In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

FOUR (Non)Alignments and the New Revolutionary Man The difficult thing to understand for someone not living through the experience of the revolution is this close dialectical unity between the individual and the mass, in which both are interrelated and, at the same time, in which the mass, as an aggregate of individuals, interacts with its leaders. —Che Guevara, “Socialism and Man in Cuba” (1965) Che Guevara opens his famous essay “Socialism and Man in Cuba” by countering the characterization of socialism as “the abolition of the individual for the sake of the state.”1 Instead of the elimination of the individual, he argues that socialism seeks a new interrelation not only between the individual and the mass but between that mass and revolutionary leadership. The new configuration serves to overcome the “individual ’s quality of incompleteness” endemic to capitalist societies (and its colonial legacies) but does so only if it is accompanied by a simultaneous increase in technological production and a deepening of consciousness . The achievement and sustenance of socialism, Che argues, requires continual material and ideological transformation. In his newsreels and documentaries from 1965 to 1971, Santiago Álvarez sought to effect this Guevaran vision by projecting, modeling, and instilling a new technological , ideological, ethical, and sensorial conciencia (a consciousness or subjectivity that motivates social action). 118 Post-Revolution Nonfiction Film A nonfiction genre that commonly articulates the role of the individual in both shaping and responding to social conditions is the biography . Álvarez’s “biography” of the Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, however, offers an alternative, socialist model of relationships between individuals and collectives and collectives and leadership. Moreover, it serves as a constellation of Álvarez’s efforts during this period to deepen moral and critical consciousness and transform the sensorium of the Cuban citizen by educating citizens in the proper ways to behave as individuals in post-revolutionary society. If as Che describes, individuals have consistently turned to art and culture as tools for freeing themselves (albeit temporarily) from the alienating conditions of capitalist labor, Álvarez’s 79 primaveras (79 springtimes, 1969) develops Che’s vision of an ideologically and morally edifying socialist culture. The film provides a vision and an experience of a non-alienated existence. Ho’s life and work exemplifies meaningful labor, while Álvarez’s expansive vision deepens consciousness by providing core foundations for locating the individual in the world. Álvarez’s 79 primaveras is both socialist biography and elegy to the Vietnamese leader, who died in 1969. The film begins by chronicling the foremost events in Ho’s political development. Ho’s achievements are conveyed through beautiful intertitle cards that state the date and his accomplishment (for example, thirty-five “primaveras” had passed when he founded the League of Oppressed Peoples in Asia). Archival footage of the different types of labor Ho performed—manual labor with the people, political labor leading meetings, and intellectual labor at the typewriter—supports the titles. This section of the film concludes after the victory of Dien Bien Phu and an abrupt shift to the funeral , where international leaders and Vietnamese citizens mourn Ho’s passing. Álvarez’s chronology of the political life of Ho is far removed from dominant Western generic models and serves a pedagogical function as it provides instead an exemplary model of socialist labor. It is in the climactic section of the film that the extent of his effort to deepen consciousness—and his skill in assembling extraordinarily disparate music, imagery, and slogans—fully emerges. Immediately prior to the climactic section, Álvarez inserts a brief juxtaposition that aligns 1.223] Project MUSE (2024-04-24 17:13 GMT) 119 (Non)Alignments and the New Revolutionary Man American antiwar protesters and the North Vietnamese on one side of the international struggle against capitalist imperialism. In the first sequence, protesters burn their draft cards as police in riot gear initiate violence. Rock music predominates as the camera presents an immersive view from the vantage point of protesters. In the second sequence, an older Ho Chi Minh warmly communicates with an old peasant woman attending what appears to be a press conference. At the transition between the sequences, the music shifts to the electric keyboards and drums of Iron Butterfly.2 Scratchy guitar music begins to merge with Iron Butterfly and gradually becomes dominant as a new title appears on-screen. It states one of Ho’s last wishes—Don’t let disunity in the socialist camp darken the future. Through animation, the title breaks apart, spins...

Share