, in a sense, to teach the world, whether he knew he was doing that or not, those particular lessons, and we should take the positive and the negative lessons from that experience.

Truly, I will say, to die for the people weighs more than a mountain, you know. To die for nothing, it means less than a feather. So for all the mistakes that Che made, for all his successes, he died a hero's death. But I think we're getting a little bit of a head. Yeah, I was going to say, first of all, spoiler, second of all, before we get into part two and talking about Bolivia, I did want to mention one more thing about the first part, and that is those UN scenes. For me, you know, I think this is where Soderberg's imagination was really captured, just the idea of Che Guevara, you know, in full guerrilla. uniform, addressing the United Nations, being feteed by diplomats and celebrities. And basically, I think that Soderberg was just really, just sort of appealed to his

romanticism, those images. And so we have the still images, you know, we have the, you know, the transcript of the speeches, but those scenes brought his UN addresses to life in a really special way, I felt. And I think that those scenes were the moment where I really, you know, where I was really in awe of Benicio del Toro in his performance. And yeah, I don't know if I have anything more profound than I have to say, but I think those scenes were great. I'll add this, which is this film is released in 2008, so therefore it was filmed,

you can only imagine, 2007, 2006, in the Bush administration, right, right in the wake of the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War, and you have a movie, especially we just went through the 20th anniversary of 9-11, so we all know full well how America lost its mind in the wake of 9-11 and hardcore nationalism was the only acceptable. position. And you have these two imperialist adventures, U.S. imperial adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, and really beyond them as well as we know. And so you have this film in which the five-hour film in which the protagonist is standing at the U.N., condemning explicitly U.S. imperialism. And I can't imagine that that's purely coincidental. As I said earlier, I do not know

Sadaberg's politics or why particularly he was interested in this history. but the timing of it cannot be coincident. Well, a couple of... Well, to answer that, to answer that, Soderberg does say something a little funny in the making-up documentary. He says, you know, he's talking about how, during their research,

they were reading the documents from the CIA that were sent about Che Guevara's activities in Bolivia. And he was like, he was saying, you know, to him, to them, he was enemy number one. You know, he was this big threat. um who you know and he was like well who are they saying about that about now and then it just cuts like and and so in 2008 i don't know i feel like that's a reference to like the war on terror i don't know maybe i'm overthinking it but i think you're right that there is something there

about because choices are made it's not just one shot of him doing his whole speech choices are being made throughout that scene different angles are being shown and one thing that's I noticed specifically is Che responding to or being sort of countered by and then responding to delegates from various Latin American countries. And for each one, you know, you know, for the Panama delegate, for the Venezuelan delegate, you know, each one has, you know, in 2008, I feel like rings becomes even more poignant knowing the eventual history that came to past knowing knowing the extent of American imperial involvement in those countries and you know at that historical moment especially you know that was pre you know that was pre you know that was

before Reagan bombed Panama you know that was before that was before all the imposition in Venezuela that, you know, eventually brought about Chavez. So there's a special point in it. I think you're right that there, it's not just a coincidence that those specific sections from that address are sort of brought to the focus. Yeah, and during the war on terror, Hugo Chavez was perhaps the preeminent critique of, critic of Bush and American imperialism in those years. So the fact that Venezuela is so heavily centered in that UN shoot, I think is really, I think you're right on that 100%. And it remains relevant

too, you know, lest we forget the 2019, 2020 counter-revolution in Bolivia, and then the counter-revolution that immediately followed on its heels. I think that there's so much of this movie that's perennially relevant and at least for our, you know, for the, and will remain so, at least for the next decade, you know, if not two or three or four decades. If this isn't the century of nine, you know, the fallout from 9-11, I don't know what is. And they, you know, the collapse of, you know, United States imperialism in its most decrepit state. You know, to the speaking to this, to Stephen Soderberg's statement, I think that, you know, it's an absolutely apt way of thinking about Che Guevara as like, you know, Osama bin Laden with nukes,

you know, at least to these people, to his contemporaries. You know, he represented the end of a certain way of life for a lot of people. These are people who, you know, in the upper echelons of government, also sat on the boards of the fruit companies that ran these countries, you know. So the world was starting to come down around these people. people. I mean, the Chinese revolution had just, you know, culminated. The Sino-Soviet split was happening. Vietnam was about to happen. You know, Laos was about to go to. And then as we said, over the next half, latter half of the century, you know, Central and Southern America raises arms. And so it's a big fucking deal to use the words of Premier Biden, you know. It's a big,

it's a big stinking deal. I think that speaking to this, speaking more to this particular scene, though, the actual film work going on. Stephen Soderberg is a man obsessed with the technology of film. I think that more than politics, Stephen Soderberg is fascinated by the capacity of film as a technology to make myths big or bring men back down to scale. And so, So that he's able to do that with a few reels of tape, a couple different kinds of lenses, choosing whether or not to use lighting here, artificial there, natural in the other case, and then selectively cutting the tape to manipulate the image. I think that that is what Steven Soderberg is most fascinated with.

