Love as Politics: Amores Perros and the Emotional Aesthetics of Neoliberalism

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Notes

1 For the original broadcast recording of Howard's interview, see ‘Che Guevara on Issues and Answers – 1964’ (2009). For a transcript of the question-and-answer portion of Howard's interview (from which her lead-in introduction of Guevara is omitted), see ‘Che Guevara on ABC 3/22/64: Issues and Answers’ [correct date should be 3/24/64] (2005).

2 Howard's full introductory lead-in to her 1964 interview with Guevara is represented in unabridged form within the film itself (9:54–10:25); the editing of Soderbergh's trailer is indicated with added emphasis: ‘Among Fidel Castro's top lieutenants, one of the most powerful is Major Ernesto Che Guevara, the Argentine revolutionary who became a Cuban citizen, and as Minister of Industries now presides over the Cuban economy. Major Guevara is a Marxist, a soldier, a physician, and the author of [the] classic handbook on guerrilla warfare. He is thirty-six years old. He has been called the brains of the revolution and the power behind Fidel Castro, though he denies both assertions.’

3 In the running time of the film itself, the exchange in question between Howard and Guevara is represented in the following way (no longer with the soft black-and-white image of ‘Che’ and his cigar, but rather as a voiceover for images of guerrilla fighters expectantly awaiting combat in the Sierra Maestra):

Howard: What is the most important quality for a revolutionary to possess?

Guevara: Love.

Howard: Love?

Guevara: Let me tell you something at the risk of sounding ridiculous. A true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love. Love of humanity, of justice and truth. It is impossible to conceive of an authentic revolutionary without this one quality. (50:09–50:38)

Anyone familiar with Cuban Revolutionary discourse will immediately recognize this sequence as a rough transposition of a section of a 1965 letter penned by Guevara that is known as ‘El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba’ (‘Socialism and Man in Cuba’), or, simply, ‘El hombre nuevo’ (‘The New Man’). In an interview, Soderbergh confirms that he took the liberty of patching onto the Howard conversation Guevara's discussion of the role of love in the revolutionary's formation, found in ‘The New Man’ (Axmaker 2009):

Déjeme decirle, a riesgo de parecer ridículo, que el revolucionario verdadero está guiado por grandes sentimientos de amor. Es imposible pensar en un revolucionario auténtico sin esta cualidad. Quizás sea uno de los grandes dramas del dirigente; éste debe unir a un espíritu apasionado una mente fría y tomar decisiones dolorosas sin que se contraiga un músculo. Nuestros revolucionarios de vanguardia tienen que idealizar ese amor a los pueblos, a las causas más sagradas y hacerlo único, indivisible. No pueden descender con su pequeña dosis de cariño cotidiano hacia los lugares donde el hombre común lo ejercita.

Los dirigentes de la Revolución tienen hijos que en sus primeros balbuceos, no aprenden a nombrar al padre; mujeres que deben ser parte del sacrificio general de su vida para llevar la Revolución a su destino; el marco de los amigos responde estrictamente al marco de los compañeros de Revolución. No hay vida fuera de ella.

En esas condiciones, hay que tener una gran dosis de humanidad, una gran dosis de sentido de la justicia y de la verdad para no caer en extremos dogmáticos, en escolasticismos fríos, en aislamiento de las masas. Todos los días hay que luchar porque ese amor a la humanidad viviente se transforme en hechos concretos, en actos que sirvan de ejemplo, de movilización. (‘El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba’)

At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality. Perhaps it is one of the great dramas of the leader that he or she must combine a passionate spirit with a cold intelligence and make painful decisions without flinching. Our vanguard revolutionaries must idealize this love of the people, of the most sacred causes, and make it one and indivisible. They cannot descend, with small doses of daily affection, to the level where ordinary people put their love into practice.

The leaders of the revolution have children just beginning to talk, who are not learning to say ‘daddy’; their wives, too, must be part of the general sacrifice of their lives in order to take the revolution to its destiny. The circle of their friends is limited strictly to the circle of comrades in the revolution. There is no life outside of it.

In these circumstances one must have a large dose of humanity, a large dose of a sense of justice and truth in order to avoid dogmatic extremes, cold scholasticism, or an isolation from the masses. We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity is transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force. [‘Socialism and Man in Cuba’])

4 Three such examples that come readily to mind are the overwhelmingly negative reaction to Mel Gibson's graphically violent representation of Christ's torture by the Romans in The Passion of the Christ (2004) even though its meaning was readily understood as being ciphered in its visual language of feeling; A.O. Scott's conclusion that Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel (2006) has no narrative coherence in spite of its vertebral emotional logic; and Anthony Lane's like-minded assessment of Fernando Meirelles's Blindness (2008) as lacking a common-sensical storyline although it uses emotional plot progression to deliver its final moral message.

5 See Greg Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War (2004).

6 All translations are my own revisions of the film's English subtitles.

7 See Kate Doyle's summary of recently declassified US government documents: ‘Double Dealing: Mexico's Foreign Policy toward Cuba’ (2003).