If you’re fortunate enough to live in L.A. or New York, you’re some of the lucky few that will be able to witness the “Che” Roadshow release of Steven Soderbergh’s soulful and sprawling two-part epic. Beginning December 12, the full four hour-plus film (about 220 minute each approximately) will screen in both cities for one limited week. Afterwards, the film will reopen in January, 2009 in select markets as two separate films, Part One: “The Argentine,” and Part Two: “Guerilla.”
This you probably already. However, there’s been talk of the special collectors edition program at every screening and we got on our hands on an early copy and we must say it’s lovely and we cherish it (thanks Ricardo).
A buddy of ours was in Miami at Art Basel in Miami where the full film was shown to protests outside and scored us a copy. The 34-page program includes the full credits for both films, plus the haunting and beautiful black-and-white shots by photography Mary Ellen Mark. Here’s a few samples, without spoiling the whole thing, but man the shots are gorgeous. We had to shoot them with a digital camera cause the scanner was busy, but they look even better on the page.
Benicio del Toro won the award for Best Actor at Cannes and its incredible the charismatic and commanding range and performance he projects in very few close-ups. We’d love him to earn an Oscar nomination, but it doesn’t sound like there’s a huge contingent rah-rah-ing for him, but us and a few others, and we’re certainly not a voice that’s loud enough.
Del Toro was in recently in Havana and told reporters there at the Latin American Film Festival in Cuba that he respects the Argentine-born Guevara as a “man of consequence,” but personally opposes armed struggle. He said if the revolutionary were alive today, he would be “a different Che” who didn’t need to resort to violence.
In Miami amid the protest, Soderbergh said he the screening had been met with some venom. “Everyone has been asking me, ‘Why would you screen this here?’” said the director, referring to Miami’s heavily anti-Che Cuban population. “I have gotten a lot of threatening e-mails.” del Toro noted that “a lot of the people protesting the movie hadn’t [even] seen it.”
Here’s the New York “Che” Roadshow flyer. If it isn’t obvious already, this epic is certainly going to make our top 10 list of 2008.