Tomas Aleas The Last Supper Essay -- Last Supper Alea Movies Film Sla

Tomas Alea's The Last Supper [1] Before I start this essay, I feel the need to remind the reader that I find slavery in all its forms to be an oppressive and terrible institution, and I firmly believe that for centuries (including this one) bigotry is one of the most terrible stains on our civilization. The views I intend to express in the following essay are in no way meant to condone the practices of slavery or racism; they are meant only to evaluate and interpret the construction of slavery in film. [2] For films concerning slavery, the role of the filmmaker as educator is substantially heightened. All too often slavery films categorically vilify whites as oppressive forces, polarizing race and stereotyping the white class as uniformly tyrannical. The sympathetic but relatively powerless white in this system is frequently left out, condoning a stance that separates race as a division between villains and martyrs. While I see an effort in Tomas Gutierrez Alea’s The Last Supper to move beyond these representations, how successful the film is as a transcendence above the typically extreme constructions of character in the slave film is a difficult assessment, particularly for a film from a Cuban director during the Cold War. [3] For John Mraz, the representation of history in Tomas Alea’s The Last Supper is commendable work. Mraz claims that the film joins a cinematic collection where â€Å"films meet many of our expectations about what history ought to be† (120). Mraz continues his praise of Alea’s historical constructions, asserting that the way the film addresses history is impartial and objective: â€Å"The Last Supper follows the classic model of both written and filmed history in insisting on the reality o... ... fear. Once realized, those in power become all the more determined to maintain power through the brutality those revolts are meant to eliminate. The results are seldom glorious; instead, they are usually tragic. We must remember that the end of slave societies usually resulted from economic or political pressure put on political leaders by free men in the system, not those meant to be under it. Works Cited Fraginals, Manuel Moreno. The Sugarmill: The Socioeconomic Complex of Sugar in Cuba, 1760-1860. New York: Monthly Review, 1976. Knight, Franklin W. Slave Society in Cuba during the Nineteenth Century. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1970 Mraz, John. Recasting Cuban Slavery: The Other Francisco and The Last Supper.† Based on a True Story: Latin American History at the Movies. Ed. Donald R. Stevens. Wilmington: S.R. Books, 1997. 106-22.