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Alcocer, Rudyard. "Word vs. Image in Afro-Hispanic Pedagogy: Ambiguity and the Racial Identity of the Mayoral in Tomas Gutierrez Alea's La Ultima Cena." Palara [Publication of the Afro-Latin/American Research Association] 13 (2009): 63-74.

Alcocer's basic aim is to explore how Afro-Hispanic students assess and analyze fictional characters in literature whose racial identities can be significant not only within the context of the tales, but also within the social interactions of the students. He references both a novel (Tiempo muerto) and this film in order to help him outline practical issues he has encountered while attempting to discuss race in the classroom. This essay raises such important questions as: Can we, in fact, talk about race in the classroom? When, for example, we see (or design) courses on Afro-Hispanic literature and culture, don't they presuppose the existence of their object of study? In other words, are there not, out in the world, such things as Afro-Hispanic culture or cultures with their related literary and cultural production? This essay would be particularly useful for someone looking to research racial tension in the classroom and, further, how stereotypical implications about race can affect the caliber of racial discussions. Though Alcocer specifically uses the term "Afro-Hispanic," the arguments in this essay could be relevant to a myriad of races.

Anonymous. Editorial. Cineaste 22.2 (1996): 1.

The editorial board of Cineaste pays tribute to Alea who, though he was a Cuban revolutionary, remained a pleasant man to be around, whose "wit and candor were a constant joy, whatever the political climate of the day." The Last Supper is mentioned briefly as a film in which Alea "plumbed the ideological roots of Cuba's experience of slavery." The writers think of Alea fondly when they went to hear him speak at the eleventh annual meeting of the Association of Third World Studies held in Tacoma in 1993, where Alea discussed the filmmaker's option to show reality or hide it: "A filmmaker could hypnotize an audience or try to connect with it. A filmmaker could inculcate a sense that the world is like it is and that there is no way of changing it, or the filmmaker could seek to stimulate the audience to criticism and participation." The article works as a eulogy, a benefit to anyone beginning to look at Alea's work.

Blasini, Gilberto M. "Cinema, History, and Decolonization." Film Analysis: A Norton reader. Ed. Jeffrey Geiger and R. L. Rutsky. New York: Norton, 2005.

Blasini explains that director Gutierrez Alea served a function much greater than just being a director. In country like Cuba, where the history is not only relatively unknown off the island but somewhat ambiguous and controlled on the island, too, film serves an important function in society. Gutierrez Alea's job was the keep the influence that slavery had on the nationalistic culture of Cuba alive, and he did so in a responsible and entertaining way that categorizes his celebrated work. While many people are not familiar with Cuban history, Gutierrez Alea's documentation not only unmasks the oppressions of slavery, its abuses for economic gain, and how institutions such as the Catholic Church exploited African culture, but also the internal culture of the slaves. There was a racial hierarchy within the slaves' ranks that created a microcosmic culture within the greater Cuban culture. And so, with critiques on nearly every aspect of Cuban slave culture in the 18th century, Gutierrez Alea most importantly gives visibility to an otherwise misrepresented facet of history.

Bogle, Donald. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. New York: Viking, 1973.

Bogle finds the criticism of the black in American film before and at the time this book is written to be both insufficient and misleading. He finds that what Peter Noble and critics like him from years past "clearly failed to see was what certain black actors accomplished with even demeaning stereotyped roles" (9). Bogle's work, then, attempts to do these performances justice. Moving through American movie history decade by decade, Bogle examines how the performances by blacks in the assigned roles of the times helped to move beyond such roles as the jester, the mamie, and the servant. Bogle sees his own time as an opportunity for the black to take an equal place in film to the whites, largely due to the work of preceding generations.

Chanan, Michael. "We Are Losing All Our Values: An Interview with Tomas Gutierrez Alea." boundary 2 29.3 (2002): 47-53.

Chanan raises the issue of the role of a movie director in addressing social and political matters in an interview that is not especially devoted to any particular work. In the first part of the interview, Chanan and Gutierrez Alea talk about “dialogue” that a movie creator is conducting through his work with his audience that includes not only general public but also other filmmakers. Then Gutierrez Alea explains the difference between the “correctness” and “effectiveness” of a movie as a tool for social criticism regarding the uniqueness of Cuban social and politic reality. He also comments on the fact that in Cuba film directors are expected to play the role of social critics. The loss of the values of the Revolution is a great concern to Gutierrez Alea who feels that the society in Cuba is about to “hit rock bottom.” In his opinion, the only solution for the problem could be “understanding and love among people” combined with adjustments to new economic reality. Finally, Gutierrez Alea proves that he is neither “dissident” nor “propagandist for the government.” He confirms his position of social critic fighting to restore deteriorating Cuban values.

