A four hour film about Che, sounds custom made for watching at home, on DVD, with adequate time to digest, and to take breaks.
It was nearly a decade ago that Steven Soderbergh and two partners, actor Benicio Del Toro and producer Laura Bickford, first discussed making a long, ambitious film about revolutionary Che Guevara. It soon became apparent, however, that they were perhaps the only people in Hollywood willing to gamble on a four-hour epic made largely in Spanish.
Next weekend, Mr. Soderbergh’s movie will begin an unusual theatrical run with IFC Films. Funded largely by foreign backers after the Hollywood studios passed, “Che” will open as a 257-minute film on Dec. 12 and play for a single week in New York and Los Angeles; then, in January, IFC will reissue the epic as two separate two-hour films at theaters across the country before also releasing it on video on demand. Mr. Soderbergh’s struggles to get the film funded and released are signs of the mounting financing challenges facing filmmakers in today’s Hollywood. “For a while, we were financing the script and development ourselves, waiting to see what the best circumstances for the film would be,” he says.
Scrambling for production funds is nothing new for Mr. Soderbergh, a veteran director who works both inside and outside the studio system. The 45-year-old’s résumé includes franchises like “Ocean’s Eleven,” serious, critically acclaimed films like “Traffic” and tiny independent fare like his 2006 film “Bubble.”
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and maybe I’m reading too much into this, but I detect a hint of politics in these three films having difficulty getting financed:
The harsh economic realities of today’s film industry have also forced prominent directors like Mr. Soderbergh to seek financing abroad. Spike Lee financed his most recent film with money from Italian investors; Oliver Stone’s “W.” was financed by a crew of equity partners from Asia and Europe.
A film about Che, trouble. A film by notorious Democrat, Spike Lee, trouble. A film about George W. Bush by notorious liberal, Oliver Stone, trouble. Does Clint Eastwood have trouble financing his films? Does Bruce Willis?
Regardless, Soderbergh’s movie sounds interesting. I give him a pass on disposable entertainment like the Ocean’s Eleven series because he makes films like Bubble. [Netflix]
The film follows the life of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the Argentine doctor who rose up as an idealistic insurgent and became an international symbol of rebellion. Mr. Soderbergh shot the two parts in distinct styles. For the first part, which follows Che, played by Mr. Del Toro, as he meets Fidel Castro and rises to power during the Cuban Revolution to overthrow Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship, he used a wider frame evocative of a classic Hollywood style to highlight the triumphant nature of that revolt. The second film traces Che’s failed attempt to revolutionize Bolivia which ended with his capture and subsequent execution in 1967; Mr. Soderbergh shot the second chapter with a handheld camera to get across the uncertainty of Che’s mission.
