Tomás Gutiérrez Alea

Biography

From All Movie Guide: Tomás Gutiérrez-Alea was considered to beCuba's greatest director; internationally, he was noted for his versatility andfor pointing out the foibles of Cuban society. He received formal training atthe Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, Rome and was initially heavily influencedby the Italian neorealist movement. Upon his return to Cuba in the early 1950s,Gutiérrez-Alea joined "Nuestro Tiempo," a radical cultural society,and worked heavily in the film section. He and filmmaker Julio GarcíaEspinosa co-directed a controversial documentary short, El Mégano, in1955. The film was considered subversive by the Batista government and was confiscatedby police. Following the Cuban Revolution, Gutiérrez-Alea helped foundthe Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC) in 1959.It is a filmmaking collective devoted to making revolutionary films, and he wasone of the organization's most influential members. The following year, he madehis directorial debut with his neorealist chronicle of the recent revolutionin the film Historias de la Revolución. On the international scene, hisbest known historical film is La última Cena (1976) which uses music andliterary conventions to chronicle a major slave uprising in the 18th century.Though he worked with a variety of themes, much of Gutiérrez-Alea's workwas centered on the Revolution and its effects on diverse members of society.In addition to his historical films, he also created social satires that makefun of the classes in contemporary Cuba. His 1993 film Fresas y Chocolate wasconsidered quite controversial in Cuba and was the first Cuban film to receivea Best Foreign Film nomination at the American Academy Awards. It is the taleof the friendship between a politically idealistic heterosexual man and an decadentlyanarchistic homosexual. Gutiérrez-Alea has also done straight dramas,and in 1988, he tried his hand at a period romance with Cartas del Parque. Hisfinal film, the comedy Guantanamera (1995) poked gentle fun at economic conditionsin Cuba while recounting the story of three people trying to return to the homevillage of a recently deceased woman so they may bury her in accordance withthe law. In addition to writing or co-writing most of his films, Gutiérrez-Aleaalso actively worked as an advisor for other filmmakers. In 1982, the great directorpublished a book on film theory, Dialéctica del Espectador. ~ Sandra Brennan,All Movie Guide.