Cripps, Thomas. Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in American Film, 1900-1942. New York: Oxford UP, 1993.

Cripps examines the role of the black in film during the first half of the twentieth century, particularly with films written and created by Afro-Americans.  Cripps cites the fact that American films notoriously depict the blacks as a clearly inferior and dangerous group as the primary reason for the book.  Looking through a variety films, Cripps gives kudos to several directors and actors who move beyond the barriers placed on the black by Hollywood such as Lucia Lynn Moses, a black actress of the 1920's.

Dauphin, Gary. "Motion Pictures." Village Voice 44.4 (1999): 64.

The Last Supper is briefly mentioned as one of Alea's better accomplishments and compared to a trilogy of slave films by Cuban filmmaker Sergio Giral. For Dauphin, Alea's film is a work that "nervily recasts the New Testament with 12 slaves and their owner, who sits down to dine with them in order to prove (mostly to himself) his essential good nature. Supper uses a mix of absurdity and brutality to approximate the unthinkable realities of widespread chattel slavery while also linking it to features of contemporary Cuban society: the peculiar apostolic rationalism of socialism, old-line Christianity, the island's color caste system, and its syncretic Afro-Catholic religions" (64). For Dauphin the film is among the more didactic of slave films, and Alea is to be commended for pushing these moral lessons on his viewer.

Davis, Natalie Zemon. "Ceremony and Revolt: Burn! and The Last Supper." Slaves on Screen: Film and Historical Vision. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2000. 41-68.

Davis speaks to the historical validity and realism of the films Queimada and La Ultima Cena, explaining the didactic significance of the films through introducing the filmmakers and their relation to their country of origin. Gillo Pontecorvo, director of Queimada, fuels the brute but honest violence in the film with his upbringing during WWII. Being in a Milanese resistance group during the war must have helped inspire the role of slave uprising and persuasion that occurs with the character Sir William Walker. With La Ultima Cena director Tomas Gutierrez Alea is motivated by his film studies in Cuba and the resistance and bans received by the pre-Castro Batista government. The filmmakers both rely on realism and historical/cultural relevances that give their films a grainy but authentic presentation. In naming the essay "Ceremony and Revolt," Davis makes a connection of blasphemous behaviors with the angry and driven actions of the slaves in both movies. In La Ultima Cena we have the slaves revolting after the master cannot keep his contract made during the ceremony. In Queimada Walker attempts to instill revolutionary qualities in promising new slave leader Jose Dolores, a ceremony of baptism for the leader in making. However, even after claiming the abolition of slavery in Queimada, the workers are still in revolt over the sugar plantations. Walker, now a member of a sugar company, plans to take care of the villages with fire.

Deaver, William O. "The Last Supper: Art as Propaganda." Romance Languages Annual 11 (2000): 438-41.

Deaver examines Gutierrez Alea's stylistic choices. Deaver believes this film instructs on "two levels: history made and history in the making." Gutierrez Alea's film, one about a slave uprising in Cuba on Easter in 1791, is not just a retelling of history but a "call to arms" to "overthrow oppression and inspire insurrection against imperialism and colonialism."

Downing, John. "Four Films of Tomas Gutierrez Alea." Film and Politics in the Third World. New York: Praeger, 1988. 279-301.

Downing is especially useful because of his attention to detail. The four films addressed in this essay are Death of a Bureaucrat, Memories of Underdevelopment, The Last Supper, and Up To A Certain Point. Downing’s analysis of the films tends to be chronological, in that he discusses the films from beginning to end. This approach is helpful in a film loaded with complex symbolism such as The Last Supper. Not only does Downing elaborate on Marxist imagery, but he also clarifies allusions in the dialogue. Downing’s analysis of the other three films is also enlightening and useful. He traces a pattern of technique and theme in Gutierrez Alea’s work and connects the films through the Marxist, existential, and absurdist motifs present in each. Downing’s essay presents Gutierrez Alea’s canon of work into a context that allows the reader to access the films individually or as a whole.

