HOLLYWOOD IN HAVANA Five Decades of Cuban Posters Promoting U.S. Films
politicalgraphics.org 1
2
Hollywood in Havana Five Decades of Cuban Posters Promoting U.S. Films assembles innovative Cuban posters created between 1961 and 2012 that promote Hollywood films as well as Cuban films about the United States. Produced by the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC), or Cuban Film Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry, the posters were part of an initiative of the Revolutionary government to develop cultural literacy and promote discussions after Fidel Castro overthrew the United Statessupported dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Cuban posters are astonishing in their design, stylistic diversity, and craft and, with the exception of depictions of Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe, are in striking contrast to the vast majority of Hollywood film posters, which feature movie stars.
ICAIC, the Revolution, and the Embargo The 1959 Cuban Revolution not only altered the political, social, and economic spheres, but also the cultural sphere, greatly expanding access and engagement with the arts, particularly cinema. Due to a lack of public education during the Batista regime, Cuba had an illiteracy rate of over 40 percent in rural areas. The leaders of the guerrilla struggle were quick to perceive the artistic and educational potential of film, which they saw as a powerful and effective way to reach the entire population.¹ In March 1959, less than three months after coming to power, the Cuban government formed ICAIC to facilitate film production, promotion, and distribution. The United States broke diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961 and in 1962 imposed a total trade embargo. The embargo significantly damaged Cuba’s economy and created challenging conditions for every aspect of life in Cuba. The United States had supplied twothirds of Cuba’s imports and purchased most of Cuba’s exports, primarily sugar. The embargo pushed Cuba into closer relations with the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, U.S. films remained popular, and despite the ongoing embargo, Cubans continue to receive and enjoy them. While it is not definitively known how these films arrive in Cuba, it can be assumed that they come from a combination of sources: supportive filmmakers, other countries, and bootlegged copies. The Revolution encouraged the development of a local film industry and the creation of new graphics, music, and distribution channels to support and promote it. The Cuban film poster broke with tradition on all fronts: form, content, and printing method. Throughout 3
the United States and Europe, all film posters were (and continue to be) mass-produced by offset lithography. This printing technique was not economically viable for the relatively small quantities of posters needed in Cuba. Prior to the Revolution, most film posters— primarily promoting films from the United States, Europe, Mexico, and Argentina—were imported into Cuba. Only one lithographic press in Havana and one in New York are known to have printed offset posters promoting Cuban films. In 1943, Eladio Rivadulla Martínez, a Cuban artist, journalist, and silkscreen printer working in Havana, began screen printing film posters.² Although his designs at the time followed the same movie star-focused formula of international film posters, Rivadulla started a tradition that continues to this day. After the Revolution, Rivadulla continued to screen print film posters, including the first ones produced by ICAIC. He also created the very first political poster after the triumph of the Revolution, using the traditional film poster model but replacing the movie star with Fidel Castro’s portrait.
Poster Design Although ICAIC posters are now prized throughout the world for their beauty and innovation, their creative designs often developed out of necessity. Though designers used the artisanal silkscreen technique, a technologically less-complex process than offset lithography, they were nonetheless affected by the embargo. Shortages of paper and ink resulted in a reduced poster size, small runs, and a limited color palette. In the early 1960s, posters had to be 50 percent white, due to a lack of inks, yet artists worked around the paucity of resources by reducing the number of elements on a page, using flat colors, and replacing detailed images with simpler yet often bolder graphic forms. When resources reemerged in 1967 with the arrival of inks donated from international supporters of the Revolution, the colors began to soar off the page. Artists also integrated a wide range of international styles, including the pared-down and symbolically bold aesthetic of Saul Bass, the psychedelic style popularized by the San Francisco Avalon and Fillmore posters, abstraction, Pop, and Op art. Being in ICAIC was like being on a different island. They were difficult times artistically, as in all fields; there was an official attempt to implement Socialist Realism that came from the USSR, and ICAIC opposed this aesthetic, believing back then that the revolution could be modern, without Stalinist ideas. – Antonio Reboiro, graphic designer for ICAIC (1963–1982)
4
Alfredo Guevara and Saúl Yelín, two of ICAIC’s founders, encouraged creativity and free expression.³ As a result, ICAIC became a magnet for artists, musicians, and writers who did not conform to the more limited aesthetic favored by the socialist bloc, which characterized modern art and the sixties youth culture as imperialist decadence. ICAIC’s posters profoundly affected the graphic arts throughout Cuba, just as the experimental sound tracks of ICAIC films influenced Cuban music. ICAIC’s aesthetic experiments even impacted the more traditional political posters produced by diverse Cuban agencies.
