Before Night Falls RC

Before Night Falls directed by Julian Schnabel is a film based on the memoirs of Reinaldo Arenas. The film basically takes us through the life of Reinaldo Arenas. In the beginning the reader is introduced to his childhood and upbringing as a guajiro. Then we experience his journey in the revolution, the censorship of his writing and discrimination of homosexuals, and finally his escape to New York. After watching this film the first this that stood out was Arenas ability to express his homosexuality. At this time in Cuba homosexuals were being sent to camps and exiled. Arenas continued to write and continued to express his thoughts. Arenas never gave up and continued to fight against the Cuban system especially when in prison. His early involvement in the revolution, and smart mouth as a child also show how strong minded this individual was. Overall, Arenas was able to overcome adversity through a very unstable time in Cuba and be a voice of hope to those hiding their homosexuality.

MRB - Before Night Falls

The film Before Night Falls, directed by Julian Schnabel tells the story of Reinaldo Arenas' life. The film begins with rural childhood and his early embrace of the Revolution to the cruel persecution he would later experience. Arenas begins to question the revolution that he once was advocating when Castro and his infidels begin censoring his writing and persecuting his homosexuality, which is not something that is allowed in Castro's Cuba. The Police capture Arenas and bring him to a rehab center for homosexuals who they plan on turning straight, but Arenas refuses to give in to the pressure and stands strong in the face of intimidation. But Arenas soon learns that he is not alone in the struggle for acceptance when he kissed by one of Castro’s soldiers. Arenas is surprised by this but is glad to see that he is not alone; this gives him even more incentive to be who he truly is and not conform to the straight man’s society. Clearly these men have been conditioned to believe that being homosexual is wrong and they must hide their urges for the fear of being persecuted themselves. The film portrays Arenas’ departure from Cuba in 1980 as well as his exile and death in the United States. It is a portrait of a man whose search for freedom – artistic and sexual, who defied poverty, censorship, persecution and exile.

ERK- Before Night Falls

In this movie, we see Reinaldo Arenas as a victim of a paranoid society. He is at first caught up in the spirit of revolution, but later realizes how misguided the revolution has become as the government begins to censor his work. For being a poet and a homosexual, he is portrayed as a counterrevolutionary and essentially victimized for no reason. Arenas struggles to find his place as a homosexual in a society where the idea of public homosexuality and the gay lifestyle are only just becoming an issue. Arenas is clearly a very courageous man as we can see by his experiences with the police and his imprisonment in el Moro. He could have easily told the police whatever they wanted to hear and left prison as a "rehabilitated" straight man. The movie gives us the impression that Arenas is in a small group of academics who see the hypocracy of society's behavior toward homosexuals. Even army officers and police seem to have homosexual tendencies; one army officer even kissed arenas. Thus, it appears that the new government has a policy based on fear of the unknown that almost everyone knows is ridiculous and nobody chooses to speak up and advocate change.

House of Spirits - SK

The movie and the novel The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende reveal a few magical realistic elements, and both share a similar plot. Allende shows some magic realism with Clara having psychic abilities, which is also revealed in the movie. However Allende was unsuccessful in making Clara’s ability any special. In the text, Esteban is shown going around and raping all of women on his property, this is different from the movie were he rapes once as opposed to many. Allende portrays Esteban as a harsh and ruthless character, where as in the movie he appears less cruel.A few characters were taken out from the movie, such as Barabas, which creates a magical realist effect of the fusion of time. The movie appeares to show very little magic realism, and some minor plots did not show up such as when the earthquake crushes Esteban’s bones, and having Pedro operate on him. Overall, Allende seems like she wants to create a magical realism story based on what happened in Chile and how the revolution took place in her point of view. However the book focused more on the plot than the magic realism effect.

