By Vivien Lesnik Weisman
One of the contributors in my documentary film, The Man of Two Havanas, quotes Einstein as saying: "Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." This maxim would certainly describe our government's 47-year-old dysfunctional policy towards Cuba.
As Americans, we really don't know very much about Cuba or why exactly we are not allowed to visit the island. We do know that there is a bearded boogieman named Castro who runs the place, but not much more. That's okay, because Cuba doesn't really affect us. And with intermittent wars, genocide, stolen elections, poverty, AIDS, Lindsay Lohan and Brad and Angelina, well, who has time to bone up on Cuba?
But for me, a Cuban-American and the daughter of a man obsessed with the singular idea of reuniting the two Havanas, the time had come to try and understand the complex history of Cuba and the United States. But I get ahead of myself. Why a movie? Why not an essay, a magazine article or even a book? Well, simply, I am trained to tell stories with pictures. And it's quite a story. And if you're reading this article, you too, are trained formally or otherwise, in the craft of speaking through pictures.
But wait just a minute. My film idols were never the Maysles brothers, but rather Antonioni and Bunuel. Their films could not be further from the documentary form. Antonioni, with his cinematic or aesthetic climax, rarely coinciding with the dramatic one; and Bunuel... well, the Bunuel I love is poetry in motion, not at all suited for documentary treatment.
So what is a filmmaker trained at UCLA by Polish genius Jerzy Antczak in the art of the moving master doing with a camera glued to a tripod in a living room in Miami interviewing her dad?
Well, I'm doing the best I can.
My idea was this: Let my father tell his story and see what happens. Not much of a plan. No storyboards, no shot list, no script. Jesus, no script!! What the hell am I doing? When is the director showing up? So this is documentary filmmaking?
After hours and hours of torturing my dad in our living room in Miami and following him around the two Havanas, I had 160 hours of footage and a Final Cut Pro that kept crashing and deleting. But I also had a secret weapon: a wonderful editor, Tirsa Hackshaw.
As my eyes glazed over watching the endless parade of pictures, I had an aha! moment. We need a story to tell this story. We need structure. Oh right, we need a script. Hmm...interesting.
But even with all of that, there was still something missing: the hand, the eye to guide the story along. The missing element was me. I was missing. The time had come to make this massive blob my own, to use all of my skills as well as Antonioni's and Bunuel's and the Maysles brothers' and Warhol's and any other artist I had devoured, dissected and internalized. To take risks and try new things, to discard and reshape. The director, working in a great partnership with the editor and a script, and viola, it's a movie!
Well, not exactly. Many cuts later - 36 cuts - even more sleepless nights and one and a half years, my movie began to take shape. And finally, it is complete and ready for its world premiere, not sheltered by the mountains of Utah, but at the Tribeca Film Festival in front of the most film-savvy, Film Forum-attending, sophisticated and critical audiences in America.
And there's even a moving master, courtesy of archival footage from I am Cuba (Soy Cuba, 1964). And because this is MovingPicturesMagazine.com, I know I don't need to explain the reference.
Wish me luck! Filmmaker Vivien Lesnik Weisman's childhood was marred by bombings and death threats on her father, Max Lesnik, a former friend of Fidel Castro. In The Man of Two Havanas, she explores her father's involvement in the Revolution, his exile to Little Havana, Miami, and his eventual return to Cuba to help end the embargo. Using top-secret audiotapes, she also delves into the fascinating history of Cuban-American relations.
Vivien Lesnik Weisman was born in Havana, Cuba. She graduated from Barnard College with a B.A. in Art History and New York Law School with a Doctorate in Jurisprudence. She went on to receive an MFA in directing from the UCLA School of Film and Television. This is her first documentary. |