Gordon, Richard A. "The Slave as National Symbol in Cuban and Brazilian Cinema: Representing Resistance and Promoting National Unity in La Ultima Cena and Chico Rei." Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 15.3 (2006): 301-20.

Instead of revising or inverting older views of the European conception of a mixed-race society in Latin America, the directors Tomas Gutierrez Alea and Walter Lima focus on how these people are an “Afrolatino” people; they focus on the importance of recognizing African culture within a Cuban and Brazilian context. Gordon and the filmmakers alike view movies as a medium of the expression of self and nationality. They wish to step back from the common misconception that all Latin Americans are a mixed breed of European and native decent. African culture has played a large role in these countries and continues to do so today. The American "melting pot" axiom, which attempts to smooth out the often uncomfortable edges that separate humans racially, marks another pitfall for humanity. Rather than the elimination of races and religion, celebrate each one's individuality, and explore themes of harmonic cooperation. If a topic as harsh as slavery can be disarmed and transformed into a metaphor for peace and understanding, then filmmakers have exceeded their duties as social analysts and artists.

Gutierrez Alea, Tomas. "I Wasn't Always a Filmmaker." Cineaste 1 (1985): 36-38.

Gutierrez Alea explores his early childhood interests, which include (but is not limited to) painting and music, while humbling himself by professing his “lack of brilliance.” Still young, however, he discovered film could “synthesize all the things [he] liked best.” As a teenager he cherished his first 8mm camera and felt the hand of enlightenment by the hands of the philosopher Franz Kafka. He also became infatuated with the “Christ figure,” the embodiment of man’s pain and suffering. “Naturally I took His side against all those who dragged Him to the Cross… Jesus was the ‘hero,’ Mary was the ‘girl.’” Gutierrez Alea longed to demonstrate the “tremendous scope of movies as a mass medium” and harness their “power as an ideological weapon.” He concurrently despised those who justified mediocre film and art with a popular slogan. “I think I was luckier than other comrades who were just as eager to make movies as I was before the Revolution had triumphed.” After the Communist takeover, Gutierrez Alea gathered funds and formed a film team in order to apply his newfound skills revealed during his work with Cinerevista. “The triumph of the Revolution gave us an opportunity to develop everything for which we had been preparing ourselves for years and that we had been attempting for so long without much success. . . . My activities as a filmmaker have been centered around the period in which we are living; the difficulties involved in the process of transforming our society; recognition of the objective obstacles facing us; and the incessant, obsessive struggle of subjective obstacles.” Alea is currently inundated with projects, many which he will not have time for. However, he stresses not to overuse film as a medium of social transformation, but to create in order to “satisfy a need for expression and communication, a need to establish contact with the world -- not just to enjoy it more.”

Gutierrez Alea, Tomas. "The Viewer's Dialectic." New Latin American Cinema: Theory, Practices and Transcontinental Articulations. Ed. Michael T. Martin. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1997: 108-31.

Gutierrez Alea’s Marxism shines through in this essay crafted around the principles of aesthetics in film. He is very concerned with the social value of film and spends much of the essay discussing and debating the best use for film. Not surprisingly he is very critical of Hollywood’s capitalist abuse of film and declares such productions as “empty stereotypes.” Gutierrez is also very interested in the dividing line between documentary and fictional cinema. His theory, which is the heart of his essay, combines the two forms of film in a modernized Horatian principle of art: that art -- or film in this case -- should not only move emotions, but it should also influence the intellect. Gutierrez expands this theory to a discussion on the active spectator, arguing that film should transform the viewer into a "participating" being. This essay is an extremely useful one for scholars who wish to focus on the complex philosophical and social theory behind Gutierrez Alea’s films.

Gutierrez Alea, Tomas. "Beyond the Reflection of Reality." Cinema and Social Change in Latin America: Conversations With Filmmakers. Ed Julianne Burton. Austin: U of Texas P, 1986. 115-31.

In this interview Gutierrez Alea discusses the relationship of Cuban cinema to his films and his technique as a filmmaker. A major part of the interview is dedicated to Gutierrez Alea’s groundbreaking film Memories of Underdevelopment. The discussion of this film underscores Gutierrez Alea’s signature technique that combines documentary with symbolic styles. Gutierrez Alea appears committed to revolutionary politics as well as revolutionary filmmaking. He links the birth and development of Cuban cinema with the 1959 revolution. He further describes the new style as one that “forced us to adopt an analytical attitude toward the reality that surrounded us.” In general, Gutierrez Alea tends to be a very enlightening and informative speaker. This interview is no exception to that rule; in it he maps out the terrain of the Cuban film and demonstrates its vitality. This selection is especially useful to those interested in the criteria Gutierrez Alea uses to shape his films.

