November 12, 2002
Dear Mr. Spielberg,
My name is Nicolás Calzada. I am a first-year graduate film student at
New York University. For as long as I can remember I have been a great
admirer of your work. I believe that film, like all art, is about more
than telling a story. It is about enriching, fulfilling, and inspiring its
viewers with moments of beauty. It is about those rare moments in time
when, as viewers, we are lifted beyond the screen and come to understand
something new about humanity and, ultimately, about ourselves. Such is the
calling of every artist and, for this reason, as a young filmmaker I consider
you to be one of my greatest inspirations. From E.T. to Schindler's List,
from Jaws to Saving Private Ryan, I cannot think of many bodies of work that
have brought us more moments of beauty, more insight into the greater, and
sometimes darker, sides of each one of us.
It is a lamentable human characteristic, however, that we often only express our
feelings when we have something critical to say. I wish now that I
had written you earlier to tell you how much your life and your work has meant
to me and not only now, when for the first time in my life, you have greatly
disappointed me. Please bear in mind as you read this letter that it comes
from someone who has nothing but the highest regard for your work both as a
filmmaker and as a humanitarian.
In fact, I only write to you today because, as the man who brought us
Schindler's List and initiated the video history project which records
testimonials of Holocaust victims, I have always considered you an eloquent
opponent of tyranny, oppression, and the suffocating bonds of hatred. I
also believe that you understand the importance of history, of ensuring that the
truth about atrocities committed by governments be preserved for all to know and
learn from. It is for these reasons that I cannot understand the events
surrounding your recent trip to Cuba.
First of all, I applaud your desire to visit Cuba and speak with young
filmmakers at the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Arts and Industry. I
also respect your call to end the American embargo on Cuba. There is a
wide range of opinion on the issue and I respect people's stances no matter
where on the spectrum they fall. I am astonished, however, at your failure
to realize that by wining and dining deep into the night with Fidel Castro (as
so many celebrities have) and by letting your visit end without a single
critical remark or question (except those directed at American policy), you have
helped bring legitimacy and positive press to a tyrant whose 43-year rule has
seen many of the same atrocities so powerfully depicted in your Schindler's
List.
I am quite certain that in your lively discussion of history, Mr. Castro failed
to mention a few things. A compelling parallel could have been drawn, for
instance, between Oscar Schindler's bold moves in opposition to his government
and the myriad of dissidents in Cuba today who live in fear or suffer in prison
because of their stance against Castro's rule. Did you know that a mere
two days before your visit, Oscar Elías Biscet finished serving his three-year
prison sentence for hanging a Cuban flag upside down in protest of his
government? Did you know that mere weeks before your visit, Oswaldo Payá
was awarded the prestigious Sakharov Prize by the European Union or that Mr. Payá
is considered by many to be the frontrunner for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize?
Perhaps Castro forgot to mention him. Like Oscar Schindler, Mr. Payá
gained fame for making a list of his own. According to the constitution
imposed on the Cuban people by Fidel Castro, a petition signed by 10,000 Cuban
citizens is required to call a special election that could change power.
Seeing a loophole through which he could use the system to non-violently oppose
the system, Mr. Payá risked his life and endured constant surveillance,
beatings, and the threat of imprisonment to gather 11,000 signatures.
Would it have been so difficult Mr. Spielberg to match your plea to end the
embargo with a plea to Fidel Castro to honor the constitutionally legal petition
organized by Oswaldo Payá?
The historical parallels do not end there. It is evident in your work that
the famed book-burnings of the Nazis horrified you and captured your
imagination. Perhaps those images will come to mind when you hear the
story of Cuban psychologist Ramón Humberto Colas and his wife Berta Mexidor.
They gave birth to the first independent library in Cuba, designating their 800
books as free to borrow for any friends and neighbors who wanted to read them.
Since many of these books posed a threat to the ideology of Castro's rule, the
couple was evicted from their home, denounced by the (state-run) press, and
fired from their jobs. Their daughter was expelled from school and both
parents suffered repeated arrest. Their books were all confiscated.
Surely, Mr. Castro boasted about Cuba's nearly perfect literacy rate. Did
you think to ask him what good the power of literacy serves if one cannot use it
as one sees fit?