A Distinctly Cuban Style Free from the commercial need to sell tickets, Cuban film posters encouraged viewers to understand images, to learn to look at art—and the world—differently. They transformed streets into galleries and sometimes were more engaging than the films they promoted. U.S. graphic designer Saul Bass, whose brilliant film posters interpreted films instead of featuring actors, inspired many ICAIC designers. Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe are two of the few movie stars represented in ICAIC posters. Chaplin continues to be revered in Cuba for his heroic depictions of the dispossessed worker who had fallen victim to capitalist industrialization. Chaplin’s most memorable character was The Little Tramp, who represented the everyman and embodied Chaplin’s political views. Although Chaplin claimed no party affiliation, he was often accused of being a communist. In 1952, during the height of McCarthyism, he was banned from returning to the United States and did not go back for twenty years. Chaplin is so revered in Cuba that he literally and figuratively represents ICAIC. In 1961, the first ICAIC poster ever produced featured him, and in every decade since, his iconic features—toothbrush mustache, bowler hat, and heavy eyebrows—are used to promote films, festivals, and cine móvil. In contrast to Charlie Chaplin, the popularity of Marilyn Monroe in Cuba is unexpected. The Hollywood film industry hid her left politics from U.S. audiences, but Monroe’s support of the Cuban Revolution and the Civil Rights Movement as well as her solidarity with the Hollywood writers and actors blacklisted during McCarthyism endeared her to the Cuban people.
5
Mobile Cinema In 1961, ICAIC created cine móvil, mobile projection units that brought films to the many Cubans in remote parts of the country who lacked electricity and had never seen a film. Through the cine móvil, ICAIC participated in the three major programs of the new government: agrarian reform, healthcare, and education. Ironically, the immediate precedent for the cine móvil was the United States Information Agency (USIA), which operated mobile cinema vans out of its Havana embassy, disseminating U.S. propaganda films throughout Cuba.⁴ ICAIC transported the projectors, generators, and films for these traveling movie theaters by truck, boat, and mule to some of the most remote areas of Cuba. Chaplin’s Modern Times was the first film many saw. Por Primera Vez/For the First Time, a 1967 Cuban documentary by Octavio Cortázar, captures first the uncertainty and anticipation and then the amazement as more than one hundred people watched their first film. Whether promoting films in remote parts of Cuba or bringing art and cultural education to the streets, ICAIC posters represent the innovation and ingenuity of the Cuban spirit. While ICAIC posters are frequently exhibited all over the world, this is the first time that posters promoting U.S. films have been the focus. No matter how familiar one is with Cuba and its extraordinary graphic tradition, the imagination and creativity displayed in Hollywood in Havana: Five Decades of Cuban Posters Promoting U.S. Films will surprise and provoke. Carol A. Wells Founder and Executive Director Center for the Study of Political Graphics ¹ By the end of 1961, the year of the literacy brigades, more than seven hundred thousand Cubans had learned to read and write, and Cuba’s national literacy rate reached 96 percent, one of the highest in the world. ² As a student in the 1930s, Rivadulla studied with Helmut Wotzkow, a German graphic designer who taught at the Bauhaus, then taught in Havana after the Nazis closed the legendary art school. ³ Alfredo Guevara and Fidel Castro had a long and close history, from their student days at the University of Havana until Guevara’s death in 2013. As Guevara’s commitment to the Revolution was unquestioned, he was able to criticize government policy as well as promote artistic experimentation. ⁴ The United States also operated these mobile propaganda vans throughout Latin America, with major concentrations in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, and Colombia.