Havard, John C. "The Typological Rhetoric of Tomas Gutierrez Alea's La Ultima Cena." Hipertexto 7 (2008): 58-67. http://www.utpa.edu/dept/modlang/hipertexto/docs/Hiper7Havard.pdf

Havard focuses on how Gutierrez Alea utilizes Biblical typology as a form of criticism, using several examples to elucidate the idea that typology is still used in contemporary society in both films and literature. Havard uses typology to show how the characters emulate or deny morally righteous individuals from the Bible. The Count takes the role of Jesus within his rendition of the Last Supper but fails to retain his moral sincerity. Gutierrez Alea wishes to use the image of the Count to criticize the hypocritical role of religious elite as well as Christianity as a whole in colonial Cuba. Havard also makes an argument for Don Manuel and the slaves to represent some sort of Christ figures. Don Manuel seems to symbolize the cruel and brutal God of the Old Testament, while the slaves (we must overlook the obvious connection between the slaves and the disciples) represent Christ in his situation in Golgotha. Sebastian seems to become a foil character for the Count because they are the only characters to choose their destinies. Gutierrez Alea supports their connection by placing them in shots where they appear to be seated side by side. Havard makes the argument that these two characters represent the two parties that had or have power in Cuba, mainly the colonialists and the revolutionists.

Miller, Paul B., and Dennis West. "Memories of Underemployment, Thirty Years Later: An Interview with Sergio Corrieri." Cineaste 23.2 (1999): 20-23.

Sergio Corrieri, now working in the Cuban government, worked with Tomás Gutiérrez Alea both in The Last Supper (what part he played is never clear) and Memories of Underdevelopment, what has largely been considered Alea's masterpiece. Corrieri brings up The Last Supper in passing, crediting it as a film where Alea was able to exploit the strengths of his actors. Corrieri comes back to the film later in the interview, saying that what he likes most about the film is that it is "raw and tough," qualities which Corrieri believes make it a better film than Alea's Strawberry and Chocolate.

Mraz, John. "Recasting Cuban Slavery: The Other Francisco and The Last Supper." Based on a True Story: Latin American History at the Movies. Ed. Donald R. Stevens. Wilmington: S.R. Books, 1997. 106-22.

Mraz assesses the similarities and differences between Tomas Gutierrez Alea's The Last Supper and Sergio Giral's The Other Francisco in an effort to analyze how slavery in general is presented on screen. Mraz makes note of The Other Francisco's use of juxtaposed cinematic forms, one being the documentary style in contrast to the highly polished cinematic counterpart. Both films represent slave resistance as a huge aspect of the slave narrative. Overall the essay argues that both films accurately portray many aspects of slavery, ranging from their uprisings to the way in which their masters would have beaten them. The author finally claims that it is The Last Supper that provides a better look at the world of slavery, while The Other Francisco seems to bring about the best questions.

Representacion extendida por Don Diego Miguel de Moya y firmada por casi todos los duenos de ingenios de la jurisdiccion, en enero 19 de 1790.

Alea's film seems to be based on the incident described in this document.  The piece is unavailable in English and attempts to locate it have been unsuccessful up to this point.  The information is given by Fraginals.

Rich, B. Ruby. "Tomas Gutierrez Alea 1928-1996." The Village Voice 30 April 1996: 62.

Rich eulogizes the deceased Gutierrez Alea (affectionately known as Titón). As Cuba’s most famous and talented film director, Gutierrez Alea “frequently dedicated his film work to themes of injustice and oppression.” He remained loyal to Cuba’s revolutionary government throughout his life. He once held a press conference with Robert Redford on Strawberry and Chocolate, Cuba’s first film treating gay themes. A romantic at heart, Alea’s loss will be “deeply felt throughout Latin American and the world that its cinema inspired.”

Schroeder, Paul A. "The Last Supper: Marxism Meets Christianity." Tomas Gutierrez Alea: The Dialectics of a Filmmaker. New York: Rutledge, 2002.