And I think that when it comes down to Che, he has a horse in the race because he's, you know, I think as a person against U.S. imperialism and imperial right-wing adventurism. But I don't know if he has a particular fascination with this, you know, or sympathy to this particular politics. I think what fascinates Soderberg is the challenge to keep Che Che, you know, keep him a legend, but also make him a man at the same time. sort of an embodied universal, you know, the universal particular to borrow from Hegel. And the challenge of doing that with the technology of film. So you get the different film grains, you get the different editing styles, you get the different shooting techniques, and you put it all together and will it work?

I don't know. Or at least Soderberg didn't. But they shot this damn thing in 78 days and spent, I think, a little less, editing it all back together. And this is what we got. So you tell me, does history absolve Soderberg? I don't know. I don't know. All right.

Well, on that note, let's move on to Che part two. And this is, you know, as we kind of been hinting at, kind of a radical departure from the first part in a lot of ways. We no longer get that, you know, sort of loose interweaving of various stories. we no longer get the sort of variance in you know image we don't get as much voiceover and we sure don't we sure don't get as many happy moments uh the chey part two is a story of chay's involvement in bolivia and the guerrilla movement that emerged there in the wake of the military junta one of several junta's that sort of happened around that time period.

Yeah, so what are our first impressions on the second part? Yeah, I obviously loved it. It was very different in how it was shot. It wasn't doing this time-jumpy thing. It was very straightforward, and that was fine. And at the end of the first part, the way that that first part ended, right, was it cut back after all the Cuban Revolution stuff, after it was successful, it cut back to when Fidel and Che first met

on that balcony in Mexico City, and Che tells Fidel, after we win Cuba, you just have to promise me that we're going to export this revolution to Central and the rest of South America, the rest of Latin America, you know, and Fidel kind of laughs. He's like, maybe you're crazy, right? Because that's how the conversation started. And so that foreshadows the fact that in part two, Che leaves. Che leaves Cuba. Now, Taylor mentioned earlier he had these adventures in between Cuba and Bolivia, namely the Congo, but it cuts to that. And the reading, Fidel reading the letter that Che sent him is a real thing that really did happen historically. There was a huge question mark amongst the Cuban people in the wake of the revolution. Where is Che? Nobody

really knew. Rumors started springing forth. The government had to respond to it. And, you know, Castro was like, here's the letter. This is, I'll be 100% honest. This is what I got from Che, and that's all I know. And it just, again, it speaks to the sort of person that Che was. Truly, at the end of the day, his heart was the heart of a fighter, and he could never be a bureaucrat. And maybe, you know, that's for the best. Who knows how things would have played out if things reversed, you know,

like with Mao, for example, another guerrilla warfare hero, revolutionary theorist, absolute, you know, giant in the world of left-wing politics and communist philosophy. At the end of his life, you know, the criticisms abound. He went off the rails a little bit, meeting with Nixon, talking about the Soviet Union being more of a threat than the U.S., etc. So it goes to that old quote, and not to say, I don't want to overstate this, but, you know, you die, a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain.

Not that Mao became a villain, but who knows. I was going to, I was going to say that exact same thing, so I'm glad you spared me. A very wise man once said those for us. but but there is an element of that and there's the counterfactual of what would have happened if chay would have stayed in cuba nobody knows one thing i did take away from part two and i'll sort of end it at this and get your thoughts is it's really great to have this two parter because it shows the glorious romantic success of what revolutions can do in part one you know launch a revolution it's bloody it's messy it's not easy but you succeed it is absolutely glorious part two is the other side of that coin

when the revolution fails it is tragic everybody all your comrades die in terrible painful ways and even the hero of the story himself dies now at no point throughout part one or two as i think we've all alluded to is chay put up as this hero ness is it is chay as a human being as a man and there's heroism in that for sure and the way he faces his death which we'll talk about in a bit is also heroic but this part one and part two to me is you know you have to have the balanced look at revolution it's not always this glorious you go in with guns blazing and you get a wave the flag of your choosing after the smoke settles it's much more messy than that and part two drives that point completely home that's true that's like the way it was edited as well

we talk a lot about part one having these multiple storylines and part two having this one linear story to tell watching them back to back or at least in close proximity to each other you know you can read you can read part two is sort of the the real to the fantasy of the part one you know where part one is you know it culminates in a successful revolution that's great much of the truth to part two is that that's how it is even if you win, you know, it's long, you know, there's full of all kinds of miserable drudgery, setbacks, turnarounds, you know, I imagine it as, you know, it helps to, I guess, inform, you know, the sort of sense of duration of what you're going through, you know, like five seconds, you know, five seconds spent with the love of your life is

not the same five seconds as you spend with a rock in your shoe, you know. And so from the point of, you know, backward looking after a successful revolution, maybe you will fantasize, you know, after any victory you would fantasize about your way there. But in the moment, in the moment of revolution in particular, it's going to be a duration. It's going to be less than time. It will be pure duration and full of plenty of hardship. So, you know, that sort of tonic, you know, to the, you know, to the intoxication of the first part, I think, would be necessary regardless of the outcome of this film of Che's life.

