This is going to be on PBS on January 31st
In an interview with the filmmaker, Adriana Bosch
Q. What do you want people to take away from the program?
A. Coming up with an ending to the film was very hard. We didn’t want to be too judgmental, we had maintained a pretty careful objectivity… And at the end, you’re expecting judgment. And that’s a tough thing. So executive producer Mark Samels came up with a great idea, which was to end the film at the very beginning of the film. The film ends with the notion that there was one day in Cuba where all seemed possible, and when the hopes of an entire nation were put on the shoulders of one single man. I was very happy with that… because it leaves you with the question, was that good or was that bad?… I think the viewer has to make up their own mind.
Normally, this is exactly how I like my documentaries. Factual, concise and no agenda or preconceptions (I�m talking to you, Michael Moore).
But Castro is a monster who doesn�t deserve any of these considerations. I guess everyone but a documentary filmmaker would know this.
Found at Knowledge is Power
*Nukevet adds (in response to a comment):*
Well, the best way to make that “double standard” go away is to present all of the facts. But the left love Cuba, loves North Korea as symbols of progressive utopian living. So, which version do you get – that Cuba has a very high literacy rate, or that most of its people live in impoverished squalor and dissidents are summarily executed? Don’t think it happens? One need look no further than Moore’s depiction of life under Saddam to see the fallacy of that argument.
I haven’t seen this yet, so obviously can’t comment on its content. But I’m betting PBS won’t be able to overcome their socialist utopia bias to tell both sides in a proportional and evenhanded manner. In fact, I think the entire “ending at the front” construct is just a scam to keep from having to deal with the realities of a failed communist ideology. If you end at the start of the revolution, of course anything is possible. If you end at the present, then you have to reach some conclusions that make those enamoured of Fidel just a wee bit uncomfortable.
RE: “Normally, this is exactly how I like my documentaries. Factual, concise and no agenda or preconceptions (I�m talking to you, Michael Moore).
But Castro is a monster who doesn�t deserve any of these considerations.”
Doesn’t this seem just a little like a double standard to you?
If a documentary should be factual and have no agenda for one person, then that should be true for another. If the subject is indeed evil, the facts should speak for themselves.
-Carl
Yes Carl, but if you click the link and read the background, it sounds as if this will be factual and true, but only to the point of making a puff piece documentary that fawns on Castro and leaves the facts about how he has terrorized an entire country out.
Unless she makes a point to talk about all the people Castro has jailed, tortured and murdered, and I mean actually put up or speak a list of manes or explicitly talk numbers, it won�t be FULLY factual.
If she is leaving enough room for someone to have a favorable view of Castro, not only is that person is either an idiot or immoral, but she hasn�t told the whole story.
My only point was that if you don’t think documentaties should be biased, this one should be objective as well. That it, it shouldn’t have an agenda.
I think it would probably be impossible to put all the facts into one documentary.
-Carl
Sorry Carl, if a person cannot pul ALL the facts into a documentary, then they have no purpose in putting a minute into its production.