With the help of the film, Schroeder compares Christianity in Cuba in the 1790s and Cuban Marxism in the 1960s, paying close attention to Cuban history in both decades. Notably, Schroeder studies the economic models created by Christianity and Marxism -- “sugar” and “moral” economies respectively. Although these two economic models were quite different, they shared certain features that the author sees as crucial to the understanding of Cuban history: power was exercised by a few, workers were controlled in a “paternalistic” way, workers’ material motivation was reduced, the workplace was militarized, and, most importantly, noble human aspirations were distorted. Thus The Last Supper is represented as an allegory of contemporary events in Cuba. However, most of the article is devoted to the period in the Cuban history in which the events of the film take place. As a resource, the author uses a “classic postrevolutionary historiography” -- Manuel Moreno Fraginals’ The Sugarmill, written in the 1780s. Thus, the article gives considerable historical background and expands the understanding of the film’s meaning and significance.

Smith, Valerie, ed. Representing Blackness: Issues in Film and Video. New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 1997.

The position and criticism of the black in film has changed rapidly since black migrations from the rural South into urban centers in the North and West. As opportunities and wages for the black remained low, the black became synonomous with these urban centers. This fact becomes a starting point for this collection of essays, including pieces by James Snead, Thomas Cripps, and David Van Leer. Smith's selections seek to intervene in the debates concerning black representation in visual media, showing how these debates have been presented and criticized. The films covered are diverse, ranging from Birth of a Nation to Van Leer's piece on Black gay and lesbian film. While the topics are hard to keep related, all deal with the changing and challenging role of writer and actor in moving beyond the stereotypical role of the black in film.

Snead, James. White Screens, Black Images: Hollywood from the Dark Side. Ed. Colin MacCabe and Cornel West. New York: Routledge, 1994.

James Snead died in 1989. This book is an attempt to unify and complete several pieces Snead had been working on or completed up until his passing. Several films where the black is exploited or misrepresented are the focus of the essays, examining such films as King Kong and Birth of a Nation. Snead claims that, while Birth of a Nation is an attempt to reunite the northerner and the southerner, the black desire for and need of justice gets lost in the equation. Snead's chapter on female, black film stars in the thirties is definitely work looking at, where Snead claims that Mae West and other white, female stars of the time became succesful through the complicity and encouragment of black women.

Taylor, Clyde. The Mask of Art: Breaking the Aesthetic Contract in Film and Literature. Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1998.

Taylor's book focuses on what he calls the "politics of representation," challenging the viewer of aesthetic pieces to resist the world he is told to believe in when he experiences a piece of art. Taylor focuses much of his work on the "Black Aesthetic," a group he feels began with the intention of working against the largely white power structure that dictated the subjects and messages of art, but soon found themselves furthering the control of the power structure they were supposed to be fighting against. Through sensory manipulation in painting, music, and film, Taylor sees a need for artist and audience to transcend beyond their presumed roles and look beyond the worlds they are told to present and believe.

Toensing, Holly Joan. "'Who Do You Say That I Am?': Identity and Discipleship in The Last Supper and the Gospel of Mark." Journal of Religion and Popular Culture (Fall 2006): 14--.

Toensing’s argument is based upon a close analysis of the figure of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. Whether Gutiérrez Alea was specifically interested in that Gospel is of no concern for Toensing, as she describes her work as a reader-centered cultural studies approach. She organizes her work around specific images of Jesus -- the “dolorous Christ” and the “celestial monarch Christ” -- which she presents as perpetuating imperialist oppressions. Toensing logically applies these images, coupled with information from the Gospel, to four major characters: the Count, the Priest, Don Manuel, and Gaspar Duclẻ. She also discusses several slaves as possible Christ figures, including Sebastian, but this is the briefest part of her work, as she is clearly more concerned with imperialist portrayals of Christ. This essay is most useful in its close readings of the aforementioned characters and in its demonstration of Gutierrez Alea’s criticism of religious symbolism.

West, Dennis. "Slavery and Cinema in Cuba: The Case of Gutierrez Alea's 'The Last Supper.'" Western Journal of Black Studies 3.2 (1979): 128-33.

West discusses the symbolism and social stratification (achieved through lighting, music, and filming techniques) of the dinner scene in particular. He also compares and contrasts other films that use the famous Last Supper scene, including a roman banquet orgy scene and a truly blasphemous scene found in The Phantom of Liberty in which the guests sit on toilets around a large table. West also discusses whether the use of Christian ideologies in the film are self-harming, as in the Count's case, or whether they are positive and humanitarian, as in the case of the slaves.