And that only helps it to be this better rounded film. Yeah, well, I want to say one thing first, and that is, I want to shout out my man Che Guevara. He would have been a great diplomat for the record. I have here a book by Carlos Tablata, a Cuban economist, called Che Guevar Economics and Politics and a Transition to Socialism, which details Che's extensive involvement in forming the economic basis for the new Cuban society and his visions, you know, which could be, which were very, you know, very engaged with the day-to-day economic life for the Cuban people. So I think he would have been a great bureaucrat, but other things were in the cards for him. And that's okay. The film Lakers do have choices to make when they organize this film. And there is so many things that a film about Che Guevara could focus on.

And dialing it back to first, the insurgency in the Sierra Madre Mountains, as opposed to any other sort of moment. in that conflict. And then secondly, in the second part, his insurgency in the mountains of Bolivia is an artistic choice that, you know, gives a sort of symmetry, a sort of dialecticism, if you will, to the whole affair. There's certainly, you know, there's certainly, and it emphasizes certain things about, as you're saying, Taylor and Brett, like the nature. of revolutionary work the nature of really any human endeavor essentially but also the nature of war and and how what is it was it a line in this movie where talking about the resolve of the of the people fighting oh yes yes towards the beginning that he paraphrases he paraphrases Tolstoy and talking about

the numbers of an army multiplied by X, and X is the spirit of the people, X is the people, um, you know, their ability to understand, you know, the reasons behind the fighting. And I think that maybe, maybe that gives a hint, uh, as to what, you know, what might be going on in the second, uh, second part. Yeah, I think to sort of not to sound repetitive, but I think in both cases, in retrospect especially, it's clear that the masses were crucial to both outcomes. In the first half, there's a real interest in the revolution in overthrowing the Batista regime, and the masses were the absolute, you know, the help that was essential to make that thing successful. And in the second part, that component wasn't fully there.

There might have been some sympathies, but for a lot of the people, it was very clear that they didn't have the same urgency and intensity that the Cuban people had at that time in that specific context to do the thing. And I think I don't know if Soderberg was doing that intentionally or not, but it again, gestures at this really crucial point about, you know, something that Mao never got tired of emphasizing how utterly essential the masses are to success or failure. And your relationship to them is, is determinative of the success that you'll have, whether that is in a small organizing, you know, a campaign locally, or that's a world historical revolution or anything in between. And so that lesson is really driven home in both instances.

Yeah. So leading up to the sort of tragedy of the film's conclusion, I think that in terms of the experience of watching the film, I guess I never shared my first impression, but it was harder for me to get into this part because I didn't have, you know, the beautiful colors and pictures to look at. And, you know, it's, it's a, the color of the film is a lot more drab and sort of desaturated. And there's more shaky camera work. There aren't those, you know, pretty composed pictures that I love to see. So it's harder for me to get into it at first. But as this one goes on I think you start to feel more and more the weight of this struggle that they're undertaking and as you sort of understand the futility of it you know it starts to weigh on

you so that the conclusion really does really does hurt and watching these this band of of guerrilla's sort of be cut down is is tough to watch and i think that you are shown not just the futility or not just the failure of a guerrilla movement but you're shown uh in a way that feels very real the brutality uh of you know the imperial forces they could have shown, you know, a huge part of this conflict is a massacre of minors. At a mine that's mentioned in the film, the Siglo 20, mine, where the Army just randomly attacks a group of miners there with their families during a festival, you know, kills, I think. 20-some, injures some 70 more, because they were afraid that those miners would be a source of recruitment for Che. And that's a point plot in the movie, but they choose not to show that

and instead focus on these guerrillas. And I still think that you get that, you know, get that idea. And throughout the both films, you're shown what oppression looks like. You're shown what imperial powers will do on the margins when they don't think the people are watching when they think they can get away with it we're shown what the forces of capitalism and the armies and police that represent them do when they think they can get away with it at the margins of society on a Caribbean island in the mountains in the countryside and you know it's it's a weight and I think it really weighs on the viewer as the as this film concludes and more to that you know I think that like in the fiction of the film, in the universe, there is a lot more direct sunlight in the second part, in Cheapart 2, which leads to a much more blanched image, which gives the impression of it being hotter and more stifling, you know, more claustrophobic.

And then, and through the visual language of the film, you know, suggests that, you know, you have fewer places to hide, you know, you know, less shadow and less shade means you're exposed and vulnerable. And so in the fiction of the film itself, you know, not only do we have this depiction of a people who are at the mercy of a, you know, imperial capitalist force that. can and will do everything in their power to exploit, you know, them, subject them to surveillance and use what they learn to deepen the exploitation of the people they surveil. But you have a treatment of a people who are subject to an even more advanced, you know, technology of surveillance, an even more advanced technology of warfare, an even more advanced technology of oppression. And while I don't think it's the explicit intent, of the filmmakers, either the writers or the director Stephen Soderberg, to convey this exact

idea. What the film does in effect is convey this lesson, this dialectic, like you pointed out, Phil, that after every revolution, you know, where the reactionaries convene and gather their forces up again will be, you know, if not at the side of revolution, a remote counter-revolution, a recombination, a re-entrenchment, you know, and then a renewed assault either on the original revolutionaries or they'll make up the difference where they can and even the exploitation of these people. So in the case of Bolivia, the CIA just literally flew there, trained soldiers, delivered, I think it was the first time in South America that what is it, that heat vision had been used, heat, vision goggles.

