Reinaldo Arenas is a famous Cuban writer that lived in a period of great political changes. His book Before Night Fall is an autobiographical narration about all the hardships that Arenas had to overcome, including his imprisonment and Castro’s revolution regime. The book also has its screen version directed by Schnabel in 2001. However, the autobiographical narration emphasizes the details of Arenas relations and his homosexual orientation whereas the movie is more focused on the representation of the political and cultural situation in the United States and Cuba and how those events affected Arenas’ life.
At the age of six, Reinaldo discovered that he was a homosexual so that in his narration he reflected on how his childhood was spent. Living in poverty, he was always surrounded by women so that female excessive attention played his role. The feminine environment was usual for him and he got quickly used to them. In his book, Arenas makes the flashbacks to Saint John’s Day where on the riverbank he watched naked men bathe. From that moment, he discovered his sexual revelation. “To see all those naked bodies, all those exposed genitals, was a revelation to me: I realized, without a doubt, that I liked men” (Arenas 8). As a significant point in Arena’s life, Schnabel recreated this scene in the movie; the six years old boy hiding behind the tree and staring longingly at the naked men bathing, splashing, and engaging in horseplay. Comparing the book description of this moment and its screen adaptation, it should be stressed that Arenas presents the reader with more detailed passages related to his relationships and experience in childhood whereas the movie gives only some brief images of these events. Instead, the director is more concerned with Arena’s description as a future writer.
In the memoir, Arenas explores the later years of his childhood thus reflecting on the relationships that facilitated his sexual explorations. One of the first experiences Arenas chooses to mention to the reader is not one with another, but one with animals, “First there were the hens, then the goats and the sows, and after I had grown up more, the mare” (Arenas 10). When Arenas was engaged in the intercourse of several animals, his first experience of mutual penetration to be with his cousin Orlando, when he was eight and Orlando was twelve. While playing together around a plum tree, Orlando decided to drop his pants, and expose himself to Arenas. Both started to play a game of chase. However, when Orlando caught up with Reinaldo, this game stopped being a usual game of two boys. Instead “What happened than that he stuck his penis into me and later, at his request, I stuck mine into him while files and other insects kept buzzing around us” (Arenas 11). This experience described in the book was not the last one in his childhood; he further describes several more relationships with his uncle, grandfather, trees, fruit, and animals. Nevertheless, despite Arenas’ obsession with these encounters, Schnabel closes not one to include in the screen version.
In the book, the writer expresses his attitude to Cuban Revolution through eroticism and homosexuality in particular. Being a teenager, he joined the revolution bur on the advent of Fidel Castro to power, the new leader showed his resentment for the artists in particular. In those times, history witnessed severe prosecution of Cuban homosexuals at the end of the revolution. The core of the Cuban Revolution was to eliminate homosexuality to stabilize economic and political life in the country. The new ideology despised homosexual relations, as they distorted the innovated outlook on the economic and social system of the country after the revolution (Balderston et al. 136).
In this book, Arena narrates about these times as a new stage of sexual relationships. He expressed his outright hatred for Castro who, in Arenas’ opinion, tried to reveal the fact that homosexuality is the normal way of life for the greatest part of Latin men: “In [Cuba], I think, it is a rare man who has not had sexual relations with another man. Physical desire overpowers whatever feelings of machismo our fathers take upon themselves to instill us” (Arena 19). In the book, there is an emphasis on sexual determination whereas, in the film, Schnabel depicts the constant prosecution of a gifted writer thus omitting the abstracts where Reinaldo repeatedly manifests his sexual domination. Being under Castro’s dictation, Arenas enters the encounters with his early lover, Pepe. Arenas showed that his complicated relations were due to the revolution. However, the film did not reveal his attitude to Castro.
In his memoirs, Arenas devotes many chapters to describe his lovers. Hence, he writes, “Lezama had the extraordinary gift of radiating creative vitality. After talking with him I would go home at my typewriter and write because it was impossible to listen without being inspired” (Arena 83). His admiration for Lima was due to the similarity of outlook on the political situation in Cuba. Arenas also recognized Lezama as a rather intelligent and gifted person. The writer was impressed with his modesty thus considering him as a person who did not like to boast by his extraordinary knowledge. Arenas was captivated by his character and his strong-willed personality.
