Memories Of Underdevelopment

Rutgers Films in Print

by Michael Chanan

Memories of Underdevelopment was the first great international success of Cuban cinema. The film provides a complex portrait of Sergio, a disaffected bourgeois intellectual who remains in Havana after the Revolution, suspended between two worlds. He can no longer accept the values of his family's reactionary past and yet boredom and the conditioning of his early life prevent him from committing himself to the new revolutionary society. Sergio's story is played out in the turbulent period of the Bay of Pigs invasion and the 1962 missile crisis, events he can only watch on his television screen or from his apartment balcony. The film, initially banned by the U.S. government as part of its trade quarantine of Cuba, was shown here five years after its original release. But American critics responded enthusiastically to it and the National Society of Film Critics bestowed an award on its director. This double volume includes the complete continuity script of Memories, as well as the complete novel, Inconsolable Memories, upon which the film is based. An interview with Alea is reproduced here, as well as documentation of the political controversy that surrounded the film in this country. Michael Chanan's introduction places the film in the context of Cuban political and cultural history. The volume also includes a biographical sketch of Alea, a chronology of the Cuban Revolution, reviews, commentary, a filmography, and a bibliography. Michael Chanan lives in England, where he teaches and writes on film. He is the author of The Cuban Image: Cinema and Cultural Politics in Cuba.

274 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1990

Reviews

[Stella · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Desnoes' original work after watching the film in a class. Its perspective reminded me a lot of one of my favorite books, The Collector - the narration comes from a creepy and out of touch point of view which nevertheless tries to give a take on art and culture. A quick read about apathy, power, appropriation of culture, and numbness in times of war that leaves an emotional impact.

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The very last word on one of the greatest films ever made; most certainly the best to ever come from Cuba: Tomas Gutierrez Alea's 1968 masterwork, "Memories of Underdevelopment." The film is a haunting rumination by a bourgeois man trying to figure out his place in a country abandoned by the rest of his family, whether he fits in in the "new" Cuba. The movie is smart, freeform, sexy and intelligent. Part narrative, part documentary, part essay. And one of the best movies to express what it feels like to be a man, and a man alone.
The book includes the script of the movie, along with interviews with Alea, several essays on aspects of the film and the related politics, and contemporary and followup reviews by scholars and critics. I've never read all of it, but it's a superb companion by any standard. Glad to have this in my collection.