Memories Of Underdevelopment

Includes the complete English continuity script of the film, Memorias del subdesarollo (Memories of underdevelopment) directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and the complete English translation (entitled 'Inconsolable memories') of Edmundo Desnoes' novel of the same name on which it was based.

Publisher Description

New chapters express ongoing concerns about freedom of expression, the role of the Havana Film Festival in restoring Havana's central position in Latin American cinema, & the changing audience for Cuban films.

Hector Amaya advances into new territory in Latin American and U.S. cinema studies in this innovative analysis of the differing critical receptions of Cuban film in Cuba and the United States during the Cold War. Synthesizing film reviews, magazine articles, and other primary documents, Screening Cuba compares Cuban and U.S. reactions to four Cuban films: Memories of Underdevelopment, Lucia, One Way or Another, and Portrait of Teresa. In examining cultural production through the lens of the Cold War, Amaya reveals how contrasting interpretations of Cuban and U.S. critics are the result of the political cultures in which they operated. While Cuban critics viewed the films as powerful symbols of the social promises of the Cuban revolution, liberal and leftist American critics found meaning in the films as representations of anti-establishment progressive values and Cold War discourses. By contrasting the hermeneutics of Cuban and U.S. culture, criticism, and citizenship, Amaya argues that critical receptions of political films constitute a kind of civic public behavior.

A rigourous analysis of context in transitional justice, examining the successes and failures of truth and reconciliation commissions in post-conflict settings.

A blistering examination of cultural and political underdevelopment set in the Cuban revolution, this classic Cuban novel was originally published in 1965 and was promptly adapted to film. Malabre is a prosperous Havana businessman whose wife, family, and friends flee in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs. He remains behind to confront his ambivalent feelings about the revolution and his dissatisfaction with his own life.

Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's Memories of Underdevelopment (1968) is a classic of Cuban revolutionary culture, and is hailed as a prime example of a radical style of 1960s political filmmaking that became known worldwide as Latin American “new cinema.” Darlene J. Sadlier's detailed study approaches this much-written-about film from a new perspective. Her analysis situates the film in its historical context, considering how Cuban political history affected and informed the production of the film, particularly its use of archival footage. She discusses the film as an adaptation of Edmundo Desnoes's novel Memorias del subdesarrollo (1965), exploring how the novel itself is “re-written” in significant ways by the film. Sadlier goes on to analyse the curious opening of the film on an outdoor scene of Afro-Cubans dancing to the “new” music of Pello del Afrokán, arguing that this opening scene prefaces the film's exploration of both class and race. She focuses on the unique style of the film, particularly the use of voiceover, music and documentary footage to show how the themes of ennui, isolation, writing, and remembering are depicted. In doing so, she highlights the film's lasting impact and its role in defining Latin American “new cinema”.