In for red, thank you. Yeah, it was the first time that that technology had been deployed in this way. And so Che had no fucking clue that they could see him, you know, when he would try to travel covertly. And that's like really literal. So that's not the point that I really want to make, but it's, you know, tangential to the point that I'm making that, you know, this is how you also have to expect revolutions to work.

If you are successful, you need to be ready to literally just not do what you just did. Weighted out, observe the opposition, and then respond to their re-entrenchment and whatever that looks like. You know, and another thing I was thinking about a little bit ago when both of you were talking about the shaky camera, the desaturation, the much less shade, right? very more direct heat it's all it's all contributing to a feeling of like this is going off the rails this is going in a negative direction you know things are are losing control a little bit and i also his asthma was present in part one in part two but in part two it really contributed as well to that overall feeling of like of just like despair like this is not going in the right direction and his belabored breathing was you know very intense and very visceral and it had a sort of

emotional impact that was maybe even a little subconscious as you're watching the film but the way that it sounds the wheezing the you you feel like a constriction in your own chest and that's the constriction of the movement and his life coming you know closer and closer to its end and so i think this the deployment of his asthma uh i think was done really really effectively and contributed along with those other things to that general sense of like ominous feeling that that the film and part two especially really really gives you made me anxious as hell yeah exactly me too i hated it um yeah and and maybe maybe if we're talking about humanizing uh an iconic figure uh i don't know if there's any better

way to humanize them by giving by showing the effects of untreated asthma you know something that you you know you're the biggest strongest dude you know you have all the lines you know the greatest revolutionary is motivated by love you just rattle them out you know everybody loves you but you have asthma that makes it so that you can't breathe and and so it's not something that we see often and it's certainly not something that we see in relation to you know stories about a you know world is historical figure, somebody whose face we've seen a million times, somebody who's who we've already formed an opinion about one way or the other. So I think, yeah, I think it really is effective. And on that note of viscerality, I want to pose a question to you guys. At the end,

towards the end of this film, not the final shot, but, you know, towards the end, when Che is finally executed by the Believing Forces Slashire. cia uh the film does something it's it hasn't done in either in either part up to that point and it presents chae's viewpoint as the viewer the viewer's viewpoint point of view as he's killed what do you guys make of that what do you think is the meaning or what was the effect i guess as you experienced of that effect i'm not sure the the meaning although i did ask myself that but the effect was very intense yeah it was unexpected like that you never saw a first person shot throughout either part of the film and to do it at that moment i was wondering the whole

time how they were going to portray that that that moon because it's a crucial part of the chase story and the line in in the film was chay saying do it or whatever uh the myth and i don't know if this is exact verbiage or what is that chase said at the moment of his death shoot coward, you're only going to kill a man. I'm not sure why they chose to not put that in there if they didn't want to play into the romantic image, if they did their research and couldn't necessarily find that point. But to shift to the perspective of him where you are now inhabiting the figure of Che and the loud ringing noise, the tinnitus as your life is fading away in like that perspective

where the periphery as he's laying on the ground blurs and it zones in on the rocks and then it just sort of flutters out in bright light. I mean, yeah, it was incredibly moving and intense and probably a lot like it would feel to die. I've never been shot multiple times in the abdomen and bled out, but I would assume that it would be something like that. And the high screeching tinnitus sound on top of it all was the icing on the cake for me.

And it was very brutal. And also his labored breathing as well. it was present and it slowly stopped very intense very effective as for the meaning i'm not quite sure taylor do you have any thoughts no i don't know if you know if meaning is the kind of question that we should be asking um i would turn around and look at exactly what you said brett you know this is the true testing point of it's the it's the it's the it's the proving point of the film itself as as an effective work of art in the audience. I think that this point asks the audience to take a stand,

and it says, has this been an effective film? Has this been someone that you identify with? Is this somebody that you care, you know, lives or dies? Can you put yourself in their shoes? And then, you know, so as a film, does this work or does this fail? And then as an audience, you know, whose side are you on? you know do you live in this person's shoes now could you um you know would you carry on the torch of revolution or are you disgusted at what he's done you know would you deny him and so

i think that it's an incredibly personal point it would be a very personal point in any film um but for this film in particular and for the politics that it embodies yeah it humanizes We've been talking about how the film humanizes Che, and this is almost the ultimate humanization, asking the viewer to kind of embody this person for a moment. And as you're saying, Taylor, it does kind of pose a question, you know, his lights flicker out, but you're still, you know, yours are still open and blinking. And, you know, whether or not you are a passive observer or somebody who can take these lessons from the film and carry them into your waking life is the question, as you put it. It's like, you know, there are a couple films. Two in particular come to mind, one we talked about on the podcast and then one I talked about in relation to this film. but it's a similar film called Monos. Did you ever see it, Brett?

