[Marxism] "The Motorcycle Diaries"

[Simon Kennedy <simonmotorbike@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Don't expect too much from the film though Louis. It is a rambling buddy piece 
at heart with thin characterisation, little development and hackneyed dialogue. 
The scenes with women are painful. There is one political speech, at the end. 
Not a terrible film, but very average. Good if you like bike travel though, 
like me. http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/tstories/kennedy/

Simon

Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
(I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the director of the upcoming
movie based on Che's motorcycle diaries was also the director of the very
fine "Central Station".)

NY Times Magazine, September 19, 2004
QUESTIONS FOR WALTER SALLES
Easy Rider
Interview by LYNN HIRSCHBERG

Q: Your new movie, ''The Motorcycle Diaries,'' which opens in New York on
Sept. 24, traces the political awakening in 1952 of Che Guevara during an
8,000-mile trip through Argentina, Chile and Peru. Why were you attracted
to this material?

A: For Latin Americans ? I was born in Brazil ? ''The Motorcycle Diaries''
is a cult book. The trip, which Guevara, who was then a 23-year-old medical
student specializing in leprology, took with his friend Alberto Granado,
started as an adventure, and as they traveled, it gained gravity. It
reshaped who they would be.

Q: You've always been attracted to road movies ? your film ''Central
Station'' (1998), which was nominated for two Academy Awards, was also a
kind of road film.

A: Road movies allow you to capture a country in transformation. With ''The
Motorcycle Diaries,'' I realized that the movie, like the book, had to be
open to the margins of the road, to the unexpected event.

Q: You are a nomad, also. Where do you live now?

A: In airplanes. In hotel rooms. I have lived like that for two years. My
main home is, I guess, in Rio. I retraced Guevara's trip three times, twice
for research and once when we shot the film, which took nearly a year. We
went from filming in the snow in the Andes to 113-degree heat in the
Amazon. Everything is one take in those situations.

Q: You also did extensive preparation with your actors.

A: Four months prior to shooting, in Buenos Aires, I organized seminars on
Latin American history, music and films of the period. We showed
documentaries from the 50's on politics and another on Incan history.

Q: Your father was a diplomat, and you spent your early life traveling
between Paris and Rio.

Q: My formative years were spent abroad. We lived in Paris from 1961 until
1968. During the student upheaval in May 1968, I was 12 years old, and
history was being redefined in Paris at that moment. Until then, I hated
Paris. I hated the constant rain; I was never really fond of croissants. In
Brazil, everything remained to be seen or be done, and France was old and
established. But May '68 changed that.

Q: When did you return to Brazil?

A: When I was 13. I started taking pictures, and then, later, I began
making documentaries to better understand the country I had left.

Q: But you started traveling again ? you made documentaries for Brazilian
TV all over the world.

A: When Brazilian TV was democratized in the mid 80's, I made films for
them. When I interviewed Federico Fellini in Italy, he asked me, ''Do you
like working in TV?'' I said, ''Frankly, no.'' He told me to abandon
television. And I did.

A: You're now finishing a horror film called ''Dark Water'' for Disney.
What attracted you to this material?

A: Horror films help explain a state of urban abandonment and fear. I am
fascinated by the history of fear as a political device. Fear has been
installed throughout the ages as an instrument of control.

Q: So you, like your fellow Latin American directors Alfonso Cuaron and
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, are now working in Hollywood.

A: Not so fast ? they are both directing their next movies abroad ? and my
next movie is a small film about four brothers who live in the outskirts of
São Paulo. Another road movie. We live in a continent where there are so
many stories to be told. Through Hollywood, we suddenly have the
possibility to reach a larger audience. But when you are a Latin American
director, you can be curious and look, but always make sure you have a
return ticket.


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