6
7
8
Charlie Chaplin Mobile Films & Festivals
9
10
Poster created to celebrate the birth of the ICAIC (Instituto Cubano del Arte y la Industria Cinematográfica) in 1959. The image become identified with the Institute and was subsequently used for most official communications.
Cinemateca de Cuba / Cuban Cinematheque Rafael Morante 1961 (reissued, date unknown)
45 Años Cinemateca de Cuba / 45 Years of Cuban Cinematheque Rafael Morante, Nelson Ponce Sánchez 2004 11
12
Por Primera Vez / For the First Time (1967) Eduardo MuĂąoz Bachs 1968 13
Unidades Moviles Programacion / Mobile Units Programming Eduardo MuĂąoz Bachs 1972 14
Cine Movil / Mobile Films Eduardo MuĂąoz Bachs 1969 15
Charlie Chaplin rides a scooter made of a film strip to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the cine moviles, (mobile cinema).
XXV Aniversario Cine Movil / 25th Anniversary Mobile Films Eduardo MuĂąoz Bachs 1986 16
Using a still from The Adventurer, (1917) where Chaplin plays an escaped convict, his prison stripes become film strips, to announce a showing of films restored by the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF)
Muestra De Filmes Salvados Por FIAF / Showing of Films Saved By FIAF NĂŠstor Coll 1990 17
18
Charlie Chaplin Films
19
20
The story follows the misadventures of Chaplin’s Little Tramp as he falls in love with a blind girl selling flowers on the street. By the time this poster was designed, nearly 80 years after the film was made, both the film and the actor were so iconic that Chaplin is still identifiable when reduced to his bowler hat and mustache.
City Lights (1931) Zalekos 2009
City Lights Artist Unknown 1931 U.S. Poster 21
The gears filling the entire poster represent one of the most iconic scenes in Modern Times, when Charlie Chaplin’s character gets caught inside a machine. The film portrays the desperate financial conditions many people faced during the Great Depression—in Chaplin’s view, conditions created by the efficiencies of modern industrialization. This was the last film featuring the Little Tramp, struggling to survive in the modern, industrialized world.
Tiempos Modernos / Modern Times (1936) Claudio Sotolongo 2009 22
Modern Times Artist Unknown 1936 U.S. Poster
It is rare in a Cuban film poster to use a still photo from the actual movie – rarer still to include photographs of the lead actors, but the Cuban love affair with Charlie Chaplin breaks all the rules. René Azcuy alters the photo by removing the policeman in the background, and making the image grainier and higher contrast—stylistically similar to the style of some of Cuba’s most renowned artists, such as Frémez, René Mederos, and Felix Beltrán. The Little Tramp, who first appeared in 1914 and became Chaplin’s most memorable on-screen character, remains the most universally recognized fictional image of a human being in the history of art.
Scene from original 1921 film
El Chicuelo / The Kid (1921) René Azcuy 1975 23
24
Breaking through the confines of the frame, Bachs presents a whimsical interpretation of the scene in the film where the Little Tramp is locked into a lion’s cage.
El Circo / The Circus (1928) Eduardo MuĂąoz Bachs 1975
The Circus Artist Unknown 1928 U.S. Poster
Film clip of Charlie Chaplin inside a lion cage from The Circus 1928 25
26
U.S. Films
27
The title is featured on the whale’s massive tail as it comes out of— or smashes down into—the concentric circles of the ocean’s waves. The tail also becomes the rising or setting sun, out of which emanate multicolor rays of light. This art-nouveau inspired countercultural psychedelic style began in San Francisco and quickly spread throughout the world.
