What’s happening with Steven Soderbergh’s sprawling 4-hour epic about the Argentina guerrilla cum Cuban revolutionary ‘Che’ Guevara? Is it being picked up for distribution on cable via HBO? Will it premiere at the New York Film Festival in September like one keenly educated posits seem to suggest just yesterday? (It really looks like it’s going to happen, fyi).
We await the answer (and probable announcement) with baited breath and in the meantime Cannes 2008 head juror has weighed in on ‘Che’ and all the problems that have plagued the unbearably long and polarizing two-part chronicle.
British film magazine Sight & Sound has an interview with the presiding Cannes festival Juror and InContention.org has transcribed it for us all (via Jeffrey Wells). Penn defends the film, says he didn’t really listen to much of the buzz, hype and brouhaha surrounding the film (up until a point) and says he prays someone will distribute the film in its massive four-hour entirety.
On the buzz and surrounding hoopla; Penn thinks you’re dumb.
“Right through the festival I had no awareness of what the ‘buzz’ was, and I shut people down if they tried to talk about movies in front of me. But when I did a little bit of catch-up browsing afterward I read some of the stupidest, ugliest, most cynical responses to what had gone on, and I had the front-seat to be aware of their inconsistencies.”
On its chances of distribution and releasing the film in its fully intact form
” ‘Che’ is a great example. I pray it finds distribution in the four-hour-plus form I saw, because otherwise people will be missing out. The film-making is stellar: there are so many details in the execution of that huge story. Every sentiment about Guevara I’ve heard passionately expressed when I’ve travelled in Cuba and South America was not only dramatised, but without exposition, seamlessly, fulfilling the narrative. Then you have one of the first tour de force performances in film history that doesn’t rely on the close-up.”
(This last point is a really great observation by Penn; that sounds astounding really)
The Jury may have not awarded ‘Che’ the Palme D’or, but they were certainly inspired afterwards.
“This is a film, I later find, that had some negative responses…I was in a jury room of nine people with more expertise in their big toenails than any of the people writing in these papers: nine out of nine wanted to go out and change the world afterwards.”
Penn also goes to bat for “The Two Lovers” (Lisa Schwarzbaum be damned) and “Synecdoche, New York.”
“I know some jurors had disappointments (in the voting); it’s inevitable. I loved Joaquin Phoenix in ‘Two Lovers.’ Even though there was controversy about ‘Synecdoche, New York’ I think everyone agreed that Philip Seymour Hoffman continues to be one of the great actors around. There’s no such thing as ‘Better than true,’ and you get a lot of true performances. But context matters, you can’t help it. There was something about the timing of Benicio del Toro playing Che that was undeniable.”
Like many of us Jeffrey Wells laments what happened to ‘Che’ after Cannes (basically nothing) and says, the production company Wild Bunch is lowering their asking price since the film is such a difficult slog and then rails derisively into the rest of you yobbing “WALL*E tele-tubbies,” that will likely flip the channel if and when ‘Che’ is relegated to cable. We can’t agree more.