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TWO A Cinema Looking for People: The Individual and the Collective in Immediate Post-Revolutionary Cuban Nonfiction Film What is it that is hidden behind the Yankee’s hatred of the Cuban Revolution? What is it that rationally explains the conspiracy which unites, for the same aggressive purpose, the most powerful and richest imperial power in the modern world and the oligarchies of an entire continent, which together are supposed to represent a population of 350 million human beings, against a small country of only seven million inhabitants, economically underdeveloped, without financial or military means to threaten the security or economy of any other country? What unites them and stirs them up in fear? What explains it is fear. Not fear of the Cuban Revolution but fear of the Latin American revolution. Not fear of the workers, peasants, intellectuals, students, and progressive sectors of the middle strata which, by revolutionary means, have taken power in Cuba; but fear that the workers, peasants, students, intellectuals, and progressive sectors of the middle strata will, by revolutionary means, take power in the oppressed and hungry countries exploited by the Yankee monopolies and reactionary oligarchies of America; fear that the plundered people of the continent will seize the arms from the oppressors and, like Cuba, declare themselves free people of America. —Fidel Castro, “The Second Declaration of Havana” (1962) 59 A Cinema Looking for People Shot rapidly in January of 1961, during the first period of alert . . . it aims at communicating, if not the experience, at least the vibrations, the rhythms of a revolution that will one day perhaps be held to be the decisive moment of a whole era of contemporary history. —Chris Marker, preface to the script of Cuba Sí! (1961) Visualizing Collectivities and Experiencing Masses Fidel Castro delivered his extended exegesis on the history and philosophy of imperialism in Latin America to the Cuban people on February 4, 1962. The speech followed Cuba’s expulsion from the Organization of American States. A Cuban newsreel issue, which I describe in detail below , “covered” the events of the day. Following the opening credit sequence and a title identifying this as a “special issue,” a patriotic anthem, sung by a chorus, runs over images of hordes of people making their way through Havana to the National Stadium for a major event. The camera shifts between long and medium shots of a mass moving in unison with tighter shots in the midst of the marchers. As the voice-over of Julio Batista (the ICAIC newsreel narrator at the time) begins, the camera captures people walking past or milling around. It searches faces, zooms in on placards, and angles down at ambulating feet. The different impact of the two shot lengths and their objects is immediately striking. In the long shots, the crowd usually appears as a unified force, marching with a purpose toward its destination. In the tighter shots amid the crowd, people often appear to be moving in varying directions if at all. There it becomes a scattered, inquisitive camera, accumulating a breadth of detailed faces, gestures, and costumes. The newsreel issue then moves to the stadium. The initial shots there are similar to the earlier tight shots of the crowd, only now the gestures and movements are of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and President Osvaldo Dorticos as they approach the stage. When he finally begins to speak, Castro’s voice assumes the narration, prompting a sharp change in the cinematography. The camera moves to an extreme long shot and stabilizes somewhat. It captures the massive crowd with gigantic banners of Karl Marx and José Martí looming as the backdrop. The camera .23] Project MUSE (2024-04-23 14:24 GMT) 60 Post-Revolution Nonfiction Film returns to Castro, shooting him from behind so that the immensity of the event is visible. After cutting to people in the crowd, the film returns to the shot behind Castro, only it has suddenly become dark. (Castro is known for his lengthy speeches; “The Second Declaration of Havana” is 13,470 words.) Upon returning to that view, Batista takes over the narration, filling in the missing content by means of a narrationally covered ellipsis. Fidel reassumes the narration to finish his speech. As the event ends, the camera stays in an extreme long shot, capturing the spontaneous celebratory sway of the crowd and its chants of “Fidel, Fidel, Fidel.” The anthem music that opens the issue returns, the camera points upward to the sky, and the film...

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