Moby Dick (1956) Antonio Fernández Reboiro 1968 28
Moby Dick Artist Unknown 1968 U.S. Poster
Jerry Lewis plays Christopher Pride, a successful artist who was offered an important commission in Paris. He wants go to Paris with his psychiatrist girlfriend, (Janet Leigh), who is too involved with three female patients to leave them for a year. Lewis decides to “date” these women, to “give them back their self-esteem,” freeing Leigh to go with him. Lewis plays five roles including four impersonations—three of whom are the men who date Leigh’s clients: They are represented in the poster by the cowboy hat (a rancher), glasses (a zoologist), and tennis shoes (an athlete). The character predictably fails in his attempt to prove the sexist assumption (noted in a 1974 NYTimes review) that the right man can solve the problems of all women. Three on a Couch was listed in the 1978 book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time.
Three on a Couch Artist Unknown 1966
Tres En Un Sofá / Three on a Couch (1966) Eduardo Muñoz Bachs 1974 29
The Cuban poster is as restrained and understated, as the film’s plot—a fictionalized telling of the story of the building of the Great Pyramid—is convoluted and elaborate. Using a script partially written by William Faulkner, the original Hollywood film poster focuses on the sexuality of Joan Collins and whips—the pyramids are small background props.
Tierra De Los Faraones / Land Of The Pharoahs (1955) Julio Eloy Mesa 1970 30
Land Of The Pharoahs Artist Unknown 1955
This whimsical poster uses highly stylized flowers growing out of a photomontaged trash can. The difference between the Spanish and English titles hints why Cubans might have liked this film, which was a box office disappointment in the U.S. and never released on video or DVD. The film is about a South American virus that is spread throughout New York City by a bird named, “Amigo.” The virus turns everyone infected into happy and generous people. Government leaders conclude that the virus threatens the economic lifeblood of New York City, as people suddenly stop buying alcohol, tobacco or drugs, and the stock exchange and business districts are threatened with collapse if everyone is happy and nice to one another. Once the government finds a cure everyone returns to their old, rude, and selfish ways. But Amigo escapes!
What’s So Bad About Feeling Good? Artist Unknown 1968
La Revolucion De Los Inconformes / What’s So Bad About Feeling Good? (1968) Marcos Dimas 1972 31
Based on a play inspired by the real-life murder of 14-yearold Bobby Franks in 1924 by University of Chicago students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. Hitchcock’s psychological crime thriller transforms the murderers into brilliant Harvard graduates, who want to prove their intellectual superiority by committing the perfect murder of a former classmate. In featuring the rope as a necktie, the poster symbolizes the privileged class of the murderers as well as revealing that the victim was strangled with a rope.
La Soga / Rope (1948) Giselle Monzón 2009 32
Rope Giselle Monzón 1948 U.S. Poster
After moving to Hollywood in 1939, Alfred Hitchcock made several films in Britain, including Frenzy, a psychological horror-thriller about a serial rapist/killer who strangles his victims with neckties. The apple refers to the identity of the murderer, a fruit merchant, who is identified as the killer early in the film. The placement of the tie around the apple evokes the act of strangulation as well as the strangling of desire—using a reference as old as Adam and Eve. Although all of his victims were women, the image here, of a fallen man without a tie, refers to the closing scene of the film when, having just strangled someone, the murderer/rapist comes in to hide his latest victim. A police officer in the room—who had come to arrest the wrong man— says, “Mr. Rusk, you’re not wearing your tie.”
Frenzy Artist Unknown 1972 U.S. Poster
Frenesí / Frenzy (1972) Antonio Pérez (Ñiko) 1973 33
A now classic horror/thriller, Silence of the Lambs features Hannibal Lector, a brilliant forensic psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer. While serving nine consecutive life sentences in a mental institution for a series of murders, Lector assists Clarice Starling, a young FBI trainee, to profile another serial killer known as “Buffalo Bill”. The Black Witch moth was featured in the film and in the original U.S. film poster. The coat hanger provides a clue to the identity of “Buffalo Bill” who was a tailor. The minimal design and title are screened over a solid red background, and the void below the coat hanger evokes silence, death, and the clothes the tailor once made. In 2003, Hannibal Lecter (as portrayed by Anthony Hopkins) was chosen by the American Film Institute as the #1 movie villain.