No, never have. It's a film, it's a Colombian film, and it's sort of a mythological take on the ongoing insurgency in Colombia. And the end of the film, and it's also, I think, more perilous still about child soldiers. And so at the end of the film,

the film ends with, this child soldier being nominally rescued by state forces, and, you know, for the first time in the film, the child just barrels down the camera, you know, and sort of looks at the audience and challenges the audience, their complicity in the conflict, their feelings about revolution, you know, their relationship to freedom or the lack thereof. And it's a very similar challenge to that. And that's even a riff on, you know, Truffauts, the 400 blows, which is in a similar. shot and Ingmar Bergman's Summer with Monica that has a very similar shot. It's a very rare thing to have in a film because what you usually want to do, right, is uphold this illusion until the credits roll and the lights come up. But it can be incredibly affecting if done well for the work of art to challenge the audience itself. And it can be an incredibly politically charged moment, if done correctly. And so I think that that's the meaning of this, is it's, you know, even more radical than turning the eyes.

of the film onto the audience. And letting the audience know that the way that they are viewing this art, there's a dialectic in which the art is viewing them. But putting the audience themselves into the political and aesthetic circumstances of the film's hero. It's another political challenge altogether.

Yeah, absolutely. And you said something earlier about the tension or the dialectical interplay between the particular and the universal. And all throughout the film, but Chey's life as well, he had these themes, of man, like right before he died, for example, do you believe in God? I believe in mankind. He had this idea of the new revolutionary man, like a new sort of person created through

revolution. It was very clear he saw himself as a servant of humanity writ large. And from my political perspective, that's very sympathetic with Che and understands the necessity to overcome fascism and capitalism and imperialism, the death of Che and us taking on that perspective is that particular universal tension sort of playing a little bit because at that moment, Che's death, at least for me, represents a loss for humanity. That humanity lost this round to the forces of reaction and barbarism and terrorism and the maintenance of the status quo

and raw, brutal power and capital. And so by us taking that perspective, it's sort of playing with that or at least could be seen as doing that. And then there's also the incredible courage that Che had his entire life and his life story is one of courage and standing up against the odds. But at the end, and this is true, as he's going to die, he stood up. You know, after being sit down and all tied up, he stands up and the historical sort of renderings of what actually happened says that Chee looked the person right in the eye and said whatever he said. Probably something like, shoot, coward, you're only going to kill a man.

You're only going to kill a man. you're only going to get rid of the particular, but the universal, the struggle that I represent, will continue on. And so Che refuses to sit down. And even the guy screams at him, sit down. And Jay doesn't even shake his head. No, he just refuses to move. If you're going to kill me, you're going to do it while I'm on my feet, looking you in the eyes. And I'm going to make you do that. And there's incredible courage. And I've always thought, if I can face my own death, whatever form that death takes with half of the courage that Che faced down his own death. You know, I'll be happy with the way I went out.

So, yeah. And then the last thing I also wanted to say is both Chee and Fidel, and this is backed up by the history and people who've met them, they were incredibly likable such that even when people that, you know, violently disagreed with them had to meet them as a human being on a personal, interpersonal level, you couldn't help but like the guys. And that's part of their charisma And part of their power as well And even at the very end When Che's talking to his captor He starts to humanize himself to him very quickly And the captor has to leave

And ask the other guard Can you go in and do it? I can't do it Because Chey's like, you know After we're humans And we have a little bonding moment Can you untie me? And the guy knew

I want to Like there's a part of my humanity That wants to untie him But I know that I can't I'll be killed if I do that So I have to go out and ask the other guard To take my place And I think that speaks to that point as well

Real quick, I'm going to give a shout out to Damien Beshear, who played Fidel Castro in this film. Obviously, it's not about him, and there's very little that he has to do with it. But to your note about them, both being charismatic, I think he does really mail the charisma of Fidel Castro and gives the audience this really entertaining, sort of jovial Fidel, who I think is honestly pretty, close to the damn the real thing but i would like to spend a few minutes talking about the production of the film i know we kind of been hinting towards it here and there i know we already pretty thoroughly covered the differences between the two parts and what those differences might have to do with the experience of watching the film um but we also mentioned the question of accuracy

and that's what really stood out to me as i said before that's what really stood out to me about the, about the production of the film. And as I watched this documentary of the making of the film, the producer, Soderberg, everybody was talking about this drive to, you know, make something as authentic as they possibly could. You know, authenticity trumps everything. It's a quote that I pulled from Soderberg. And they did exhaustive interviews. They visited Cuba. They talked to Cubans who had fought with Che, Cubans who had been in the mountains with Che and heard their stories. And I think that that sort of neutrality in a way really, it really shines through in this film, as we've been

discussing. There's nothing in the movie that didn't happen is another quote that I pulled from Soderberg. So yeah, do you guys have any other thoughts on that, on the accuracy? Yeah, I mean, I loved it, and that's part of the reason why I like this film so much. It could have easily went into a more romantic route and not had to do the hard research to study this stuff, and particularly in an American context. Finding good information, specifically in 2008 when the Internet was even less developed on this historical event, is very, very difficult.

