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From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo)
Newsgroups: net.movies,net.politics,net.motss
Subject: Re: Almendros' IMPROPER CONDUCT
Message-ID: <1283@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 23-Jan-85 11:09:31 EST
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Posted: Wed Jan 23 11:09:31 1985
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In Boston, the Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) selects the movies 
for the theater where IMPROPER CONDUCT is screening.  It's part of a
Latin political film series.  ICA notes handed out nimbly state:

	The controversy surrounding the film, however, has rendered
	IMPROPER CONDUCT something of an event, as hotly disputed,
	running debates concerning its accuracy & probity [my!] have
	continued for months in both THE VILLAGE VOICE and AMERICAN
	FILM.  The attacks by the film's critics and the defense by
	the film's creators [& Cuban emigres, & Americans knowledge-
	able about Cuba, too?] are, in print, equally well-armed
	with statistics, historical data, and personal testimony.

But are they equally well-argued?  Obviously they can't be equally
proven to be true.  But ICA doesn't want to go into this, heavens
forfend!

	Similarly, the film is, at once, both moving and convincing,
	and also highly questionable in some of its connections and
	conclusions [such as.....??].  Thus, implicitly (and perhaps
	unintentionally) [a dig here: the filmakers lack sophistica-
	tion or intellectual subtlety], IMPROPER CONDUCT raises fun-
	damental theoretical questions about documentary film's
	ability to convey political truths.

I don't believe it!  "Fundamental theoretical questions"!  Viewers
of IMPROPER CONDUCT (including the folks at ICA) are offered a lot
more than an occasion to ruminate about documentary methodology or
philosophical problems of perception & interpretation in the cinema:
they're offered a reality utterly at odds with what they've wanted
to believe about Castro, Cuba, & by extension any Third World muta-
tion of revolutionary socialism, comparable I dare say to what Sol-
zhenitsyn flung in the face of the myopic West in the early 1970s.

I think I can anticipate most of what critics say about the film:
I've read more than a few rebuttals by gay leftists about Cuba in
the NYNative: the "arguments" advanced are typical stalinist apo-
logetics, low in accuracy or logic, high in ad hominem attacks &
Marxist jargon.  The "statistics" and "historical data" probably
come from the Fidelista press, here & around the world; & I bet
the "personal testimony" consists of the myopic descriptions
of Venceremos Brigadistas & leftist tourists who can nevertheless
tell you a lot about what a Potemkin village, Cuban style, looks
like.

IRONIC NOTE:  The day I saw the movie, January 21, was simultane-
ously:

	-- Ronald Reagan's second inauguration

	-- the 203rd anniversary of the guillotining of Louis XVI
	   at the height of the French Revolution (Jan. 21, 1792)

	-- the day the following news item appeared in the Boston
	   Globe:

		US CUBANS FEAR DEPORTATION

		MIAMI -- Fear of being sent back to Cuba has kept
		more than half of Florida's estimated 100,000 boat-
		lift refugees from registering for permanent US
		residency, despite assurances they won't be deported,
		federal immigration officials say.  About 125,000
		Cubans arrived during the 1980 boat lift from the
		port of Mariel in Cuba, most of them fleeing Fidel
		Castro's communist regime.  Their fates were in
		limbo until the end of 1984, when the US government
		re-enacted the dormant Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966,
		allowing the refugees to become legal residents.
		(AP)  [quoted without permission]

I can understand emigre fears, giving the murderous policy of Immi-
gration & Naturalization toward Central Americans.  The Cubans will
evidently need more time to learn the bizarre distinctions of cold
war "morality" before they realize they're completely safe (but for
the gays: who can predict when & where federal homophobia will strike?).


			"The people united will never be defeated."

			"The truth shall make you free."

			Ron RIzzo