In fact many have tried to replicate that style. Just think of Paul Thomas Anderson.
As I recall, Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible had moments that tried to evoke the style of cinematography employed here – fluid, perpetually moving single take swoops across a relatively complex space – though not to nearly equivalent affect.
P.T Anderson mentions the movie in his commentary for Boogie Nights and riffs off the shot where the camera goes down the elevator into the pool, in Boogie Nights he does it but it just follows a girl into a pool and she comes up for dialogue.
Has anyone seen the directors other movies?
The camerawork is remarkable. The film is pure propagandistic bullshit.
Amazing film!
" The film is pure propagandistic bullshit."
I’m sure it’s no worse than HBO’s John Adams or any of the bullshit about the American revolution that many sit through.
^ You can’t really expect Roscoe to take films seriously when he probably thinks Tim Burton and Harry Potter are better than this.
Well, beyond the film being propaganda, the story itself is pretty uninteresting. The characters are thinly drawn… and yeah… it’s about as heavy-handed as it can possibly be. It does have a nice bit of charm going for it, but the only real draw is the astounding cinematography.
It’s no worse than the propaganda Americans buy into at the cinema (or on T.V.) everyday… it’s not much better either.
@Rudy – The Cranes Are Flying which is released through criterion is great. Or at least I thought so.
Don’t get me wrong, folks. I AM CUBA is a remarkable technical accomplishment. Otherwise, it is a tidy piece of propaganda for Castro, and, as Lord Quas notes, a particularly heavy-handed piece of propaganda it is. Cardboard characters, cheap moralizing, overall — a more tedious batch of cliches can’t really be imagined outside of James Cameron’s filmography.
And, yeah, I do think that Tim Burton’s SWEENEY TODD and ED WOOD, to say nothing of HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN, and Fellini’s 8 1/2, Bergman’s FANNY AND ALEXANDER, Kurosawa’s SEVEN SAMURAI, and Keaton’ts THE GENERAL, even PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE are infinitely more interesting films than this one.
Opinions, darlings, we’ve all got them.
johnny
when i saw this movie, i was blown away. the photography made it seem like you were in the picture, even more so than 3-d can do. i’m surprised that no one else has tried to replicate this style of film. any thoughts?