El Silencio De Los Corderos / Silence of the Lambs (1991) Raúl Valdés (Raupa) 2009 34
Silence of the Lambs Artist Unknown 1991 U.S. Poster
Although contemporary responses from critics to the The Shining, a 1980 British-American psychological horror film, were mixed, it is now considered to be one of the greatest horror films ever made. The plot revolves around the mental disintegration/demonic possession of a writer, Jack, who is increasingly threatens his wife Wendy and son Danny as they are snowed-in at an isolated hotel. One of the most frightening and talked-about scenes in the film is when five-year-old Danny pedals at high speed, through corridor after corridor, on his plastic tricycle. The large central void creates visual tension. The parallel lines emanating from the title and the tracks at the bottom about to leave the page, made by the blood red tricycle, evoke the seemingly endless and threatening corridors in the hotel.
The Shining Artist Unknown 1980 U.S. Poster
El Resplandor / The Shining (1980) Raúl Valdes (Raupa) 2009 35
The Anderson Tapes was the first major film to focus on the pervasiveness of electronic surveillance—from security cameras in public places to hidden recording devices. Hence the oversized ear with an eye. The story follows John “Duke” Anderson (Sean Connery), who has just been released after serving ten years in prison for burglary. Predictably, he decides to pull a major heist, but in the decade he has been out of circulation, he is unaware of the omnipresence of hidden, bugs and tracking devices. Every move he makes is recorded by an assortment of federal, state, city, and private agencies, including the FBI, IRS, and BNDD (precursor to the DEA), but they are unable to connect the dots as they are all after different things and don’t share information. Although the megarobbery is foiled, the multitude of tapes implicating Anderson are ultimately ordered destroyed both because most were illegal, and to avoid embarrassment because the agencies were unable to discover the robbery in spite of having lots of surveillance.
El Gran Golpe / The Anderson Tapes (1971) [The Big Bang] Antonio Pérez (Ñiko) 1973 36
The Anderson Tapes Artist Unknown 1971 U.S. Poster
Singin’ in the Rain Artist Unknown 1952 U.S. Poster
Singin’ in the Rain (1952) Lisandro Trepeu 2009
37
The ICAIC poster converts Cupid into an angel of death, with a machine gun in each hand and a crown floating above his head. The elaborate frame surrounding the central figure resembles a coat-ofarms. There are female and male angels above, and two devils on the lower sides. The entire frame is a negative image, rendering the design more obscure, but the positive/negative imagery also evokes the Good vs Evil theme.
El Padrino / The Godfather (1972) Antonio PĂŠrez (Ă‘iko) 1974 38
The Godfather Artist Unknown 1972 U.S. Poster
Oliver Stone’s documentary examines the free-market economic policies of the U.S. and the International Monetary Fund, and how they have largely failed to alleviate Latin America’s chronic income inequality. The film suggests that financial calamities, combined with Latin American suspicions of U.S. drug-eradication efforts, and resentment over the selling off of natural resources through multinational companies, have contributed to the rise of socialist and social-democratic leaders across the region. The same Cuban-designed poster was used to promote the film in the U.S.
South Of The Border (2009) Giselle Monzón 2009 39
The film tells how Oskar Schindler, German industrialist, spy, and member of the Nazi Party saved the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories. Two ICAIC posters promoted this film, both produced sixteen years after its release. In this poster, the swastika repeatedly attempts to obliterate the Jewish Star of David, but in the central image, the Star of David almost completely covers the Nazi symbol.
La Lista De Schindler / Schindler’s List (1993) Arnulfo Aquino 2009 40
Schindler’s List Artist Uknown 1993 U.S. Poster
La Lista De Schindler / Schindler’s List (1993) Lisandro Trepeu 2009 41
The film tells a story of racism, bullying, and brutality by longshoremen on the Manhattan waterfront. It was considered unusual for its time because it portrayed an interracial friendship, and was praised by representatives of the NAACP, Urban League, American Jewish Committee and Interfaith Council because of its portrayal of racial brotherhood. Bailing hooks are hand tools used by stevedores to secure and move loads. In the film they were used as weapons, killing one of the lead characters played by Sidney Poitier–who is not credited on the poster. His death is symbolized by the single drop of blood.
