A Life Written Into Pages and Film

Posted by Jessica Pendergrass
December 12, 2007

Before Night FallsThroughout the history of Hollywood, numerous novels have been made into films. Many of these productions have won great awards, like Best Picture in the Academy Awards. These prestigious movies then became subjects for discussion in living rooms across the country. When comparing the films’ adaptations to the original novels, oftentimes it is assumed a film cannot begin to tell the richly detailed story of a novel. However, a novel’s story and a movie’s screenplay both contain plot, characters, and style. In this sense, Before Night Falls is a faithful adaptation of all of these elements found in the original book. The novel became the film as its words were transformed into images and cinematic terms.

Julian Schnabel is the director of Before Night Falls. He uses colors and the rich, aesthetically pleasing scenery of Cuba to make the story of Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas come alive. “Style is what an artist uses to fascinate the beholder in order to convey to him his feelings and emotions and thoughts. These are what have to be dramatized, not the style. The dramatizing has to find a style of its own, as it will do if it really grasps the content” (Beja 80). Schnabel chooses specific settings, textures, sounds, angles, and actors to bring the feelings and emotions of the novel into the film. From seeing and understanding the passions of Arenas, Schnabel is able to make his dramatic rendition of Arenas’ life unfold as a truly unique and artistic film.

What types of books make good films? It is difficult to say. When a novel of extraordinary length is turned into a two-hour movie, much of the dialogue and many of the inner thoughts of the main character will have to be cut out. A shorter story would be much easier to turn into a movie, but because Before Night Falls is based on a full length novel, and many details in the content of the novel must necessarily be left out, the film version of Before Night Falls compensates by adding visual images that are worth many words. The film utilizes other artistic forms as well, for example, Arenas’ poetry. The poems are read by the actor portraying Arenas (Javier Bardeem, now starring in the Coen brothers’ critical success, No Country for Old Men, 2007) using a voice-over technique, while visual images reflect the power and the beauty of the poems’ messages.

When adapting a novel for film, the decision must be made to make omissions. In Before Night Falls there had to be, the words of one critic, a “censoring and editing in the name of moral, economic, and political righteousness”(Golden 80). Homosexuality is a very controversial topic, so all Arenas’ detailed erotic adventures with other men were left out. Instead scenes are cut so the audience sees two men start to get closer or begin to kiss just before a black out. Also, the movie could not detail the political history of Cuba forefronting Arenas’ political opinions. Instead of focusing on what Arenas believed and why, the film shows how Cuba’s political unrest affected Arenas and changed his life. Close-ups of the characters’ faces are used in situations that occur because of political corruption to demonstrate the emotional impact of injustice. One scene that shows how the government’s power harms the peasants is short and without dialogue, so, though the message is demonstrated telegraphically in this scene, the audience may miss the complete truth. Arenas and numerous other writers and professional men and women were sent into the sugar cane fields by the government to help reach Castro’s goal to harvest ten million tons of sugarcane. Arenas was sent to one of those places that was like, in the writer’s own words, “entering the last circle of hell” (Arenas 129). The sugarcane leaves were sharp and caused unbearable itching on one’s skin. Instead of this more detailed description, the film’s shot shows a burning field and then pans in for the audience to see Reinaldo and Tomas, dirty, bloody, and sweaty as they take part in this forced fields’ project. The drive for wanting these ten million tons of sugar cane harvested came from Castro’s desire to make Cuba a power in the world. Documentary footage of both Castro’s speeches and the actions of Cuban rebels convey Cuba’s political history. This is a good example of the way the film, while staying true to key events, uses the power of visual images based on documentary and literary sources to tell the story of Arenas and of Cuba during this historical period.

Before Night Falls is a faithful film adaptation. The core events are directly adapted from the book to the movie. The chronology of the story remains the same as we follow Arenas’ life from his childhood to the time he leaves to join the rebels at age fourteen. Arenas matures, and his innate abilities as a writer develop as he goes to the university and later works at the national library. During this time, his social life flourishes, and he enjoys being both a homosexual and a writer. Later, however, Arenas becomes a prisoner because he was framed as being a molester by two young boys. Arenas is imprisoned at Morro Castle for two years. What he valued most during this time, he says, was his “friends, some of whom had taken great risks on my account” (Arenas 179). Because of government spies being everywhere, one could not always be sure who was still a friend. Arenas lived here and there after he got out of prison, and finally he was able to go to America.

