Maceo in Havana, Part 2

The Director

Excited by the possibility of updating and rewriting my screenplay about Antonio Maceo, I began to re-visit books by Syd Field and Robert McGee and others that promised to unleash the secrets of successful screenwriting… I also started reading screenplays with more frequency, even if they had nothing to do with waging war or achieving independence from a mean and powerful empire.

Some screenplays I couldn’t put down, such as Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs.” And others I enjoyed more than the actual movies, such as Steve Martin’s “LA Story” and Tarantino’s “Natural Born Killers.”

Lucky for me the San Francisco Public Library had lots of screenplays I could borrow, and many screenplays were now appearing in book form.

But, even if the screenplay was properly completed and I was to get a producer or agent in HollywoodLand to read it, and buy it, who could direct it?

Tarantino and Maceo are a great match, but Maceo also matches well with African-American directors such as John Singleton or F. Gary Gray or Antoine Fuqua or Spike Lee. These guys may be a better choice, since they’ve not announced a formal retirement from making movies.

Still. Imagine the headlines: “Tarantino postpones retirement to direct a movie about Antonio Maceo.” One thing I like about him is his willingness to remind us of the racist nature of our culture… hidden from textbooks and denied blatantly by its most visible supporters. (I refer mostly to the brilliant dialogue in “The Hateful Eight” and the plot to “Django Unchained.” Yet, to this day, my favorite Tarantino movie may still be “Jackie Brown.”)

One thing I dislike about him is his willingness to change facts for the sake of dramatic accent marks. “Inglorious Basterds” being my case-in-point. The memory of Maceo demands that his story be told with honesty. (Not to blame it all on Tarantino, but there are many that probably believe this is how WWII ended.)

Mario Van Peebles made a Western (“Posse”) that I liked at the time but was panned by critics. It featured a black man returning from the Spanish-American War to seek revenge on the man who lynched his father.  Van Peebles’ film seems much more relevant today, as our President revives the racist feelings America nurtured in private while not saying the “N” word in public. I looked up Roger Ebert’s review from 1993. He’s still one of my favorite film critics. Except, of course, for those times when he’s completely full of shit, as he is with “Posse” (and with “Death to Smoochie” in 2002).

Ebert’s review of “Posse” hints at potential problems with a movie about Maceo. He clearly acknowledges that the story “needs to be told.” “It is a West not often seen in Hollywood movies,” he adds in reference to the presence of black people in the real West but not in the celebrated Hollywood Westerns of yesteryear that came before his time. (I will look up what Ebert had to say, if anything, about those Westerns.) Then he obliterates the film; “Unfortunately, Van Peebles is never able to find a clear story line and follow it.” Ouch… this hurts more because it’s not true. “The movie is action without meaning, violence without the setup that would make it meaningful.”  

Denying our racist history is a well-practiced artform. Now more than ever. We all know its there, we just avoid discussing it. 
I usually enjoyed Ebert’s reviews. But let’s not forget that, like most critics, he was sometimes completely full of shit.

Richard Price’s screenplays were also lots of fun to read, and I enjoyed William Goldman’s as well, including “Magic.”

I began to really think that I could finish my screenplay, that my original flawed attempt was not that far off the mark… that if I abandoned the academic nature of the timetables I could create a film about Maceo that could gain something like the popularity HE had with Black Americans in his time… (some used “Maceo” as a first name for their male children).

Dreamer-logic seemed to be on my side… I was the perfect person to write a movie about Maceo. I spent over a decade researching Maceo and his role in Cuban history… I was a natural movie-lover and story-teller… and I was convinced that Maceo’s bravery on and off the battlefield would inspire new generations.

But simple logic does not a movie make anymore than simple math a U.S. Presidential election decides.

I was warned against a 2^nd act scene in which Maceo and Spanish General Santocildes have a brief conversation and Maceo expresses that he would never accept Cuba falling into the hands of the U.S. Empire, which was also Martí’s fear, and what actually happened after their death.

Brad Pitt could act the hell out of General Santocildes, the proud Spaniard who faced Maceo in battle years earlier and has a great deal of respect for the Cuban… and he knows it is almost inevitable that they will face each other in battle again. (Don’t ask me what happens. You’ll have to see the movie.)

In the past decade things have changed in Hollywood, which suddenly seems much more Democratic than Washington. Even if it’s only dollar-Democracy. Suddenly even the Academy Awards seem multi-cultural.

The same world-wide audience that embraced “The Black Panther” would love Maceo in Havana.  

How to sell Maceo In Havana to the public

Today, the world is much more sympathetic to Cuba than our public media would admit.  

And this is where Hollywood’s dollar-Democracy could benefit the memory of Antonio Maceo.

Almost a full century before Castro, Maceo faced the Spanish Empire with fierce devotion and was embraced by Cubans for it. But he became so hated by the Spanish Empire, in that special way that only empires know how to hate, that they wanted to kill him.

In between the failed 10 Year War (1868-78) and the Final War for Separation from Spain (1895-98) the empire sought to rid itself of Maceo through numerous assassination attempts. (Castro still holds the record.)

The natural elements in our story provide an easy “sell” in a post-Black Panther market:

·       Indigenous people fighting for independence

·       Battles on horseback

·       Overdressed Spanish royalty, with black-slaves-dressed-in-white, decrying their God-given right to rule The Pearl of The Antilles ­­

·        Near-naked rebels with clubs and machetes

 Blacks and Whites joining hands for freedom

·        A small but proud neighbor country establishing its own identity through independence from an oppressive regime

·        Lots of bloody machete attacks   

·       Fires, explosions, executions

·       Maceo’s battle call “Al machete!”

·       José Martí’s speech at Steck Hall!

