Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2000 Venice Film Festival, Before Night Falls is a richly imagined journey into the life and writings of the brilliant Cuban author and exile Reinaldo Arenas. Directed and co-written by Julian Schnabel (basquiat (1996)), the film stars Spanish actor Javier Bardem (Live Flesh (1997), jamon, Jamon (1992)), whose eloquent, complex performance as Arenas earned him the 2000 Venice Film Festival's Volpi Cup for Best Actor.

Before Night Falls spans the whole of Arenas' life, from his rural childhood and his early embrace of the Revolution to the persecution he would later experience as a writer and homosexual in Castro's Cuba; from his departure from Cuba in the Mariel Harbor exodus of 1980 to his exile and death in the United States. It is a portrait of a man whose search for freedom - artistic, political, sexual - defied poverty, censorship, persecution, exile and death. Like Arenas' work, Before Night Falls combines passages of transporting imagination with urgent realism; in so doing, it embodies the creative ethos to which Arenas dedicated himself: transforming experience into unfettered expression.

Reinaldo Arenas was born on July 16, 1943 to a beautiful young woman (Olatz Lopez Garmendia) who was soon abandoned by Reinaldo's father. Consigning herself to a life of bitter chastity in this machismo society, Reinaldo's mother returned with him to her parents' farm in Cuba's Oriente province. Reinaldo's childhood was defined by the contrast between his family's unmitigated poverty and the natural splendor that surrounded him; in the abundance and anonymity conferred by those opposing circumstances, he found an immeasurable freedom. The boy followed his impulses, whether he was writing poetry, watching young men bathe nude in the river or reveling in the unpredictability of a torrential downpour.

In 1958, Reinaldo's family moved to the town of Holguín. Though still in his teens, he joined Castro's insurgency to overthrow the dictator Fulgencio Batista. With the triumph of the Revolution, Reinaldo was able to partake in the new government's ambitious program to educate its youth. By 1962, Reinaldo (Javier Bardem) was attending the University of Havana and living in a cosmopolitan city that pulsed with excitement and possibility. He discovered that a sexual revolution was occurring alongside the official Revolution, and his wide range of lovers included the volatile, alluring Pepe Malas (Andrea Di Stefano) who introduced him to Havana's thriving homosexual subculture.

In those early days of the Revolution, Reinaldo's life was an exploration of his identity as a writer and a homosexual, each activity pursued with zest and joy. He entered a storytelling contest, and his evident gifts led to his securing work at the prestigious National Library. He was befriended by some of Cuba's most celebrated writers, including Virgilio Pi?era (Hector Babenco) and José Lezama Lima (Manuel Gonzalez).

At the age of 20, he wrote his first novel, 'Singing From the Well' (Celestino antes del alba), which was awarded First Mention in the country's Cirilo Villaverde National Competition.

'Singing From the Well' was to be Reinaldo's only book published in his native country. By the late 1960s, the Cuban government had begun a brutal crackdown on artists and homosexuals. Writers were forced to renounce their work and homosexuals were rounded up and sent to labor camps whose flowery titles belied their cruelty. Despite the danger, Reinaldo continued to write, giving free reign to his irreverent, outspoken vision. His second novel, 'Hallucinations' (El mundo alucinante), was smuggled out of Cuba and published in France, earning him the hostility of Castro's government. For the next several years, he was subject to relentless persecution, as the government and the police searched his rooms, confiscated his work and threatened his friends.

In 1973, following an altercation on the beach, Reinaldo was falsely accused of sexual molestation and arrested. He escaped from jail and made a desperate attempt to flee the island in an inner tube. The attempt failed; Reinaldo was now a fugitive. He was re-arrested near Lenin Park and sent to the notorious El Morro prison, where he served two years alongside murderers, rapists and common criminals. He survived by composing letters to the inmates' wives and lovers; those favors enabled him to accumulate the paper and pencils he needed for his own writing. However, his attempts to smuggle his work out of the prison were found out and he was brutally punished. Faced with the choice of renouncing his work or disappearing from this earth, Reinaldo chose the former.

Upon his release from El Morro, Reinaldo was an award-winning writer without a place to live. A friend found him a room at the hotel, and it was there that Reinaldo met Lázaro Gómez Carriles (Olivier Martinez), who became his great friend.