In the U.S. Arenas’ life was better for a time. He enjoyed the company of his friend Lázaro, and Arenas’ writing was not censored, but completing his work became a problem. Arenas lived to write but his health diminished as AIDS and several other health problems took a toll on his body. When he became too sick to write, Arenas decided to commit suicide. His life was amazing in that he survived near fatal illnesses in his childhood, dangerous experiences while he was a fugitive, and in sickness later in life, yet after his long and twisted journey, he chose to end his own life. All the important events in Arenas’ life are covered in the novel and in the film. The novel uses words. The film portrays the life in visual and verbal images, and it is startling and often interesting to see how it accomplishes this translation.

So how were these main events in Arenas’ life transformed to the screen? The process can be summed up as “visual… to convey images” (Giddings 1). Bardeem plays Reinaldo Arenas, his acting skills visually portray the feeling and emotions Arenas emphasized in his writing. Analyzing scenes from the film, audiences can easily enter the world of Arenas’ story of life, love, pain, and writing.

The film opens in the luscious green of a forest. We see the baby Reinaldo carried by his mother as his voice over (as an adult) explains what it was like growing up on his grandparents’ farm. We see him in a dirt crib. The audience sees that Reinaldo is a peasant living in extreme poverty. An emotional connection is established as well so that the audience empathizes with Reinaldo’s situation. The film then goes into a scene revealing the only time Reinaldo ever saw his father. In this scene a man hands the boy two pesos, while the mother across the river screams at the top of her lungs at the man. After this demonstration of the lack of a manly influence in his life, the movie’s shot goes to a river by which Reinaldo is sitting, and then we hear another voice-over. This time it is a poem about water and how it influenced Reinaldo’s life. He felt himself one with nature, and we see Reinaldo carving poetry on trees and happily watching nude men in the water. This telegraphs Reinaldo’s early emergence as a homosexual, and shows us rather than tells us that he is attracted to men at a young age. The film later shows Reinaldo fantasizing about another little boy his age. Arenas feels a connection to the boy that is not returned. Later Reinaldo walks down an empty stretch of road that looks even emptier as the camera pans away. Reinaldo was going to join the rebels with his friend, but now he is all alone. Figurative language from the novel is translated into visual images in the film. We see loneliness and isolation.

Before Night Falls“Probably the most common distinction [between books and movies] is one that sees the novel as more appropriate to the presentation of inner mental status, while the film is seen as being better able to show what people do and say than what they think or imagine” (Beja 57). In Before Night Falls, Arenas demonstrates his opinions and the opinions of others in great detail. The film renders these opinions in different ways. A scene shows Reinaldo in the University learning political propaganda. He does not say he disagrees with the doctrine but he enters a writing contest. The shot of him writing cuts to a flashback of the story he is imagining, and then the scene ends with Arenas telling his story to the judges. The result is he gets a job at the National Library. We later learn that because he has this job, Reinaldo is able to read and write whatever he wants. If he had not entered the contest, Reinaldo would have worked a regulated job under the eyes of the government. The audience learns of Arenas true political views when he associates with Señor San Marino, who lends Arenas some books from his own library that would have been censored by the government. Señor San Marino calls the books “bibles.” San Marino has an editor friend who helps Arenas re-work and publish his book. Reinaldo had minimal schooling, so his writing style was very raw. He told stories without using punctuation, organization, or complete thoughts. The editing really helped and shaped his writing. He was able to publish his first book in Cuba. The film allows one action to lead to another action, which demonstrates the opinions of Arenas and his friends. In the cases shown above, Reinaldo’s decision to enter the writing contest affects his career, social life, political knowledge, and published book. In this sense, the film is able to show actions rather than inner thoughts, which are emphasized in the memoirs.

b4nite.jpg“For a film to be an adequate rendition of a novel, it must not only present the actions and events of the novel, but also capture the attitudes and subjective tones toward those events” (Giddings 14). “Attitudes and subjective tones” of uneasiness and suspicion are demonstrated in a scene where Arenas meets with Jorge and Margarita Camacho, a painter and his wife who live in Paris. Reinaldo is told that they are friends of San Marino. Reinaldo arrives at the Hotel Internacional, and Jorge identifies Reinaldo, probably by his clothing that is decidedly not glamorous like the people who usually stay at the International Hotel. Reinaldo sticks out in the ritzy hotel and looks uncomfortable there. As the Camachos and Arenas converse, Reinaldo gets closer and asks if they may speak in French. Reinaldo is not as comfortable speaking French as the Camachos are, but he feels safer not being overheard mentioning concentration camps and homosexuals. The camera alternates between close-ups and long shots, and visually reinforces the unease of Reinaldo in the scene, accentuating the atmosphere of fear. After the meeting, Reinaldo runs home to retrieve his precious manuscript in the two hours he has to get it to Jorge at the airport. Jorge had read Reinaldo’s autobiography about his childhood, and he and his wife want to help Reinaldo in any way they can. More than anything else in his life, Reinaldo values his writing and publishing his work and the Camachos have agreed to get his manuscript published in France.