Wood, David. "Tomas Gutierrez Alea and the Art of Revolutionary Cinema." Bulletin of Latin American Research 28.4 (2009): 512-26.

Wood does not focus specifically on La Ultima Cena but discusses the politics behind creating films in communist Cuba, portraying Gutiérrez Alea as a type of cinematic godfather for the whole of Cuba’s film industry. Wood describes how four Gutiérrez Alea films, Memorias del subdesarollo, Hasta cierto punto, Fresa y chocolate, and Guantanamera may be seen to closely reflect the popular revolutionary sentiments of the day. Wood describes the ways in which Gutiérrez Alea crafts his films to serve as a dialogue between the state and the public. By this method, Wood asserts that he has paved the way for the next generation of directors, actors, and producers to enjoy the success he had.

See Also

Bakhtin, Mikhail. Problems of Dostoyevksy’s Poetics. Ed. and Trans. Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1984.

Chanan, Michael. "Imperfect Cinema and the Seventies." The Cuban Image: Cinema and Cultural Politics in Cuba. London: BFI, 1985.

Chanan, Michael. Cuban Cinema. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2004.

Chijona, Gerardo. "La Ultima Cena: Entrevista a Tomas Gutierrez Alea." Cine Cubano 93 (1977): 81-89.

Crowdus, Gary. "Up to a Point: An Interview with TGA and Mirta Ibarra." Cineaste 14.2 (1985): 26-29.

DuBois, Laurent. Avengers of the New World; The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 2004.

Gutierrez Alea, Tomas. "History as a Weapon -- Past and Future." Polygraph 1 (1987): 53-55.

Dubois, Larent. Avengers of the New World; The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 2004.

King, J. Magic Reels: A History of Cinema in Latin America. London: Verso, 1990.

Martinez-Echazabal, Lourdes. "The Politics of Afro-Cuban Religion in Contemporary Cuban Cinema." Afro-Hispanic Review 13.1 (1994): 16-22.

Pick, Zuzana M. The New Latin American Cinema: A Continental Project. Austin: U of Texas P, 1993.

Rollins, Peter C. The Columbia Companion to American History on Film: How the Movies Have Portrayed the American Past. New York: Columbia UP, 2003.

Sanchez Crespo, Osvaldo. "The Perspective of the Present: Cuban History, Cuban Filmmaking: The Last Supper." Reviewing Histories, Selections from New Latin American Cinema. Ed. Coco Fusco. Buffalo: Hallwals Contemporary Arts Center, 1987. 197-2000.

Watson, Tim. Caribbean Culture and British Fiction in the Atlantic World, 1780-1870. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008.

Video/Audio Resources

A Son of Africa. California Newsreel, 1996.

Olaudah Equiano, an African forced into slavery who travelled the world under several different masters and eventually bought his freedom, wrote one of the first slave narratives to earn national recognition. This piece is a docudrama based on Equiano's autobiography. Equiano's life is shown as best as it could be in twenty-nine minutes. The journey begins with Equiano being kidnapped around his home in West Africa, with special attention being paid to his methods of educating himself and surviving in the white world. A good source for examining the dramatization of the slave narrative, though extremely brief considering the subject matter covered.

Tales from Havana. S.I., 1993.

Unseen; information from WorldCat. An interview with Alea, concentrating on his 1968 film Memories of Underdevelopment. Alea discusses the government's policies towards film making, art, and responses to American film.

The Last Supper (1976) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjVERQVLi4U

Nine-minute clip from the film, from the beginning of the "Last Supper," when the Count explains what it's all about, till he speaks of humbling himself Christ-fashion.

Online Resources

Brophy, Stephen. "Tomás Gutiérrez Alea." Film Reference. http://www.filmreference.com/Directors-Fr-Ha/Guti-rrez-Alea-Tom-s.html

Facts and brief analysis of Gutiérrez Alea's career.

Levin, Julia. "Tomás Gutiérrez Alea." Senses of Cinema. http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/alea.html

Essay and filmography on Gutiérrez Alea.

Stanley Kaufmann on films: Human Rights. http://www.thenewrepublic.com/magazines/tnr/archive/07/072898/kauffmann072897.html [Archived]

Kauffmann looks at Alea's last film, Guantanamera. He pays close attention to the progression of Alea's work since Memories of Underdevelopment put him on the foreign directors' map. Alea, who once was a strong supporter of Castro's regime, creates a film that mocks the revolution on many levels.