House of Spirits RC

The House of Spirits by Isabell Allende compared to the movie seems to have very similar plots. The main criticism of these works where the fact that they are both considered to be great works of magical realism. Yet they both exhibit very little true characteristics of magical realism. Isabel Allende tries to mimic a few characteristics if magical realism but seems to fail at her attempts. The main way that that Allende tries to show magical realism is by giving Clara the main character the abilities to be a clairvoyant which is also shown in the movie. By giving Clara clairvoyant abilities one would assume that because these are works of magical realism that her abilities would help to uncover something about the culture or some deeper meaning to what the author is trying to convey, but Allende fails to make Clara’s ability anything but an additional dimension to her plot. There were also a few important characters that were simply not present in the movie. Barabas, Marcos and the twins were not present in the movie. In the novel Barabas seemed to be another one of Allende’s attempts at magic realism. In the novel Barabas is key to her attempt at fusion of time but he is nonexistent in the movie. Another main difference between the novel and the movie is that Estebans character in the movie is played down compared to the novel where he seems to be amore harsh and demanding man. Overall, Allende’s attemps at magic realism seem to have all failed at conveying some type of message, and in the movie they are even weaker because of the missing characters and have some small changes.

The House of the Spirits- ERK

The movie and the novel "The House of the Spirits" by Isabel Allende demonstrate very few magical realist elements however, they do share an intriguing plot. The plot of the movie and the events reported in the book are slightly different. In the book, the eathrquake is portrayed as a major portion of the plot that allows Esteban to rebuild Tres Marias and become a hero among the laborers. At least in his mind, he is able to use this as justification for viewing himself as a hero. Also, in the book, Esteban breaks almost every bone in his body and Pedro sets the bones for him; this causes Esteban to feel some respect for Pedro. In the movie, Esteban views himself as a shepherd of the campesinos and thinks that his contribution to their lives has been more along the lines of insureing stability and order at the hacienda. The earthquake is only a minor portion of the movie and Esteban is not injured by it. Also in the novel, Esteban rapes and terrorizes almost all of the women on his ranch, but in the movie, Esteban has one incident of rape with one of the peasant women. Thus, his reputation with women is downplayed in the movie. However, Esteban's reputation for harshness with the campesinos is exaggerated in the movie when he whips Pedro Tercero for spreading communist beliefs among the workers. This scene is emotional, because Pedro Segundo is forced to watch as the Patron whips his son. Later in the story, the book portrays the revolution as a lengthy process. First, there are elections and then, political changes, then the government is dissolved, then the military takes over. In the movie, the political changes seem to go straight from business as usual to a revolution and political turmoil. Also, in the movie, Blanca's experience in the revolution seems short albeit brutal. In the book, Blanca is regularly interrogated over the course of an extended prison stay and it finally dumped after what seems like a few weeks or months rather than just a few days. Another important part of the book that is missing in the movie is that Barabas is not included at all in the movie.

house of spirits - JPA

The novel, The House of Spirits, and the movie that is created from it have many differences that become evident as they both progress. First of all Esteban Trueba is depicted very differently in the book than he is when you watch the movie. In the book Esteban is depicted as a very mean man that has raped man women throughout his life. However, in the movie Esteban shows a lot more compassion towards the people around him and is said to have only raped one person (which still does not make him a good person). There is also a difference between the love that is shown between Esteban and Clara. In the book, Esteban is persistently pursuing Clara whereas in the book Clara proclaims her love for Esteban.

Other key differences between the movie and the book come with the absence of some characters/places and also the age of the characters during which all of the events happen. Two major characters that are omitted for the movie are Jamie and Nicolas. Also, the house on the corner that is constantly referred to as the house of spirits is omitted for the movie. Alba is a lot younger in the movie than she is in the book so when all of the events happen she is younger than a teenager so it changes the ending to the book where her lover, Miguel, is not present. This change in age causes a lot of the events from the book that happen to Alba actually happen to Blanca in the movie. In the movie Blanca is the one who is taken away by the military force, which in the book happened to Alba because she had been dating Miguel.