The True Story of Che
Anyone intrigued by the forthcoming Che, the lengthy biopic of Che Guevara by director Steven Soderbergh, might consider a homework assignment before hitting the theater.
The True Story of Che Guevara, out this week [Sept.23] on DVD, serves up a straightforward account of the man who launched a thousand T-shirts — and turned Cuba into an economic wasteland with precious little freedom.
Soderbergh’s film won’t be released until later this year just as Oscar season heats up. But reviews from a cut screened at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year showed Soderbergh wasn’t interested in exploring Guevara’s dark side.
After all, it’s hard to root for a revolutionary figure who feels little while killing anyone who disagrees with his worldview.
Chances are more people will hear about Che than this absorbing new documentary from A&E, even if the latter doesn’t paint the full picture of Guevara’s legacy.
A young, impressionable Ernesto “Che” Guevara de la Serna, born of middle class roots, planned to become a doctor, not a revolutionary. His famous motorcycle jaunt across Argentina brought him face to face with suffering peasants whose lives were nothing like what he knew.
Those confrontations forged his ideology. He embraced the Marxist/Leninist model, and while he completed his doctor’s degree he realized mere medicinal work wouldn’t be enough to salve people’s suffering.
He wanted to change the world, and specifically loosen what he saw as the grip the U.S. had across the globe. He met like-minded souls in Fidel and Raul Castro, and together they began plotting the overthrow of General Fulgencio Batista’s government in Cuba.
The film efficiently recalls their initial effort to depose Batista, a military debacle which nearly shattered their band of rebels.
But Guevara was a fast learner, and his charisma and grasp of guerrilla tactics proved more than a match for Cuba’s governmental forces. He ruled by sheer force of will, an unblinking personality, and, quite often, a healthy dose of fear. His disciples respected his iron will, and the way he charged into battles while Fidel Castro stayed behind.
Guevara used this fear to his advantage, and his small but passionate following often cared more about staying alive than following Guevara’s life mission.
If you want to “explore” Che’s dark side, I suggest the following link:
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2054
You will find enough stuff to nail any idiot who idolizes this guy.
Even the Russian and Chinese communists cannot beat Hollywood at rewriting history to suit their ideological agenda.It is these “intellectuals ” that will ultimately destroy all truth from history given the hold of the visual,brainwashing stuff on the masses.
Stonehamian – that was an excellent link. Thank you
Surely we are now only a couple of decades away from the first Hollywood blockbuster telling the story of that plucky rogue Adolf Hitler as he struggles to overcome the evil oppressions of the West to defend his fellow countrymen.
Oh how the students will love wearing their t-shirts with that recognisable ratty face with the tiny moustache and the signature salute.
I am a missionary in Mexico City. A dear woman in our Christian community knew Guevara. Years before she and her husband were Communist members of Salvador Allende’s inner circle, they met him in various political events in the late 50′s. She described him as “brooding,” “introverted,” and “not personable” – very similar to the personality type of Lenin, Hitler, Pol Pot and other wannabe messiahs drunk on self and statist, utopian ideologies, or even similar to the classic personality of the serial killer.
I am resigned to the fact that Hollywood will never produce a movie that is critical of Communism, its adherents, and the ideology of Marxism. Armed with that cynical conclusion, I am not disappointed at all with what emanates from that quarter.
Because of how thin and infrequent are the courses in real history that our kids now receive, it is appalling that so many people now get their history from the movies. Again, I am not surprised by this, but alarming nonetheless. This is how deeply the Gramscian cultural Marxists have sunk their claws into the transmission belts of knowledge and information in our country.
Guevara was a stone cold killer and a grim personality. He made the wrong career choice and should have become a doctor. Becoming a utopian revolutionary saves no one and nothing.
Many are aware Che was killed in Bolivia but fewer are aware WHY his mission there failed.
In short, Bolivia had experienced a relatively (for South America) Land Reform and the rural populace was reasonably content. Che’s incursion threatened to screw things up and so, most of the time, his sit-downs with peasants were followed by immediate notification of the police and army as to his whereabouts.