El Hombre Que Venició El Miedo / Edge Of The City (1957) [The Man Who Vanquished Fear] Pedro Miguel González Pulido 1974 42
Edge Of The City Unknown Artist 1957 U.S. Poster
The Pawnbroker was the first U.S. film to deal with the Holocaust from the viewpoint of a survivor. It was also one of the first American movies to feature nudity during the Production Code, and was the first film featuring bare breasts to receive Production Code approval. Rod Steiger plays a German-Jewish university professor, who survived a concentration camp but saw his two children die and his wife raped. Bitter and alienated, he operates a pawnshop in East Harlem. The hand becomes a portrait of his alienation, two numbers from his concentration camp tattoo are visible on his wrist – but they could also refer to the numbers on a pawn slip. The sharp, single blade of red, emerges from his hand as a blade piercing his heart—or a spike stick paper holder onto which he stabs his hand instead of paper.
The Pawnbroker Artist Unknown 1964 U.S. Poster
El Prestamista / The Pawnbroker (1964) René Azcuy 1971 43
The film is set in 1931 Berlin, during the Weimar Republic. The heavy black area dominating the center of the poster is a striking design element, broken only by the long leg of cabaret singer Sally Bowles (Liza Minelli). Yet that visual respite does not undue the oppressiveness of the mass of black, which could refer to the growth of the Nazi Party, a consistent theme in the film.
Cabaret (1972) Claudio Sotolongo 2009 44
Cabaret Artist Unknown 1972 U.S. Poster
By rotating the same figure into three orientations, the poster represents both themes of the film: circus acrobats and a love triangle. The original film poster also uses the three acrobats, but shows the individual stars playing each role. This Cuban poster shows the influence of renowned designer Saul Bass, who transformed U.S. film posters without featuring the faces of the stars.
Trapeze Artist Unknown 1956 U.S. Poster
Trapecio / Trapeze (1956) Antonio PĂŠrez (Ă‘iko) 1969 45
This psychological thriller-horror film portrays the rivalry, physical and mental disintegration of two sisters. In 1917, “Baby Jane” (Bette Davis) had been an adored yet ill-tempered vaudevillian child star, while her older sister Blanche (Joan Crawford) lives in her shadow. By 1935, their fortunes have reversed: Blanche is a successful film actress and Jane lives in obscurity, her films having failed. By 1962, Blanche is paralyzed from the waist down, and is “cared for” by Jane who becomes obsessed with recapturing her stardom and is increasingly abusive towards Blanche. The child with the flowing blond hair and billowing white dress represents “Baby Jane” as a child star, the “Baby Jane” dolls sold at concession stands after her performances— one of which she has still has—and the way adult Jane continues to dress and wear her hair.
¿Que Paso Con Baby Jane? / Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) René Azcuy 1976 46
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Artist Unknown 1962 U.S. Poster
Jean-Paul Sartre wrote the original script for this pseudo bio-pic about Sigmund Freud, but demanded that his name be removed from the credits after his five and eight hour versions were rejected. The film depicts Freud’s life between 1885-1890, when he was one of the few psychologists willing to treat hysteria, and learned to use hypnosis to uncover the reasons for his patients’ neurosis. The image shows a woman’s face emerging from the shadows of the unconscious.
Freud: The Secret Passion Artist Unknown 1962 U.S. Poster
Freud / Freud: The Secret Passion (1962) René Azcuy 1971 47
An elaborate twist on crime doesn’t pay. A thief plans the perfect robbery—seizing money from the bets on a famous race horse. Other robbers steal from him. After the money ends up with the original thief, he and his girl friend try to escape, but the suitcase he uses to transport the money—depicted in the poster—falls open, and the loose bills are swept away by the backdraft from the plane’s propellers. In Cuba, as elsewhere, the “man with a briefcase” has become an international symbol of economic corruption.
