Miraculous long shot’s of Soy Cuba.

“Soy Cuba/ I am Cuba” was rediscovered and restored by Scorsese and Coppola in the early 90’s. Following the revolution in Cuba, Castro established the ICAIC, a Cuban Institute of film, and French and Soviet writers, intellectuals and filmmakers came to support a revolution they believed to be a more humanitarian revolution. A revolution that had shed less blood. The Soviets came with the view to make something new, fresh and innovative, to produce something epic and majestic. The film is shot in a series of long takes of exceptional technical and artistic accomplishment. Partially written by famous poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko and directed by Mikhail Kalatozov, whose “Cranes are Flying” won the Palme d’Or at Cannes a few years earlier, it was their camera operator, trained by Eisensteins DoP for Potemkin, who would contrive the most complex of camera shots. He devised a jacket with hooks and camera attached, that the crew would pass along and then attach to a series of cables and pulleys to execute the miraculous long shot sequences of the film. They would re-write the language of cinema, stripping it back to it’s most fundamental. “I am Cuba” tells the story of pre-Castro Cuba and creates a lyrical poem to communicate the glory, joy and hope of the revolution to the peasants, through highly stylized images.. images full of emotion and drama. The communists in both countries felt the film was too “arty” and not critical enough of the bourgeois in Cuba. Subsequent release in both countries was dismal, with only eight screens in Russia screening it. The film was unheard of in the west and dwindled into obscurity until a Cuban writer co-hosted a retrospective of Kalatozov in Telluride Film Festival.  Martin Scorsese talks about Soy Cuba.. https://youtu.be/kV472t3fR48  .. the opening 5 mins.. https://youtu.be/dFIxLesq7IU.. and a great documentary on the making of Soy Cuba…  https://youtu.be/ripWvTJEDhs