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Acknowledgement
The original version of this text appeared in the review ‘Ojos Crueles’, Temas de fotografía y sociedad, no. 3, Buenos Aires, October 2006.
Notes
1 The Swiss photographer René Burri rediscovered his famous 1963 portrait of a ‘triumphant’ Che printed on cushions for sale in shops along the Champs-Élysées (cited in: Michel Guerrin, 1988. Profession Photoreporter. Paris: Gallimard, 167).
2 These aspects do appear in some biographies, however; see, for example, the brief commentary on some of the photographs in the illustrated book Che, sueño rebelde, Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1997, pp. 188–95, text by Matilde Sánchez.
3 Alborta's detailed memories and Katz's careful edition effectively lead the spectator into the scene at Vallegrande: through the scant, but exceptional film clips incorporated into the documentary, through the subtle ‘animation’ of the image achieved through the overlaying of photos of those surrounding the corpse, through the image of a nurse that ‘turns’ towards the soldiers, through the picture of Che's face that ‘moves forwards’ as Alborta recalls the impression the scene made upon him.
4 Umberto Eco. 1986. La guerre du faux, in the ‘Lire les choses: un photo’ section. Paris: Grasset. Cited in: Martine Joly. 2003. La imagen fija. Buenos Aires: La Marca, 160–1.
5 Jorge Castañeda. 1998. Muero porque no muero (I die because I won't die). Cinémas d'Amérique latine (Toulouse) 6.
6 Aperture. 1968. Che Guevara Dead, 13 (4): 36–8.
7 Martine Joly, op. cit., p. 169.
8 Rocco Mangieri. 1998. El cuerpo del Che: el gesto que muestra, el dedo que apunta (Che's body: the gesture that suggests and the finger that aims). Cuadernos de Investigación y Documentación 1: 34–9 (Mérida: Universidad de los Andes). My thanks to Gustavo Aprea for pointing me towards this text and for his gracious reading of and comments upon the present article.
9 Susan Sontag. 1996. Sobre la fotografía (1977). Barcelona: Edhasa, 116–9 (2002. On Photography. London: Penguin Books, 106–8).
10 John Berger, ‘Che Guevara Dead’, op. cit.
11 Others could include Holbein the Younger's The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb (see Che, sueño rebelde, op. cit., pp. 194–5), Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Joan Deyman, which evokes Mantegna's Christ, or others referred to in Mangieri, op. cit.
12 Peter Malone. 1997. Jesus on Our Screens. In New image of religious film, edited by John R. May. Kansas City: Sheed and Ward. My thanks to Ricardo Yañez for supplying this text.
13 A point referred to by the artist León Ferrari in his ethical interrogation of the representation of Biblical violence in the frescoes, sculptures and paintings of the great masters of Western art.
14 This opinion was shared by La Prensa (Argentine conservative newspaper) (11 October 1967), which compared both deaths in an editorial signed by Carlos Villar-Borda.
15 Poster discovered by Leandro Katz during his research for El día que me quieras.
16 According to Beatriz Sarlo, the image of a guerrilla Christ achieved such iconographic status in Cristianismo y Revolución that in 1971 the magazine published a small drawing of Christ carrying a rifle. Sarlo describes ‘a very young Christ, straight from a Pasolini film (...), a stylized icon or art deco drawing, with long straight hair, a perfectly symmetrical beard, head crowned with a saintly halo, face fixed in a steely gaze from squinting eyes (a wholly contemporary image, pop-inspired, heavy on the hippie and rock prophet); he bears an ultra-modern rifle on his shoulder, the geometrically perfect barrel of which forms the clear straight frame of the whole illustration’ (2003. La pasión y la excepción. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 166–87).
17 Not necessarily taken by Alborta. Following Che's death, most Argentinean newspapers and magazines did not publish the Alborta photo upon which this article focuses. The exception is La Razón, which published it (or a similar version) as a United Press radiophoto on 11 October 1967.
18 Juan Carlos Castagnino, in a version of his 1967 Homenaje al Che (Homage to Che) and in a 1970 poster-homage entitled Octubre (October), painted a frontal view of Che's foreshortened body and face not as prone, but rather in clear allusion to the crucified Christ. See the catalogue from the Arte y política en los años sesenta (Art and politics in the 1960s) exhibition, curated by Alberto Giudici (Palais de Glace, 2002), pp. 107–13.
19 In 1965, Alonso exhibited his Homenaje a Rembrandt (Homage to Rembrandt) in the Nice Galería de Arte.
20 Included in an Alonso exhibition in the Galería Giulia in Rome in 1977. A preliminary version also appeared in a 1971 exhibition at the Galería de Arte Esmeralda, Buenos Aires. Both catalogues were consulted in the Fundación Espigas.