You know, similar to like trying to be in America and find neutral tellings of like Stalin or Mao. It's like you're just, you're going to have to do a lot of work to even just begin to find those things, let alone begin to analyze them. So the fact that it was so historically correct and neutral in a really true way is very impressive, hard to do. I really liked, and this is sort of a side point, but I think speaks to your thing about historical accuracy is when Che mentions his first. friendship with Jean-Paul Sartre and Bertrand Russell that he you know I could just write Sartre and Russell you know in England and France and you know maybe they could help get some popular support or get the news out throughout Europe so that was really cool and then the other thing that stuck out and I did want to mention this at some point throughout this conversation it's a very

quick little line but and I'm trying to figure out exactly why they put it in there and what their intention was but I think it was when they were dealing with the factions in part one all the different factions and somebody comes up to to chay and fidel i believe and says the term Stalinist and he calls another faction Stalinists and then walks away and then Che just like looks over to his comrade he's like Stalinist and then it just cuts so we know historically that chay was very fond of of Stalin and Stalinist is a term from i think trotskyists originally that you know Che was very much against, so I think just that, like, sort of like, ugh, like, why'd they say Stalinist sort of thing was, like, them hinting at that, but maybe I'm reading too much into it.

That's a side, that's a side thing, but, uh, yeah, overall, I really enjoyed the historical accuracy. And you can literally watch the film as a way of objectively researching the history. And that's, that's a real resource. Yeah, we've been talking about ways in which we've, we feel that this film is kind of Che Guevara or that shows him in a positive light. And I think the reality is that the truth smiles on Che Guevara, and that history truly has absolved him and the other members of the Cuban Revolutionary Army. Taylor, did you have a, were you opening your mouth to speak there?

Yeah, as I often do. Yeah, I think that, you know, the, the quick and easy answer to this is that Che Guevara, is just like a good guy, you know, like, I mean, you know, it's true. It's one thing that I tell organizers here in town as often as I can, because we have a lot of young up-and-coming organizers where I live now. It's a very young but enthusiastic environment, which is more than it's been in just years and years and years. But the point that I, you know, want to make with this comment is that I tell these youngsters, I say, you know, you only have to worry about optics if you're lying, you know, and if you are honest about your intentions and clear about your politics and

sincere about what you're doing, and what you're doing is the right thing, then, like you said, Phil, the truth will smile upon you. And as Fidel Castro, you know, so famously said, and I'll try to refrain from saying again in this podcast, history will absolve you. So I think that's what we have. I think that, you know, warts at all, Che lived an outstanding life. I mean, you don't have to do the historical research to understand that if you're just watching this film. You know, we know based on the record that Che was a utopian, you know. Che was a 20th century idealist who believed in, you know, a socialistic new man, you know, a sort of utopian entity, a, you know, a sort of engineered next step in the evolution, if not of the human species, then definitely

human consciousness. And I think that, you know, that's, you know, that's admirable, you know, in the context that Che was working on. That is to say that there is a whole bunch of qualification that I could do to say that, like, I'm not talking about eugenics, you know, so, like, don't get it twisted. You know, we're not talking about the sort of ethnically perfect man or the, you know, genetically ideal specimen. We're talking about a sort of new kind of being, you know, morally, emotionally, mentally, politically, socially. And so, you know, I think that Chey ardently believed in this and, you know, believed in his fellow man's capacity to also be this. And so, you know, what you get is a man on a mission for good. And that shows through. You don't

need the background, but it shows. And I think that that's, I think, a testament to the artistry of the film is that it is authentic in more ways than one, you know. Yes, in a very flat sense, there's nothing in the film that didn't actually happen. But what they are able to capture and embody in the form of the film is the much broader network of ideas and politics and experiences that Che Guevara had. And so there's another layer of an expanded truth to what it is, an expanded authenticity,

to what it is that is actually depicted in Che. this film had you know it had a very interesting production it had a very interesting release and I think we can talk about that some more but one thing I wanted to mention real quick in the context of how we see Che Guevara how we see the accuracy of the film um of course when the film was released it it was sort of panned widely uh it was unpopular at can where it was released uh and a big sticking point for critics was unsurprisingly they felt that it was too, it painted

Che Guevar and too good a light because it didn't show him presiding over executions but specifically you know the executions that were carried out at La Cabagna in the wake of the triumph of the revolution

and Soderberg has a Soderberg very flatly said oh well we didn't do that because that's not interesting to me. You know, he wanted to show these two war stories. He didn't want to add another two hours of footage of Che signing off on execution after execution, and who can blame him, you know. But I just want to make two sort of quick notes. One is, you know, a varying relevance to what we're talking about. The first is a quote from John Lee Anderson, who is the author of Che Guevara

a revolutionary life, which the filmmakers sort of heavily relied on, at least in the beginning, while they were developing these scripts. And John Louis Anderson says, I have yet to find a single credible source pointing to a case where Che executed, quote, an innocent. Those persons executed by Guevara or on his orders were condemned for the usual crimes punishable by death at times of war or in its aftermath, desertion, treason, or crimes such as rape, torture, or murder.

I should add that my research spanned five years and included anti-Castro-Cubans among the Cuban-American exile community in Miami and elsewhere. So, you know, it's inevitable that these concerns will be raised. Obviously, a lot of people have political and ideological commitments that will prevent them from reacting in any other way. But while I was perusing the Wikipedia article of John Lee Anderson, I discovered a really interesting fact that while he was doing that research for that book, that biography, he did research in Bolivia and interviewed and in the process of interviewing military officials actually discovered where Che Guevara was buried in the nature of his execution, which had been a mystery up to that point. That was in 1998. Up until 1998, nobody knew how Che Guevara was killed and where he was buried.