His band of revolutionaries had tramped through an area where I worked in 1973. I asked about their impressions of Che’s group. “They had nice radios,” was all anyone would say.
What an epitaph.
Stonehamian, thanks for the link.
Christian Toto, thanks for the heads up on this DVD.
“Surely we are now only a couple of decades away from the first Hollywood blockbuster telling the story of that plucky rogue”
Tony – there a movie out a few years ago – I think it went straight to DVD -called “Max” (starring John Cusack) that looked at Hitler’s early adult life as an unsuccessful artist.
Sadly I saw it (not my choice). The film attempted to portray Hitler’s life almost as a tragedy – a tortured artist who was portrayed as a major jerk by the way, but that didn’t matter because it was the evil Jews who prevented him from achieving success. There was no question of personal or moral accountability.
So Tony – you may jest, but it’s not that far from the realms of probability….
Che was a piker compared to Bill Ayres. Ayers bombed the Pentagon, the Capital Building and is a top mentor to the future POTUS, sure to be appointed to a powerful position. Barack will be the highest ranking Communist in office in the US of course, surpassing the previous leading commie, Henry Wallace, FDR’s 3rd Vice President.
Tony Wrote:::
“Surely we are now only a couple of decades away from the first Hollywood blockbuster telling the story of that plucky rogue Adolf Hitler as he struggles to overcome the evil oppressions of the West to defend his fellow countrymen.
Oh how the students will love wearing their t-shirts with that recognisable ratty face with the tiny moustache and the signature salute.”
I envision a portly mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the lead role. He already believes the material and is willing to court stupid folks that willingly ignore the truth, to further their political aspirations.
Don’t we live in a wonderful world! Where Hollywood teaches the left wings version of history and people actually are stupid enough to believe it. One where “documentaries can be forever discredited and diminished by the likes of by Michael Moore. Where the Nobel Prize can be forever diminished by a defunct politician, Al Gore, pretending to be a Meteorologist with his absurd CO2 concept, already being disproved and finally where heroes can be forever shamed and tarnished by association with subhuman slime like Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the executioner of Cuba.
This miserable waste of air was turned into a Hollywood hero by Robert Redford in his executively produced 2004 Motorcycle Diaries.
Where a French philosopher Jean-Paul Sarte turned him into an intellectual by describing him that and: “not only, but also the most complete human being of our age.” This for a sadistic mass murderer who said; “Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become “.
And now Christian Toto’s review of The True Story of Che, a new documentary explores the murderous man behind the myth, while nowhere as grievous, makes this incompetent, bungling coward into a fearless military leader.
If you have any interest in this animal, please read the book: Exposing the Real Che Guevara: And the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him By Humberto Fontova
“Sadly I saw it (not my choice). The film attempted to portray Hitler’s life almost as a tragedy – a tortured artist who was portrayed as a major jerk by the way, but that didn’t matter because it was the evil Jews who prevented him from achieving success. There was no question of personal or moral accountability. ”
Give me a break, it was Max the Jew who was trying to help Adolph! Spare me the faux outrage, not that the movie was fndamentally flawed but it did show Max getting stomped to death at the end. Your reading of anti-semitism intent of the film is trash,
I wonder: why did Che kill all those thousands of people? Many kill for money or power. Was it one of those reasons? Or did he just enjoy it? Was he just a simple psychopath? What was it?
One sign of how bad Hollywood’s Che infatuation is; how hard it was for Andy Garcia, to get his period piece on the Cuban Revolution; authored by none other than Gabriel Cabrera Infante, made and distributed. The Lost City, among other things, portrayed Che’s arrogance and cruelty; toward his captives. Pity that the Guatemalan Army and Howard Hunt as I understand it; didn’t show him the same consideration.
Ayers is very much in the Guevara/Castro/even Lenin mold. The son of a power utilities executive (Consolidated Edison) he took to the armed struggle, for reasons that don’t make very much sense; Poverty and Vietnam; makes your blow up soldiers and police stations. In another less indulgent country; he would be in jail or worse; for his crimes. Because of his connections, he was able to surface and resume
his professional career; all the while seeding
Gramscian values in the educational system. Obama just recognized a kindred spirit with similar goals to undermine the US Government.