Casta De Malditos / The Killing (1956) René Azcuy 1974 48
The Killing Artist Unknown 1956 U.S. Poster
A crime film that employs disturbing, violent images to comment on psychiatry, juvenile delinquency, youth gangs, and other social, political, and economic subjects in a dystopian near-future Britain. Alex, the main character, is charismatic, but an extremely violent antisocial delinquent who always wears a bowler hat, symbol of the bourgeoisie. Clockwork Orange refers to what Alex becomes after behavior modification: organic on the outside, mechanical on the inside—an image reinforced by the gear-like design above the hat. The juicer refers to the mangling of Alex’s brain during his experimental aversion therapy involving drugs and torture.
A Clockwork Orange Artist Unknown 1971 U.S. Poster
La Naranja Mecanica / A Clockwork Orange (1971) Nelson Ponce 2009 49
Poster promoting a 1985 film festival presenting independent U.S. films.
La Otra Cara / The Other Side Eduardo MuĂąoz Bachs 1985 50
The power of Chicano films to critique U.S. world dominance is dramatically represented by the nopal cactus, a symbol of Chicano identity and culture, ripping out a piece of the American flag. Cuban posters frequently represented the African American struggle within the U.S., but this is the only known Cuban poster to represent Chicano issues. Jesus TreviĂąo, award winning Chicano filmmaker and Los Angeles resident, was directly involved in planning the retrospective.
Retrospectiva De La Cinematografia Chicana / Retrospective of Chicano Cinematography Julio Eloy Mesa 1979 51
52
U.S.-Themed Cuban Films
53
54
Although Hollywood promoted Marilyn Monroe as sexy and naïve— the stereotypical dumb blonde—she was anything but naïve or dumb. She was very intelligent, had left politics, and supported the Civil Rights movement. In the 1950s, when a popular Hollywood nightclub wouldn’t book Ella Fitzgerald because she was black, Marilyn called up the owner and said if they hired Ella, Marilyn would take a front row table every night. Ella never had to play a small jazz club again. Her support for Fidel Castro, the Cuban Revolution, and the Hollywood writers and actors who were blacklisted because they were members of the Communist Party, made her popular in Cuba. The Cuban Documentary, Marilyn Monroe In Memoriam was produced in 1967, five years after her death.
Marilyn Monroe In Memoriam (1967) René Azcuy Circa 1976 55
Isadora Duncan (1877–1927), the creator of Modern Dance, emphasized natural movement over the rigid technique of ballet. She was born in San Francisco, and lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union. The flowing red design dominating the poster evokes her free style dance moves, her life, and her death. During a performance In Boston with a red scarf, she declared herself to be a Communist, by baring her breast on stage, and proclaiming, “This is red! So am I!“ While riding in an open air car in France, her long, flowing silk scarf caught in the wheels and strangled her.
Isadora (1979) Antonio Pérez (Ñiko) 1979 56
In 1963, Lena Horne premiered the civil rights themed Now! in Carnegie Hall as a benefit for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Written by Jule Styne, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green to the tune of “Hava Na Gila.” Now! reached the pop charts in November 1963. The song was banned in the South for its open call to revolt. In 1965, acclaimed Cuban newsreel director Santiago Álvarez—who at the time was hailed by JeanLuc Godard as the world’s greatest living film editor—made a fiveminute film using Horne’s song as the soundtrack. The images go from the promise and hopes of Martin Luther King, Jr, to the ongoing racist police brutality taking place in the United States.
Now! (1964) Alfredo Rostgaard 1965 57
Filmed in Hanoi during a single day, Tuesday, December 13, 1966, this documentary by renowned Cuban newsreel director Santiago Ă lvarez recorded the lives of people in the Viet Nam capital and surrounding countryside at the height of the U.S. bombing. Daily activities are presented in a collage of images: building irrigation ditches, planting rice, fishing, weaving, and fighting back. During the air raids, at least one of which is shown in the film, the people formed armed self-defense units that were so efficient that the life of the nation was not interrupted. The documentary begins with a short collage of the life of President Lyndon Johnson, who began the bombing of North Viet Nam. Johnson is shown in the poster as a war head.
