BANANACUE
REPUBLIC
Vol II, No. 17
July, 2005
social criticism by
Vicente-Ignacio de Veyra III
A German
Lesson In Making A Documentary Film About Music In A Politicized
HERE’S something from
a banana-producing republic by way of a man from Bavaria.
In 1997, American guitarist Ry Cooder produced an album that sought to band together a handful of legendary Cuban musicians, some as old as their nineties, momentarily calling them The Buena Vista Social Club (also the title of the album). Imagine doing the same with our own neglected musicians while they’re still alive. It seems, too, that Ry Cooder (or his corporate sponsors) already thought of a movie about this “banding together” as a potentially profitable venture, because by 1999 – after the album had been efficiently marketed by all the spin doctor’s formula – a movie of the same title containing footages of the recording was released, some would say to sustain profits from the project. The result: an enchanting documentary film that’s a perfect accompaniment to the exciting album.
the cd's cover
The person hired to do the job was acclaimed German director Wim Wenders. And here’s what he did. While others would simply largely cover the studio sessions, Wenders carried his camera to the neighborhoods, to the musicians’ houses and photo albums, to the Cuba that has nothing but restored ‘50s cars and preserved ‘50s architecture, to the Cuba that exports large cigars to the men in Washington who continue to hypocritically drape Cuba’s other products with an economic embargo, to the mood of an impoverished but contented communist republic that yet nurtured these talents to their near-century age.
But he does more. To be emphatic about those tours, he chooses not to finish the songs when the camera visits the players in the studio or in concert. He begs to return to the stories, to the neighborhoods. So, in short, this is not a music film where the songs are finished, nor is it a concert version of the album. As we see and hear some of the songs being recorded in Havana, with footage from concerts in Amsterdam and New York City's Carnegie Hall, the songs are interrupted by the individual musicians’ talk about their lives in Cuba, how they got started in music, how they flourished, how they were forgotten, how they were rediscovered, and so on. That alone is amazing and moving. But, no, that won’t suffice for Wenders, he lets Ry Cooder and the cameramen do their own tours of the cityscape.
the DVD's cover
But the film makes no judgments. It’s up to the viewer now to muse about either Castro’s backwardness or Cuba’s beguiling urban environment of preserved symbols and unadulterated musical life.
SURE it’s about legendary performers and wonderful music, but the 1997 music album is allowed to retain its own allure. We might remember that when some books are made into movies, some readers throw away the books. Or when artists or photographers illustrate poems, the imagination on the page is rendered dumb. Perhaps recognizing this, Wenders allowed the film to take a path different from the music album: the external atmospheres path, not the songs path. The environment, inclusive of the crumbling paint on walls and cars that still boast of an Iberian taste in coloration – this was Wender’s chosen focus. The resultant statement: that of a touching story about musicians who live in a communist republic suffering from an economic embargo, musicians like Ibrahim Ferrer ("the Cuban Nat King Cole") whom Cooder saw shining shoes when the latter found the former.
But, again, lest
Wenders be accused of being judgmental of Castro or otherwise of the US’
treatment of his country, he allows the viewer leeway; otherwise he could
easily have made contrasts about the triumphs or tragedies that happened
to some other Cuban musicians who emigrated or escaped to the
wealthy/depressing environs of the United States. No, what Wenders does is
take us to the charm of the place, letting us forget our points of origin.
He lets us enter the narrations of the pianist Ruben Gonzalez, 80 years
old and complaining of arthritis but still has a strong and unmistakable
piano style, of Omara Portuondo, "the Cuban Edith Piaf," and many more.
The faces become familiar. We become not judgmental tourists but happy
vacationers.
The music album made it to Spin Magazine’s top twenty albums of the year,
and we might note that Spin’s subscribers are young music fans from
diverse ethnic positions in rock. Perhaps noting this influence on the
young, Wenders allowed clichés from young American filmmaking to enter
into the composition: a handheld camera that recurrently circle the
musicians everywhere, another handheld camera that shakes. Older
generations, however, might not appreciate this.
There is another item that some Americans might hate looking at: Wender’s
camera focusing on Cooder’s benevolent stares and smiles and in-awe
headshakes, almost as if to represent a white man who saw this exotic
group of Afro-Latino creatures who simply make great music. Is this a
symbol of a white man worshipping the exotic? A symbol of Democratic
charitableness? A simple portrait of a fan? Or a symbol of the white man’s
recognition of other people’s equal superiority in certain things? As for
this last, Wenders gives us ample view of the Cuban people’s
resourcefulness in making old cars continue to move on the streets, the
Cuban government’s (perhaps inevitable) sense of preservation as against
the imperial gaudiness of other communist regime’s big-architecture and
big-projects utopias.
Wenders offers another problematic. When the musicians are in New York, Wenders’ camera shows them visiting the Empire State Building and Times Square, in awe of things absent in Havana, or looking in souvenir shop windows, talking about how wonderful it all is, indeed as if they were on a school trip. To some this is condescending. Even embarrassing, to both the musicians and to Fidel Castro. But it depends on where you’re coming from. Would you rather that this truth is hidden? Looking at these scenes we are made to ask, would they really all prefer to seek political asylum in New York? In contrast with other images in the film, we are likewise made to ask, would Ry Cooder prefer to seek residency in Havana? Or do they all regard themselves simply as visitors, just as we would generally regard their music as stuff we’re simply visiting?
SO, now, would you want to hear the songs from start to finish? Listen to the album. The film won’t even interfere with your imagination trying to envision the artists at play while listening to the CD. It’s as if the film let us regard the music and the playing as a good memory, a memory photographs of which can’t even start to better, a memory the remembering of which remains – as good memories should be – an engaging jigsaw puzzle of images.
The Chicago critic Roger Ebert had this to say about the film’s imagery: “Wenders' visual texture for the film is interesting. He overexposes slightly with moderately high-contrasts and then washes the picture out a little. It's like the watercolor technique where you finish the painting, let it dry, and then let it soak briefly in a pan of water, so that the strong colors remain and others become more faded. It's a nice surface for the film, and appropriate.”
He could very well be speaking of such a film done in Manila or Cebu, with all our own neglected Third World musicians luxuriating in the bliss of making colorful music amid all the tumultuous political pollution that surround earthlings’ lives everywhere they go.
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Posted 07/15/05. Send your comments to:end comments to:
bananacue_republic@yahoo.com
"We might remember that when some books are made into movies, some readers
throw away the books. Or when artists or photographers illustrate poems,
the imagination on the page is rendered dumb. Perhaps recognizing this,
Wenders allowed the film to take a path different from the music album:
the external atmospheres path, not the songs path."