·       More in-house fighting than in all the “Avengers” movies combined

·      The final expulsion of the Spanish Empire from the Americas!

You could easily reassemble these bullet-points into a Marvel 3-D extravaganza that could add billions to Disney’s pockets. (I’m sure there’s still room in their pockets for more.)

Netflix or HBO or Amazon Prime also could score big with this project. Right now, there isn’t a single movie about Antonio Maceo, even though his life featured (naturally) all the things that the top-grossing motion pictures of the past ten years have in abundance: violence, heroics, blood, explosions, romance, betrayals, tragedy, relentless scumbags, traitors and backstabbers, needless human suffering and brief moments of celebratory happiness. And it isn’t fantasy from a publishing conglomerate, but a true story of a people still fighting for their independence.

Can what remains of the traditional Hollywood Studios make such a movie? Or is it up to the new guys?

Will a big-screen film about Antonio Maceo lead to peace and harmony throughout the world? A time of commerce and trading unlike any in history?

Please don’t answer that.

NEXT: Who would play Antonio Maceo?

Maceo In Havana: A Movie - Part 1

The Screenplay  

Shortly after the panic and celebration that marked the new millennium nearly two decades ago, I wrote a screenplay about Cuba’s iconic Antonio Maceo.

“Maceo In Havana: The Life and Wars of Antonio Maceo” took me nearly three years to complete, including long-periods in which I could hardly think or talk about anything else.

Seen from afar, Antonio Maceo’s life was the most natural 3-act play.

Act one. Maceo is born (June 1845, Santiago de Cuba) and grows into a strong and healthy young man. He marries María Cabrales and shortly thereafter the Ten-Year War begins (1868). This can be seen as the beginning of Cuba’s civil rights period and Maceo grows into a loved and respected military leader. As he rises through the ranks, he loses his father (Marcos), his two daughters and two brothers to the war. Sadly, the war ends in stalemate (1878) and many Cuban rebels are forced into exile.

Act two. Maceo in exile. In Santo Domingo, he’s ambushed and forced to fight for his life… in Costa Rica he becomes a successful farmer… yet he continues to actively plan the next war for Cuban independence; but the rebels suffer set-backs and frustrations and he almost fights a duel with friend and compatriot Flor Crombet. He visits New York and is shocked at how black people are treated. He meets Martí. He visits Cuba with permission from the Spanish Empire (1892) during which he shares a civil moment with Spanish General Fidel Vidal de Santocildes.

Act three. In 1895 Maceo returns to Cuba for the Final War for Cuban Independence. Marti and Jose Maceo (Antonio’s brother) die in battle early on. The battles are fierce, and war historians claim the bloody Invasion of Cuba’s Western provinces to be one of the great military feats of the 18^th Century. Maceo dies in battle (1896), but his name has already become the stuff of legends.

The Western Invasion, led by Gomez and Maceo, is said to be one of the great military feats of the 19^th century.

Route of The Western Invasion, 1896

The title, Maceo in Havana, reflects the hope and aspirations of the Cuban rebels at the time. It meant that the rebels had reached Havana, which had not been the case in previous wars (The Ten-Year War and The Little War). Havana is where the island’s power-base was situated. Fidel Castro’s celebrated arrival in Havana (January 1959) owed much of its momentum to Maceo and the Generation of ’95.

What happened to Cuba after Spain left the island is not what the rebels fought for.  U.S. intervention (1898) forced Cuba into a U.S.-style government.   

Eventually I realized that my story had too many characters… that my script was strictly following Maceo’s life as documented in the Antonio Maceo Timeline, at historyofcuba.com,  (http://historyofcuba.com/history/mactime1.htm). And since so many of those close to Maceo died in battle… it seemed that characters were introduced in one scene and killed in the next… I had to do something about this, but I didn’t want to short-change history for the sake of expediency.

A movie is different than an academic timeline. A movie is not a history book… but a movie should stick to the truth of its subject.

Maceo and the Cuban Rebels cross the TROCHA into Havana in 1896

I noticed some abstract similarities with Mel Gibson’s Braveheart… specifically how in both stories the wealthier classes opposed the popular leader for fear of their support among the lower classes. William Wallace spoke truth to power in a way that power didn’t want to hear. “You think the people of this country exist to provide you with position,” said Wallace, “I think your position exists to provide those people with freedom.”

You can find the script for Braveheart here, though I suspect this isn’t the final version.

Braveheart banks on the word “freedom,” to make a point not strictly based on an academic timeline… but we tend to know much more about Maceo than we do Wallace, if only because we have more recent evidence of Maceo’s life, which was yesterday by comparison.

The Ten-Year War might have ended differently if the Havana-Cubans… the owner class… had not feared Maceo’s popularity. Some of this complexity is hinted at in a first-act letter that Maceo writes to the Republic’s first Cuban government (in arms). The letter is almost exactly as it appears at historyofcuba.com.  But ours is mostly an action movie that just “happens” to be a true story.

Still, in the end it may turn out that Maceo’s fiercest enemy was not the Spanish Empire, but the idea, held by some influential Cubans at the time, that Cuba should become a U.S. state.

A Southern state.

A slave-holding, Southern state… though, by the time of the third and final war against Spain (1895) the thought of “slave-holding” had evolved to “U.S.-style racism.”

In his battles for Cuban independence, Maceo survived 24 battle wounds, coming near death on several occasions. He achieved unprecedented military victories against superior forces and survived numerous assassination-attempts from a declining empire that claimed the right to control Cuba and Cubans. Can you imagine a more outdate idea?

In his time, the Spaniards called him The Lion. Today, Cubans still call him Maceo.

NEXT: Who could direct a movie about Maceo The Lion?