Hanoi Martes 13 / Hanoi Tuesday 13 Alfredo Rostgaard 1968 58
Ernest Hemingway, (1899–1961), Nobel Prize winning American novelist and journalist, lived in Cuba in the 1940s and 50s. The Cuban documentary film about Hemingway, released a year after his suicide, focuses upon his affection for bull fighting which he wrote about in The Sun Also Rises (1926), and described as an art in Death in the Afternoon (1932). Bullfighting had taken place in Cuba during its colonial period, but was abolished by the United States military right after the Spanish-American War in 1901.
Hemingway (1962) Artist Unknown Date Unknown 59
Fidel Aprieta Que a Cuba Se Respeta / Fidel Demands That Cuba Be Respected Eduardo MuĂąoz Bachs 1980 60
These two posters use similar visual devices for opposite messages. In Puerto Rico (right), the U.S. flag constricts a naked male torso representing Puerto Rico, the last remaining U.S. colony. In the process of controlling Puerto Rico, however, cracks appear in the flag. In contrast, the Bachs’ poster (left), shows Uncle Sam immobilized by Cuban film.
Puerto Rico (1975) RenĂŠ Azcuy 1988 61
This documentary covers U.S. interference in the Cuban war of independence from Spain at the end of the 19th century, which prevented the complete liberation of their country. After Spain was defeated, the U.S. made sure that Cuba would continue to serve U.S. needs economically, politically, militarily, culturally, and socially. In Viva La República, the U.S. tactics are analyzed step by step. Exclusively using original footage from the period, the film documents the neo-colonial oppression of Cuba that would lead to the socialist revolution of 1959. The American eagle, wearing Uncle Sam’s hat, is standing above a pile of U.S. publications, products and politicians.
Viva La Republica / The Republic Lives (1972) Antonio Pérez (Ñiko) 1972 62
Although produced by ICAIC, this is not a film poster, but a political poster demanding that Obama release five Cuba political prisoners. It was made for distribution in the U.S. Digital versions were also produced and widely circulated. The Cuban Five were Cuban intelligence officers who were in the U.S. in order to monitor anti-Cuban terrorist organizations in Miami responsible for attacks and deaths in Cuba. The Cuban Five were arrested by the FBI in 1998. The trial was held in Miami, a center of hostility against the Cuban Revolution. All were convicted in 2001 of conspiracy to commit espionage against the U.S. Two had been released before the prisoner swap that took place on December 17, 2014, during which the remaining members were released in exchange for an American intelligence officer. Some observers saw these events as a first step in the easing of political relations between the U.S. and Cuba. Cubans view the men as heroes and patriots who were defending their country. “Give me five!� is an informal expression of greeting, which here has the double meaning of demanding the release of the Cuban Five.
Obama...Give me five! Jorge Martell 2012 63
64
Acknowledgements Hollywood in Havana: Five Decades of Cuban Posters Promoting U.S. Films was co-organized by the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in partnership with the Pasadena Museum of California Art. It was curated by Carol A. Wells from the collection of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics (CSPG). The original U.S. film posters used in the online exhibition are from www.imdb.com. The original exhibition was part of Pacific Standard Time LA/LA, an initiative of The Getty which took place from September 2017 through January 2018 at more than 70 cultural institutions across Southern California.
Thank you to the following individuals & organizations for donating the posters to CSPG &/or providing information used in this exhibition.
Interns and Volunteers:
CSPG Staff:
Sherry Anapol
Carol A. Wells Founder and Executive Director
Susan Henry Lois Banner
Sooji Hong
Lincoln Cushing
Luray Joy
Theodore T. Hajjar
Kate Kausch
David Kunzle
Mary Seraj
Sandra Levinson
Anibal Serrano
Walter Lippmann
Shervin Shahbazi
Alice McGrath Paul Alan Smith
Alejandra Gaeta Archivist Emily Sulzer Archivist Jerri Allyn Office and Social Media Manager
Online Exhibition Design:
Sandy Polishuk The Guardian (NY)
Adam Taylor
La PeĂąa Cultural Center Beverly Walton politicalgraphics.org 65
Š 2018 Center for the Study of Political Graphics politicalgraphics.org 66