But John Lee Anderson cried the case, and that directly resulted in Che Guevar's body being returned to Cuba, where he was interred in Santa Clara, and I also visited the Che Guevara mausoleum. So I got to see the train, and I got to see Chez's final resting place. Wow. To be fair, you know, Anderson was always my favorite member of Scooby-Doo's gang, you know. I could always come on him to solve the case. And then, you know, point number two, if Soderberg wanted to make a third two-hour leg of this movie of Che Guevara signing off on like, I would literally paint my torso, the Cuban flag and spin my shirt above my head like a fucking super bowl. you know what I mean like I don't get a shit it would be kind of a great

F you to like those critics to do that and just to point out that everybody who's condemning to die is like guilty of like rape like like oh this poor rapist oh no I'll say it explicitly

everybody Cheekill deserved it cry about it and the idea that liberals and, you know, conservatives are like, you should have added all the executions that he oversaw while they praised people like fucking Churchill and Washington and Lincoln, like those, all of those people, all those political heroes of liberals and capitalists didn't reside over their own almost certainly far more unjust executions in many cases and also outright owned slaves. I mean, Churchill oversaw a famine and a genocide in the

in the Southeast Asia, et cetera. So it's just absolutely rich. But that's what you have to do to placate the anti-communist. You can never, ever, ever show them in a good light unless you also slander them in the particular way that they want them to be slandered. Oh, I'll add on to that. That, you know, I don't think we have to, I don't think we have to say that every execution was justified to point out how absurd it is that people watch four hours of war,

four hours of people shooting at each other killing each other um four hours of people killing you know random kids who presumably didn't rape people uh and then they're like that's fine but we really didn't like he didn't show like his execution of the rapists you know and it's like you know whatever what are you going to do with these people uh one thing i did think was funny though as i went and watch the original trailer and they in like the first 30 seconds of the trailer they cut they cut out the line of his UN speech where he says you know yes I did executions and I do it again and then it cuts to the single execution that's shown in tape of him like shooting shooting the the guy who like robbed and raped you know this this family you know and you know and then it cuts back

and he says, patria or muerte, you know, and that's how they frame the entire trailer. It's insane. Bad ass. No, I think it's interesting, you know, in keeping with this conversation, we can maybe juxtapose this against a movie like Dunkirk, right? Where the British, in the course of World War II, bungled an invasion of France so poorly that middle class people with boat had to sail across the channel to rescue the British army. And it's like, this is a good thing, you know. Che Guevara executing rapists is bad, but the British government failing so badly

that they have to send personal boats out to save the army is good. You know, it's just in the realm of film, you know, night and day. You can see it right here. And I think to what you might have been pointing to earlier on in the recording, Taylor, is that this ultimately is a different kind of production than a lot of the stuff we see and a lot of the stuff we're referencing. It was not an American production.

As soon as American financiers found out that they were doing it in Spanish, they backed out. They probably had some other reasons to back out as well. I don't know what those could be. So the film ended up being a Spanish production. It was shot mainly in Spain. So that's one aspect where this is just kind of a different production. but it was also lower budget you know $60 million is a lot of money objectively but for a film that

you know purports to show on a large scale a huge struggle moment like this that has name actors like Benicio del Toro you know it's a lower budget and as you mentioned before Taylor they had an incredibly tight shooting schedule really the the people involved in making the film say it was not worth it like they there's nothing redeeming about a grueling 72 day shoot where literally no margin for error and they're just like yeah we're just happy we survived that like it was not worth it we would never do that again uh so this is a very different production yeah 70 like 70 odd days is like maybe plenty of time to shoot a 15 minute short you know like that's why you know a 12 episode TV season takes you know an entire year to make is that it takes a few days to get

one episode done so to shoot five hours in that amount of time like absolutely blew me away and um history will remember the brave heroes of chay you know hopefully very well um because i couldn't do it it's amazing it's amazing that this exists and i think like if we were to speculate on why this thing worked when really it had every reason not to. I think it kind of comes down to the filmmakers really, really believing in the work that they were doing and really seeing something in it, especially Benicio del Toro. I think when he was, I think it was like when he was in Argentina screen the movie, he said something like, yeah, well, I don't agree with the violent revolution now, but maybe I would have in the 60s, you know, who knows?