In 1980, Castro allowed homosexuals, mental patients and criminals to leave Cuba in the Mariel Harbor boatlift; a last-minute change to his passport allowed Reinaldo to leave the country undetected. Settling in New York, he began his life as an exile: impoverished and stateless, but with his appetite for life and writing still fierce, his humor, rage and honesty intact. His struggles were far from over, though; after he contracted AIDS, he waged a truly furious race against death to complete his works-in-progress. By the time of his death in 1990, Reinaldo had written over 20 books, including 10 novels as well as numerous short stories, poems, essays and plays. His body of work is arguably the most passionate and angry ever written against the totalitarian state. Reinaldo Arenas' memoir, 'Before Night Falls', was published in English in 1993 and was listed by 'The New York Times Book Review' as one of the year's Best Books.

Twentieth Century Fox is proud to present a Grandview Pictures production, Before Night Falls, directed by Julian Schnabel, based on the work of author Reinaldo Arenas, including the memoir 'Before Night Falls' and the novels 'Hallucinations', 'The Color of Summer' and 'The Palace of the White Skunks'. Written by Cunningham O'Keefe, Lázaro Gómez Carriles and Julian Schnabel and produced by Jon Kilik, the film stars Javier Bardem, Olivier Martinez, Andrea Di Stefano, Johnny Depp, Sean Penn, Michael Wincott, Olatz Lopez Garmendia and Vito Maria Schnabel. The directors of photography are Xavier Pérez Grobet and Guillermo Rosas, the editor Michael Berenbaum, the production designer Salvador Parra and the costume designer Mariestela Fernández. The film's composer is Carter Burwell, with additional music by Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson. Twentieth Century Fox is releasing Before Night Falls throughout Latin America.

As a student of Latin American History and Literature I was pleased with the way the film handled the historical context of Arenas' time. The political context of Before Night Falls shouldn't come as any surprise. The artistic, social and political invisibility of gays in Cuba under the Cuban Revolution represented a dark stain on the revolutionary record. In 1965 Fidel Castro told Lee Lockwood (in Castro's Cuba, Cuba's Fidel) that `we would never come to believe that a homosexual could embody the conditions and requirements of conduct that would enable us to consider him a true Revolutionary, a true communist militant. A deviation of that nature clashes with the concept we have of what a militant Communist must be' In the mid-1960's, the infamous UMAP work camps (Unidades Militares de Auyuda a la Producción) sought to rehabilitate what they perceived as alleged antisocial elements. This is an event that is accurately depicted in Schnabel's film. The purges and denunciations of homosexuals continued into the 1980's. Today in Cuba discrimination against gays still represents a major problem. The revolution dealt with gender and racial discrimination but not with discrimination against gays. This is all documented with stunning use of archival footage and reference accounts from Arenas' autobiography.

Any review of the film would be incomplete without mentioning Javier Bardem's work. I have seen a lot of movies and few performances are even in the same league as Bardem's. I was fascinated with how he carried this film with a performance that must have been very difficult for him to adjust to. The supporting work by Johnny Depp should also be praised. His dual performance, for me, accurately identified how many within Castro's army may have used their positions as a front to deny their own sexuality as well. Overall, I was very impressed with this film and I highly recommend it

IMDb profile
Before Night Falls is a 2000 movie directed by Julian Schnabel. The screenplay is based on the autobiography of Reinaldo Arenas, which was published in English in 1993 [1]. The screenplay was written by Schnabel, Cunningham O'Keefe and Lázaro Gómez Carriles.

It stars Javier Bardem, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, Olivier Martinez, Andrea Di Stefano, Santiago Magill, Johnny Depp and Michael Wincott.

This was the second film of director Julian Schnabel, after Basquiat (1996). Schnabel got the idea of making Before Night Falls immediately after making Basquiat , however it took four years to actually produce the film. [2] It had its world premiere at the 2000 Venice International Film Festival and its North American premiere at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival [3].

Synopsis
In Cuba, after the Cuban revolution in 1959, gay Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas (Javier Bardem) is arrested after two boys who have stolen from him accuse him falsely of sexual assault.[4]. He later gets into trouble for having books written by him smuggled out of the country and having them published abroad. Thus for a decade he goes in and out of Cuban prisons [5]. He escapes from prison and tries to leave Cuba by launching himself from the shore on a tire inner tube. The attempt fails and he is rearrested. He helps other inmates to write letters to wives and lovers. He is forced to renounce his books and is released. In 1980 he is told that, as part of the Mariel Boatlift, he is allowed to emigrate because of being gay. After first suspecting this might be a trick, he succesfully claims gayness, and moves to Miami.

