Carlos Cruz's Second Act

In February 1998, several year after its release, Castro himself called Guantanamera "harmful to the revolution." According to Rios, Castro, who had never seen the film, changed his mind months later and apologized to members of the arts community -- but only in private. "He never said it in public or in the media," Rios says.

And Fidel never forgave Titon for Guantanamera, Vega says. Suffering from cancer and in need of an operation, the director requested that it be performed at the government hospital where Castro himself is treated. But obstacles were thrown in his way, and the surgery took place elsewhere.

"Titon talked to Alfredo Guevara, but it did no good," remembers Vega. The last time he saw Gutierrez Alea, he adds, the director cursed both Castro and Guevara. Vega left Cuba in 1995, about six months before Gutierrez Alea died. While in North Carolina for a cultural conference, Vega received word that Raul Castro, Fidel's brother and head of Cuba's armed forces, had delivered a stinging speech against intellectuals and dissolved some institutions that promoted cultural exchanges with the United States. Vega never went home.

Guantanamera haunted not only the director but Cruz as well. Castro's condemnation of the film in 1998 was "the beginning of the end for me," he says. Soon after Fidel's public comments, "turbas [pro-government demonstrators] tore down a television antenna on the roof of my house. Men started coming up to me in the street and whispering, “Estas sucio' -- You're dirty. I went eighteen months where I didn't get a single job. One time, when they were casting a new film, Waiting List, the director picked me, but then he got a phone call from someone, and I was removed from the cast."

"Carlos was marked as an enemy of the government," says Vega. "That was why his career suffered, whereas other actors who had appeared in controversial films, but weren't as critical, continued to work and thrive. But there was another reason. Other top Cuban actors -- notably Jorge Perugorria , star of Strawberry and Chocolate -- were making film careers both inside and outside Cuba.

"Carlos never developed a career on the international scene," Rios adds. "If you did, if you were well-known in other countries, that would serve you, protect you to a degree. That applies to any artist in Cuba. Tomas Sanchez, the painter, got an award in Spain, and that protected him. Pablo Milanes is a revolutionary, but he has also said critical things and nothing happens, because he is so well-known outside the island. I think next to Reynaldo Miravalles, Carlos has been the best of the Cuban actors, but he never achieved that international following."

Cruz says when he did receive a foreign offer, the government tried to block it. A Spanish hotel chain wanted to feature him in a television commercial directed at attracting tourists to Cuba. Cruz maintains that Cuban officials tried to dissuade the company. "The government said, “What happens if this guy defects? That won't be good for tourism, will it?' The Spaniards gave me the job anyway. Maybe that's what gave me the idea to defect: the government itself."

In September 1999 Cruz was invited to collaborate with a theater group in New York (he prefers not to name it). "They knew nothing of my plans," he explains, "and I don't want to ruin their ability to collaborate with other Cuban actors." From New York he flew to Miami and requested political asylum.

"I admire Carlos," says Rios. "First, he has talent. He didn't use anyone with influence as a ladder to get ahead in Cuba. He did it on his own. Also he never denied that Alicia was counterrevolutionary the way some others did. When asked, he didn't say anything. I'm sure he misses acting, but he'd rather be free, be himself. In Cuba from the hour you wake up, you have to put on your mask. I think he was fed up with the mask."

After years of pretending to go along with one system, Cruz refuses to don yet another mask in Miami when it comes to his political views. "I'm not sorry I lived the revolution," he says. "And I would never embrace the far right here because it reminds me too much of the far left in Cuba."

But Cruz also continues to cast a professional and critical eye toward Castro, as the Cuban leader plays his role on the world's stage. "What Fidel has is an absolute sense that he is the protagonist," he explains. "What Fidel desires is millions of people applauding him."

Like an actor.

Doesn't Cruz want the same thing? He smiles wryly and shrugs, "Yes, I guess I do."

Lights, Camera, Reaction
A contemporary Cuban film star discusses art and politics

Luis Alberto Garcia is one of the most successful movie actors working in Cuba today. Costar of heralded films such as Guantanamera and Life Is to Whistle, plus 34 other movies in the past sixteen years, he has chosen to live on the island while many of his colleagues have defected.

New Times asked Garcia to address the question of artistic freedom in Cuban cinema, which he did via e-mail from Havana.