21 See, for example, details from Lección de anatomía (Anatomy Lesson) no. 2 (acrylic on canvas, 1970) and from La muerte del Che (Che's death) (acrylic and oil on canvas, 1978), in: VVAA, Carlos Alonso (Auto)biografía en imágenes (Carlos Alonso: (Auto)biography in images), op. cit., pp. 98–9.
22 An etching and aquatint shown at the ’Carlos Alonso. Hay que comer’ (Carlos Alonso: One Must Eat) exhibition (Museo de la Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, 2004). Although dated 1977 in the exhibition, the date on the canvas is 1971.
23 The corporeal theme came to the fore during different periods of Alonso's career. With initial explorations in El Matadero (The Slaughterhouse) and Hay que comer, meat as an aesthetic theme came to prominence in Alonso's work after 1972.
24 Galería Giulia's catalogue (op. cit.)
25 Both from 1970. Reproduced in: VVAA, Carlos Alonso. (Auto)biografía en imágenes, op. cit., pp. 96 and 97. Also see María Teresa Constantin's text ‘Un espacio para el dolor’ (‘A Space for Pain’); pp. 91–4.
26 Alonso also has one of the disciples asking: ’What did he die of?’, to which Tulp replies: ’VERMOORD DOOR CIA’ (murdered by the CIA).
27 Tempera on paper and collage, reproduced in Giudici, op. cit., p. 92. Although less well known, Berni produced other pieces on Che's death, most in paper.
28 The letter (a typed copy of which is archived in the Cuban Film Library) is dated 3 November 1969. The quotations, including capitalizations and underlining that follow, are taken from that typed copy.
29 Utilized in the film and on a banner that was hung underneath the screen during showings.
30 Sarlo (op. cit.) refers to the ‘sacrificial ethic’ of the revolutionary that she believes was embodied in Che. She identifies the image of his corpse with an image of Christ, ‘the synthesis of immobile beauty and fatal determination’. ‘In a Christianity of the poor, a Christianity of rage and violence [she adds] the image of the slain revolutionary was imbibed with sanctity as his death came about through a conscious and welcomed search for sacrifice.’
31 Although there is no suggestion here that these tendencies were consciously and explicity adopted by Solanas y Getino, they undoubtedly contributed to the ‘epochal’ atmosphere and should be considered amongst the contributing elements of the film's discourse.
32 Who directed Hasta la victoria siempre (Ever Onwards to Victory) that was screened on 18 October 1967 on a giant screen in Plaza de la Revolución in Havana when the official announcement of Che's death was made.
33 Author's interview with S. Alvarez, Havana, 1996.
34 Author's interview with O. Cortázar, Havana, 1996.
35 We should not underestimate the ‘disagreeable’, ‘aggressive’ (in its more quotidian sense), ‘hurtful’ and ‘depressing’ qualities of the image of Che's corpse for many Cubans who share this attitude towards him.
36 See: Pedro Chaskel. 1998. Rostros del Che (Faces of Che). Cinémas d'Amérique Latine (Toulouse) 6: 98–100.
37 Article by Ricardo Piglia (March, 1970), published in: Un oscuro día de justicia. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 1973. In his search for an appropriate form of testimonial literature, Walsh had considered (in late 1968) Solanas y Getino's film as one possible avenue of exploration (R. Walsh. 1996. Ese hombre y otros papeles personales (That Man and other Personal Papers). BuenosAires: Seix Barral, 92, 94 and 95).
38 See: M. Mestman. 1997. Semanario CGT. Rodolfo Walsh: periodismo y clase obrera (CGT Weekly. Rodolfo Walsh: journalism and the working class). Causas y Azares (Buenos Aires) 6: 193–208.
39 Published at the time by his wife and comrade Alicia Eguren, and later re-edited in La escena contemporánea (The Contemporary Scene), Buenos Aires, no. 3 (1999).
40 Cooke had developed close ties with the Cuban Revolution and a political and personal bond with Che, whom he had seen for the last time in Cuba in 1965.
41 Horacio González. ’Fotocopias anilladas’ (‘Ringed Photocopies’), La nación subrepticia (The Surreptitious Nation). Buenos Aires: El Astillero, 37–8.
42 The citation of the presence of this ‘impestuous word’ in Cooke's notes as well as the expression used in the title of this article are taken from González (op. cit.).
43 Reference is made, for example, to the disappearance of Che's body (because of ‘an imbecilious gorila fetish’) which Cooke compares to the fate suffered by Eva Perón's corpse.