I still recall seeing the powerful image of the star Jewish people were forced
to wear on their arms the first time I saw Schindler's List. How horrific,
I thought, that an entire group of people could be branded like that and subject
to brutal treatment simply because of the religion to which they belonged.
I am amazed that a filmmaker with your empathic imagination could not see a
similar phenomenon occurring before your very eyes in Cuba. You did not
realize that by sleeping where you slept and eating where you ate, you were
contributing to a methodical system of apartheid that has been in place in Cuba
for decades now. It is not an apartheid of race or religion.
Instead, the dividing line here is between tourists and Cuban nationals.
Had you done any research prior to your trip to Cuba, it may have occurred to
you to ask the concierge at your hotel if you could rent out another room for a
friend of yours. Before he could finish uttering "of course,"
you would have mentioned that your friend is a Cuban citizen. You would
have watched the expression on his face change, a slight tinge of embarrassment
arise as he explains to you that Cuban citizens are not allowed in Cuban hotels
or beaches. Perhaps you noticed that the grocery store full of food you
entered to buy a snack only accepted dollars. Did you think to ask,
"Aren't Cuban citizens paid in pesos?"
The parallels go on and on Mr. Spielberg. Castro may not be responsible
for the deaths of more than six million people, but I should not have to remind
you of the over 17,000 men, women, and children, who have perished in the
Florida Straits, so desperate with their lives in Cuba they were willing to try
and float 90 miles on a flat tire. Nor should I have to remind you of the
thousands of people who have suffered decades of imprisonment or have been
executed for their stance against the government, including almost all of the
true leaders of the revolution. Again, I am disappointed that you did not
think to ask Mr. Castro what was meant by the word paredón, chanted so often
throughout his 43-year rule. It means "the wall" and it is what
Castro spurs his own people to chant before "counterrevolutionaries"
are tied to a wall and shot in front of all. You can search any extensive
collection of archives and you will see some of that footage for yourself.
I know many Cubans who could not stomach watching the executions in Schindler's
List because it was a far-too-vivid reminder of what they had seen with their
own eyes in Cuba.
Not even concentration camps have been absent from the Cuban landscape in the
last 43 years. You said during your visit that a great movie should be
made about Cuba. One already has been. If you haven't already seen
it, I recommend Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls. For its brilliance
and beauty, it took the Venice Film Festival by storm just a couple of years
ago. In it, you get a sense of how homosexuals have been treated
throughout Castro's rule and you come to understand what "Mira Flor"
and "The Isle of Youth" have meant in Cuba. Prettier names than
"Auschwitz" perhaps, but the horrors committed in them cannot be
masked by any name. After seeing the film, it will not be difficult to
understand why organizations like Amnesty International and the United Nations
have condemned Castro's abuse of human rights year after year.
I love Schnabel's film for another reason. It is a poetic reflection on
the fact that beauty and art are what stand most at odds with tyranny and
hatred. It is a film about the capacity of beauty to thrive even in the
most horrific of circumstances. It is a film I could have seen you making.
Given all that I have said, I hope you can understand why it was one of the
biggest disappointments of my life to see you validate a tyrant as you did.
Countless celebrities have flocked to Cuba and recounted long nights spent
talking with the "charming" and "cultured" Fidel Castro
until the dawn's early light. It always upset me (Hitler could be this
charming - remember the home footage of him playing with children? - would they
want to spend their nights talking to him?), but never enough to write one of
them and tell them so. It was enough for me that the world's leaders and
intellectuals had finally come to realize the horror of his rule - let the
celebrities do as they please. I have much more respect for you, however.
As I said, I think you are as gifted an artist and giving a humanitarian as
there is. For that reason, I expected you on this trip to be the eloquent
enemy of tyranny that you have always been, but instead you insulted the memory
of the people you have portrayed and those of all the Cuban people who have died
at the hands of Fidel Castro. I still hold you in extremely high esteem,
however. And I am confident that if you look into any of the arguments mentioned
above, you will come to realize for yourself the amount of suffering that has
come out of Castro's rule.
© Nicolas Calzada