He is stricken with AIDS, and without health insurance, he kills himself in 1990 in New York [6]. A friend is present, he promises not to alert medical services. Moreover, he speeds up death by suffocation with a pillow.(More)

Life Arenas was born in the countryside, in the northern part of the Province of Oriente, Cuba, and later moved to the city of Holguin. In 1963, he moved to Havana to enroll in the School of Planification and, later, in the Faculty of Letters at the Universidad de La Habana, where he studied philosophy and literature without completing a degree. The following year, he began working at the Biblioteca Nacional Jose Marti. ^{[1][dead link]} While there, his talent was noticed and he was awarded prizes at Cirilo Villaverde National Competition held by UNEAC (National Union of Cuban Writers and Artists). ^[2] Interestingly, his Hallucinations was awarded "first Honorable Mention" in 1966 although, as the judges could find no better entry, no First Prize was awarded that year. ^[3]

His writings and openly gay lifestyle were, by 1967, bringing him into conflict with the Communist government. He left the Biblioteca Nacional and became an editor for the Cuban Book Institute until 1968. From 1968 to 1974 he was a journalist and editor for the literary magazine La Gaceta de Cuba. In 1973, he was sent to prison after being charged and convicted of 'ideological deviation' and for publishing abroad without official consent. He escaped from prison and tried to leave Cuba by launching himself from the shore on a tire inner tube. The attempt failed and he was rearrested near Lenin Park and imprisoned at the notorious El Morro Castle alongside murderers and rapists. He survived by helping the inmates to write letters to wives and lovers. He was able to collect enough paper this way to continue his writing. However, his attempts to smuggle his work out of prison were discovered and he was severely punished. Threatened with death, he was forced to renounce his work and was released in 1976. ^{[4][dead link]} In 1980, as part of the Mariel Boatlift, he fled to the United States. ^[5]

Writings Despite his short life and the hardships imposed during his imprisonment, Arenas produced a significant body of work. His Pentagonia is a set of five novels that comprise a "secret history" of post-revolutionary Cuba. It includes the poetical Farewell to the Sea, Palace of the White Skunks and the Rabelaisian Color of Summer. In these novels Arenas鈥?style ranges from a stark realist narrative to absurd satiric humor. He traces his own life story in what to him is the absurd world of Castro's Cuba. In each of the novels Arenas himself is a major character, going by a number of pseudonyms. His autobiography, Before Night Falls was on the New York Times list of the ten best books of the year in 1993. In 2000 this work was made into a film, directed by Julian Schnabel, in which Arenas was played by Javier Bardem.

Death In 1987, Arenas was diagnosed with AIDS, but he continued to write and speak out against the Cuban government. He mentored many Cuban exile writers, including John O'Donnell-Rosales. After battling AIDS, Arenas committed suicide by taking an overdose of drugs and alcohol on December 7, 1990, in New York. In a suicide letter written for publication, Arenas wrote:

Due to my delicate state of health and to the terrible depression it causes me not to be able to continue writing and struggling for the freedom of Cuba, I am ending my life. . . . I want to encourage the Cuban people out of the country as well as on the Island to continue fighting for freedom. . . Cuba will be free. I already am. ^[6]

Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In this powerful memoir of passions both personal and political, Cuban author Arenas ( Hallucinations ) describes his voyage from peasant poverty to his oppression as a dissident writer and homosexual. His voracious sexuality pervades the book (numerous encounters are described), and Arenas suggests that the gay worldis instinctually non-monogamous, though he was celibate in the "monstrosity" of prison. The young Arenas, in the early days of Fidel Castro's revolution, gained his literary education working at the National Library; he then joined a fervent literary cricle. The Castro regime, however, banned his first novel, The Ill-Fated Peregrinations of Fray Servando , and Arenas had to evade security police to smuggle manuscripts abroad for publication. Protesting Castro's support of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Arenas suffered forced labor in the sugarcane fields, spent more than two years in prison after being prosecuted as a homosexual counterrevolutionary and managed to gain exile along with many other gays during the 1980 Mariel boatlift. Having appended a fierce denunciation to this book of those seeking dialogue with Castro, the 47-year-old Arenas, who was suffering from AIDS, committed suicide in New York City in 1990.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
This celebrated Cuban writer ( The Doorman , LJ 5/15/91; Singing from the Well , LJ 7/87), a victim of AIDS, committed suicide in New York in 1990. His autobiographical memoir is a fascinating and frightening tale of growing up extremely poor in rural Cuba, of varied personal and political relationships, of rebelliousness, homosexuality, suppression, and persecution. In the picaresque tradition, the narrative is earthy and at times raw; the frequent sexual escapades are presumably true accounts. The description of life in Havana's El Morro prison makes the skin crawl. As an author who was not only antiregime but also gay, Arenas was compelled to smuggle his work abroad for publication. More than a personal story, this memoir is an insightful analysis of the idiosyncrasies of an authoritarian regime. Recommended for literature collections.
- Charles E. Perry, East Central Univ., Ada, Okla.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Overview

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Overview