Soderbergh’s ‘Che’ and Historical Accuracy, Part II

by Humberto Fontova

Part I of this series can be found here.

Steven Soderbergh made certain his new movie, “Che,” about the life of revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, couldn’t be attacked — at least on a factual level. (CNN Entertainment, January 1, 2009)

“I didn’t mind someone saying, ‘Well, your take on him, I don’t really like,’ or ‘You’ve left these things out and included these things.’ That’s fine,” Soderbergh said. “What I didn’t want was for somebody to be able to look at a scene and say, ‘That never happened.’ “(CNN Entertainment, January 1, 2009)

Well, Mr Soderbergh (and CNN), pull up a chair.

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Soderbergh’s movie shows Che Guevara steely-eyed and snarling with defiance during his capture. Why, only seconds before, Che’s very M-2 carbine had been blasted from his hands and rendered useless by a fascist machine gun burst!

Then the bravely grimacing Guevara jerks out his pistol and blasts his very last bullets at the approaching hordes of CIA-lackey soldiers!

The (typical) viewer gapes at the spectacle. His eyes mist and lips tremble at Soderbergh and del Toro’s impeccable depiction of such undaunted pluck and valor.

OK, but just where did Soderbergh and del Toro—utterly obsessed with historical accuracy–obtain this version of Che’s capture?

Why the notoriously shrewd and canny, the immensely suspicious and cagey, the infamously clever and perspicacious, Steven Soderbergh transcribed this sterling and utterly indisputable account of Che’s capture exactly as penned by: Fidel Castro!

And you yokels who think that the testimony of a Communist dictator should merit the same skepticism as that of, say, a U.S. industrialist, have obviously never been subject to Soderbergh’s multiple-Oscar-nominated Erin Brockovich.

Why the man who mentored Soderbergh’s film for impeccable historical honesty is also on record for the following testaments:

“Again I STRESS! I am NOT A COMMUNIST!  And Communists have absolutely no influence in my nation!” (Fidel Castro, April 1959)

“Political power does interest me in the least! And I will NEVER assume such power!” (Fidel Castro, April 1959)

But as evidenced by Steven Soderbergh’s films, the author of these proclamations merits his version of Che’s capture transcribed on the silver screen as gospel. As for any skeptics…? Hah! Only those insufferable Tea-Partiers could conceivably swallow the laughable propaganda questioning Che’s heroism and Fidel Castro’s integrity and honesty!

Fidel Castro, you see, wrote the forward to Che‘s Diaries wherein this Davy Crocket-esque-at-the-Alamo version of events appears. These diaries were published in Castro’s Cuban fiefdom by the Stalinist dictator’s very own propaganda ministry. So lest they unwittingly fudge their film’s historical accuracy, Soderbergh and co-producer Benicio Del Toro were scrupulous in repeatedly visiting Castro’s Stalinist fiefdom to get the unvarnished truth straight from Castro’s own propaganda ministry!

On the other hand, a mental defect, diagnosed by my physician as “not believing Communist dictators, especially after living under them,” led your humble servant here, while researching my book, to dig-up and study the actual records of the men actually on the scene of Che Guevara’s capture, and who today live in places where they need not fear Castro’s firing squads and torture chambers for the crime of telling the truth.

As might be expected, (but mostly by Tea-Partiers and other such yokels,) this mental defect led to the discovery of major “discrepancies” between Soderbergh and del Toro’s Fidel Castro-mentored film and the historical truth.

In fact, on his second to last day alive, Che Guevara ordered his guerrilla charges to give no quarter, to fight to the last breath and to the last bullet. With his men doing exactly that, Che, with a trifling flesh leg-wound (though Soderbergh’s movie depicts Che’s leg wound ghastlier than Burt Reynolds’ in “Deliverance”) snuck away from the firefight, crawled towards the Bolivian soldiers doing the firing, then as soon as his he spotted two of them at a distance, stood and yelled: “Don’t Shoot! I’m Che! I’m worth more to you alive than dead!”

His captor’s official Bolivian army records that they took from Ernesto “Che” Guevara:  a fully-loaded PPK 9mm pistol. And the damaged carbine was an M-1—NOT the M-2 wrote he was carrying in his own diaries. The damaged M-1 carbine probably belonged to the hapless guerrilla charge, Willi, who Che dragged along—also to his doom.

But it was only after his (obviously voluntary) capture that Che segued into full Eddie-Hasquell-greeting-June-Cleaver-mode. “What’s your name, young man?!” Che quickly asked one of his captors. “Why, what a lovely name for a Bolivian soldier!”

“So what will they do with me?” Che, desperate to ingratiate himself, asked Bolivian Captain Gary Prado. “I don’t suppose you will kill me. I’m surely more valuable alive…. And you Captain Prado!” Che commended his captor. “You are a very special person!… I have been talking to some of your men. They think very highly of you, captain!.. Now, could you please find out what they plan to do with me?”

From that stage on, Che Guevara’s fully-documented Eddie Haskell-isms only get more uproarious (or nauseating). But somehow none of these found their way into Soderbergh’s film.

And oh!  Didn’t Che Guevara mount his steed and grab his lance as the (self-appointed) liberator of South America’s indigenous peoples fro  exploitation by the continents’ Europeans descendants?

Well, based on this picture, taken by the men who captured and killed him—Che’s message seemed woefully under-appreciated by his intended “beneficiaries.” I only note one obviously European-descendent person in the picture.


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Posted Mar 10th 2010 at 10:51 am in Politics, Reviews | 167 Comments