In the film, Lezama Lima was described as the stereotyped Cuban writer and ideologist, the Cuban Godfather who also tried to resist the revolution. The scene when Arenas meets Lima does not comprise to what extent the write was overwhelmed with Lima’s ideas. Moreover, in the screen version, Schnabel omits the abstract when Lima allowed Arenas to borrow five books at once. The film adaptation reveals Lima as a secondary hero that had no particular influence on the writer.
The most striking moment in the books is dedicated to Arena’s depiction in the prison. Here the author put an emphasis on his hard experience of violence and dirty that he had to endure. The book presents the abhorrent picture of being in jail the way he was treated by other imprisoned and the overseers: “Some prisoners, unable to bear tortures, committed suicide. Inside the prison, suicide was difficult but some took advantage of the occasion” (Arenas 185). The reader can perceive what tortures Arenas experienced, especially when everyone knew that he was a homosexual. Being in the prison, he condemned the Castro policy. For the horror that he suffered in jail, that autobiographical work was a kind of revenge for this experience. Therefore, being in prison his main goal was to hold together as a writer and as a homosexual. Arena realized what the system does with the imprisoned homosexuals. In the memoir, Arenas thoroughly depicted the jailed system and criminology. By showing the veritable events taking place in prisons, he intended to show that he had numerous encounters with the men from military forces who rejected their homosexuality. He also wanted to uncover the duality of their personality. In that regard, the heavy blond transvestite in the night was Lieutenant Victor in the day whose duty was to guard the prisoners.
In the film, Schnabel manages to show the dirty and the hot, the horrible tortures of homosexuals, and Castro’s unjust sexual policy. However, it is natural that the film is incapable to convey all the emotions endured by Arenas that was jailed in the camera where he could not even stand straight. The film is also the manifestation of the ignorance of the human rights of Fidel Castro. Therefore, the treatment of homosexuals within Cuban jails was part of that radical policy. There are many facts about the imprisonment of innocent people only for being homosexual (Lumsden 88). Lumsden writes, “Considering the society’s historical ingrained homophobia, it would be surprising if prison guards treated maricones in a particularly human way” (88). Arising out of this it is false to state that Fidel Castro was honest in his treatment of gays as he was elusive about jail conditions.
After Arenas’ release from the El Moro prison, he decided to move to Miami, to start a new life, and to continue writing. His decision to leave Cuba was due to his weak health so that he was just “to die just close to the seaside” (Arena 287). Thus, Miami observed the author’s degradation. In the United State, he feels mortified by the daily routine and the banality of American life, where everyone strived to the so-called “American Dream”. He also described Miami as a “town that I do not wish to remember” (Arenas 150). In the film, Schnabel did insert the abstract about his life in Miami thus immediately revealing Arena’s sickness in New York. It was Schnabel’s mistake, as Miami was a crucial point in Reinaldo’s life.
Describing Arenas’ first impressions about his life in New York, Arena writes that he enjoyed this life, as the city proposed a lot of opportunities. He admired the variety of cultures presented in one place so that the writer was delighted. He was fond of “streets that were really lively, and all kinds of people who spoke many different languages; [he] did not feel like a stranger in New York” (Arenas 293). But further, he realized that this city is a wretched place where people are rational machines with a primitive outlook on life.
The director of the film was not succeeded in showing his early life in New York. Instead, she moved right to the period of sickness when he suffered from AIDS. Instead, the film presents the audience with a horrible picture of suicide in New York, he was terrified with the idea of being sent to hospital and die there. Arenas was very disappointed with the life and language and with the people that surrounded him.
In conclusion, Arenas’ memoirs were the greatest testament of Cuban political and cultural life. He was one of the representatives of anti-communist policy who defend the human rights of homosexuals. The book is the evidence of cruel policy against sexual minorities and the Castro outright hatred for the artists and homosexuals. Finally, Reinaldo Arenas was considered one of the most scandalous personalities who was not afraid of revealing his own homosexuality.
Works Cited
Arenas, Reinaldo. Before the Night Falls. US: Penguin, 1994.
Balderston, Daniel and Guy, Donna J. Sex and sexuality in Latin America. US: NYU Press, 1997.
Lumsden, Lan. Machos, maricones, and gays: Cuba and homosexuality. US: Temple University Press, 1996.
Schnabel, Julian 2001. Before Night Falls. Javier Bardem, Olivier Martinez. El Mal Picutres.