You know, which is a great line. And he's so goddamn good in this movie. You know, it bears repeating again and again. I think it's absolutely one of the best performances I've ever seen. Truly, truly. He dissolves into Che. It's incredible. And then part of the production, you know, just the sheer amount of talent that went into this,

according to interviews with Soderberg, they maybe used lights on two scenes, two or three occasions and the rest of the film was shot in natural light which is just unheard of it's just unheard of and to capture these naturally beautiful scenes i mean on such a short shooting schedule where you don't have time to do multiple takes of this and that to get the sun and the shadow just so i mean you're going to cut out a lot of time setting up equipment you know and then hauling it around but you also are going to like i mean you're mean, very realistically, just risk it all, you know, and get a half dozen shots you can't use that you need nonetheless for your film. So from the point of, you know, the perspective of the

actors, from the perspective of the production, you know, the film workers on set, they worked their asses off, but they did a great fucking job, and they evidently believed in the job that they were doing. Well, there's so much more to be said about these films and about the production, so many stories we could get into. But I think that this is a good place to move towards a close. One question that I'd like to ask you guys is, all in all, where does Che fit on your bookshelf or your movie shelf, wherever you store your movies? Where is this sitting? For me, right next to Battle of Algiers, because I think they're both amazing films at the cinematography level at the historic level at the political revolutionary level and on all those fronts

they are you know five-star production so yeah very high indeed absolutely this is right up there with the aforementioned battle for algears and then um the wages of fear and then also i think with agnes barda's short documentary on the black panthers um she was in california at the time that Huey Newton was arrested, like just arrested. So she was able to document, you know, 15, 20 minutes, very, very aesthetically of the movement to Free Huey. And so I think that that is maybe one of the best treatments of the Black Panther movement in its spirit in a similar way that none of these films are like, you know, 56-hour-long,

you know, documentarian slogs of the events as they occurred. but they're able to encapsulate the truth of the moment and convey it to you in a way that, like, that impacts you and hits you and motivates you in a way that not only something, you know, that is a good work of art will do, but in a way that something is true will motivate you. So Agnes Varda's Black Panthers, the rest of it all, and, uh, and Che. Very good, very good. Well, to answer my own question, I order my TVs, uh, my movies, uh, my movies alphabetically by director so this would be pretty low on the bookshelf with the asses but figuratively speaking you know

yes you're right it'll be right up there i think that you know i'm going to keep going back to it i'm going to keep remembering the images and it's going to be part it's going to become part of how i understand this moment in history how i understand the historical figure of chay and i think that yes again to echo what taylor is saying you know there's an honesty and a truth of this production that really shines through it and I think that that's going to it's going to make it hold up to the to the to the to the to the buffets of time so a figure and jemmy you know what is perfect for as well like if you're out there and you're listening if you're in a political organization a movie night for a cadre or an organization this would be absolutely ideal to

watch the film, learn about Cuban history, and then talk about the politics and the strategy and the tactics within, I think it would be very fruitful. So if you have, if you're in that sort of organization, you do a thing like a movie night or a book club, this should be at the top of your list. And unless you know your comrades really, really well, probably best to split it into two parts. Yeah, absolutely. Not all at once. Not all that ones. Wow. all righty well uh we don't have a whole lot left i'll i'll throw one more question out there i just so you know i have some i have like one final statement as well before we say a good okay uh is it about the movie oh you should go for that now then yeah so just just as a final

thought i think it's worth saying that jean pa sartra called che Guevara the most complete human being of our age and in this in this film chay is really truly um presented objectively and by doing that he's presented as the good guy because he was and once you realize the power of Che of his legacy of his image of him as a symbol once you fully grasp it you will understand why the right and the center and liberalism in general has to slander him they have to make him into a cartoon villain they have to just make shit up chay hated gay people chay murdered innocent people. Che was a sociopath and a serial killer. They have to bring

him down multiple pegs because Che in his realness in who he actually was as a historical figure is an undying never-ending inspiration for every other human being who believes in justice and equality and true liberation.

And so once you understand Chee, you understand why they have to hate him and they have to turn him in to a caricature of a caricature of who he actually was. God damn. Well said. well put well put all right well what should we do for a hundred episode well phil we've only got to do bigger we've only got to do better we've watched a five-hour movie about a cuban revolutionary for our 100th episode i'm going to put it out there whether we do it whether we don't i don't know we should watch an eight-hour movie about the end of the soviet union satin tango Well Count me out for that one

Well maybe we can just watch Che again You know Who knows? Two or three more years You know We'll have another perspective on it I don't know

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into the front door yeah that makes no fucking sense just fork over the money you'll get premium content that's all you got that's that's all you got that's all you got to know all you got all right well brett thank you so much for joining us we appreciate all your support we appreciate the conversation tonight uh i think that's all from us we appreciate you getting us started brett you know thank you for this road you set us on this one long march we podcasters are on you know yeah the longest march for sure no it's it's honor. You guys are absolutely great. I absolutely love hammering camera. It's a fusion of genuine

humor, principal left-wing politics, and high-level film analysis. So I'm just honored that you invited me on for your 50. We're going to use that as our intro from now on. Before we let you go, do you have anything else to plug? Anything you want people to pay attention to? Anything people need to go do and see? Not really. You can find me at Rev. Left Radio. I mean, just Google it. I was actually on NPR today as a Omaha affiliate NPR station and was actually able to articulate anti-capitalism. I know nobody listening to this will be able to hear that because it was live radio. But I was like, wow, I actually went on NPR and talked about anti-capitalism in a very

explicit way. And I was like, I can't believe they allowed me to do that. But yeah, no, if you want to find me, you can find me. But more than anything, support Hammer and Camera, it's really important to do that. Yes, this is true. More and more people are saying this. they really are all righty y'all i'll let you go listeners brett taylor you all have a very good night sweet dreams adios companeros this is a production of figure podcasts for more information visit figurepodcasts