The edgy scene where Arenas’ manuscript is exchanged is set in the José Martí airport is just one example of the ways things are set up visually and in the mis en scene to create a feeling of danger and tension. In this scene there are about as many policemen as people. It is important that the audience identifies with Arenas’ dangers as he strives to publish his work. As one critic notes, “The point of view of the camera can change many times during a narrative; also cutting and editing can cause frequent and extreme shifts in perspective.” Depth of field, focus, and zooms set a scene’s mood (Giddings 15). Cutting to different shots in the scene where Arenas’ attempts to flee Cuba on an inner tube create a trapped and lost mood, while the bird’s eye angle of the camera adds to the feelings of hopelessness in this the dark, wet scene. At the end of this sequence Arenas emerges alone, shivering, and still in Cuba. And now the camera still uses high angles as Reinaldo attempts to commit suicide. As he breaks the glass bottle, the camera seems to shake the entire shot. Unsteady cutting continues as Reinaldo is dragged into prison after this sequence. He had taken hallucinogenic pills, and the camera movement goes partially camera subjective to supplement the other ways we understand how Reynaldo is feeling as his freedom is completely taken away as the drugs take him into another world. The technical elements in filmmaking are necessary in the dramatic scenes, such as this, where the main character is at one of his lowest points.

“While the novel is a narrative that deploys past events moving towards a present, a film directly displays the present” (Giddings 17). This is especially true towards the end of Before Night Falls. Reinaldo suffers from AIDS. He has no insurance, so he cannot get basic medical care. This is happening in the present. Arenas comes to America and is at first healthy and strong. In the present tense the film shows him as his health degrades. His poems are used again toward the end of the film to show his insights as he looks from the present time back at his life in retrospect. Eventually Reinaldo gets so weak that he can’t write. He lies on the couch and struggles to lift a glass to his lips. His death is the final moment of a present-tense action in the film. It is important for a movie to be told in present tense—but in delicate balance with the past and Reinaldo’s life story. The audience can connect with what is happening now, look back at the writer’s travails, and anticipates what’s to come in the movie’s own special present tense.

Though most of the novel is faithfully translated, there are scenes in Before Night Falls that have little basis in events described by the novel. These choices seem to be for scenes that add more action and adversity to the film. During the time that Arenas is working at the national library, he spends an afternoon with his friend Tomas who works on a tour bus. The bus makes a stop. Up until now it seems like a fenced-in party with dancing and drinking and frivolity, but suddenly, the police show up breaking into the party and violence ensues. As people are beaten and fall to the ground, all that is heard is the sound is music and Arenas’ voice-over followed by another speech by Castro where he tells about the evils of homosexuals. Violent events of this nature were common in Cuba and the film portrays them ironically. This event does not correlate directly to an event in the book, but it demonstrates the types of hardships many Cubans endured during this time when they did not have basic freedoms or rights. Another added scene follows Reinaldo Arenas’ release from prison. In the novel, his friend Blanca Rimero lives next to the convent of Santa Clara. She wanted a window, but the wall her friends opened up led into the abandoned convent and not to the street, so everything Blanca, Reynaldo, and their friends found inside, from statues to furnishings, they could sell on the black market. In the movie they put some parachutes together making a hot air balloon to “sail to Miami.” The plan was for Blanca and two others to fly. They have a party, and as they recover the balloon is crashed by Reinaldo’s nemesis Pepe, who dies in the crash. This hot air balloon scene never appears in the novel, but it embraces the theme of the desire to fly away from Cuba’s troubles. The scene also allows for beautiful Cuban scenery as it shows Pepe’s feeling of achieving the ultimate freedom. As the brightly colored balloon ascends higher and higher and the music gets louder, it is hard not to believe that this scene was mostly added for artistic effects with sweeping camera movements sure to make the audience’s hearts’ leap. After all, the film is being directed by a painter on the life of a poet!

ReinaldoThe film’s strengths may also be its weaknesses. I think the “artistic” and “image” sometimes overcome the storytelling. I believe the film is a fabulous celebration of a tremendous life, but the novel goes into much more detail about Reynaldo’s feelings, the details of his life, the country’s history, and lessons in love and life he learned along the way. Still, the film is a successful faithful adaptation because it takes the core concepts of the novel and visually and artistically converts them into a movie. The film contains the themes and moods of the novel, yet portrays them in its own unique fashion, using the language of film.

Works Cited

Fall 2007

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