Photo credit: Joy Asico
“In Colombia, he is ‘The Nobel.’ They actually call him ‘El Nobel.’ They don’t even need to say what his name is. They just say El Nobel, ” Jon Lee Anderson – biographer, author, investigative reporter and staff writer at The New Yorker – told Hollywood on the Potomac at a private screening of Gabo: The Creation of Gabriel García Márquez hosted by T.H. Chris Dodd, Chairman and CEO MPAA and H.E. Juan Carlos Pinzon, Ambassador of Colombia to the United States. “He’s a source of real pride for a country that has been at war and associated with violent crime for over fifty years. He made them proud in a way no other figure really does. I know Colombia well, and I understand the way they feel about things. It’s been a source of real humiliation for them that most of the rest of the world associate them with crime. They’re proud. ‘Gabo’ gave them a reason to be really proud.” Anderson was raised and educated in many countries, including Colombia. He is the author of the article “The Power of García Márquez” and has been an adviser to the Peace Corps and USAID.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Production
The Embassy of Colombia, in collaboration with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Caracol Televisión, presented the movie. Directed by Justin Webster, the film is a documentary about the life and work of Colombian Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez. “Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century, he is best known for his novels, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975), and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985). and most notably for popularizing a literary style labeled as magic realism, which uses magical elements and events in otherwise ordinary and realistic situations. most of them explore the theme of solitude. On his death in April 2014, Juan Manuel Santos, the President of Colombia, described him as “the greatest Colombian who ever lived.” Production Notes
Photo credit: Creative Commons
“I was not involved in the film, but I was interviewed for it and they used me as a speaker and I was supportive of the project,” Anderson added. “Garcia Marquez, the subject of the film, was a wonderful man, the author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and a Nobel prize winning author. He was a friend of Bill Clinton and of Fidel Castro. Maybe you could make endless films about him: I think he was a special guy. I think they were very clever to make a decent, serious film about him. They began it when he was still alive, but he died during the course of it. It makes perfect sense to me.”
Jon Lee Anderson, Chris Dodd, Amb. Juan Carlos Pinzon and executive producer, Gonzalo Cordoba – Caracol Televisión S.A.
We were unaware of the Cuba connection and the interaction with President Clinton so we pursued that: “He was a young man when the Cuban revolution happened,” explained Anderson. “He went to Cuba actually right afterwards and he helped out in the newly founded revolutionary press agency that they started in order to do their own news. He worked there for about a year, but eventually left to continue writing his novels; but circled back to Cuba in the 70s after One Hundred Years of Solitude. It was a time when the US was at its most, I don’t know, bellicose, I guess you could say with Cuba. He was on the left. He befriended or was befriended by Fidel, and there began a friendship that lasted until his death, which was probably the most controversial thing Garcia Marquez ever did. We talked about it at length, and he defended it, saying that he had every right to choose his own friends. The US had done him no favors. They had put him on a blacklist. In fact, too, it should be a kind of source of national embarrassment. They didn’t allow him to travel there for many decades. Gabo insisted that he used his position to help a lot of people. He did that sort of behind the scenes (thing), including (helping) political prisoners. I grilled him a lot about this. I never thought that he was lying to me. I have no reason to believe that he was telling me anything but the truth. It seems borne up by what else we’ve learned. He was fascinated by power. He grew up as a poor man in a region made up by populations of powerless people and strong men. Bill Clinton himself regarded Gabo highly, and when he tried to repair relations with Fidel Castro in the 90s, it was to Gabo that he turned to. Gabo Garcia Marquez was his go-between.”
Chris Dodd
“It’s a celebration of one individual, but in many ways, it’s a celebration of your country,” said Chris Dodd when introducing Ambassador Pinzon. “Tonight’s film, containing interviews of world leaders, authors, and so many others, examines the life and legacy of this remarkable, remarkable individual. His writings not only transformed the world in regard for Latin America literature, which is the obvious statement, but his treatment of human emotions, of pain and love, and experiences that unite all of us as individuals. That left an indelible mark on world culture regardless of your ethnicity or background. His influence can be found throughout Latin America ……. in every form of art, from writing to painting, television. Colombia, as I mentioned earlier, is the third largest producer of film and television content in Latin America behind only the content produced inMexico and Brazil. Colombia is a major, major player, and as we talked earlier, I think could play even a larger role, global in film production. I hope that will be the case in coming years. According to the Minister of Culture, Colombian film premieres have increased over 500% over just the last decade alone. I believe in many ways, it is Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ inspiration to thank for helping those numbers become what they are. It was literature in a way, but it’s literature contributing to other art forms.”
Amb. Juan Carlos Pinzon
“Thank you very much for holding this important event for us,” responded Amb. Pinzon. “This wonderful documentary that we’re going to see tonight – Gabo, the creation of Gabriel García Márquez – I think is very important, very remarkable, and I guess to most of the people that are here – I see a lot of Colombian faces – I know what their heart is feeling in a way. Every time we mention the word Colombia, it doesn’t matter where we are in the world, we feel something different, and I know my fellow Colombians know what that implies. In the last decade, also in the last 15 years and even more, our country has gone through a dramatic transformation. The country really changed 180 degrees starting with security. Senator Dodd deserves a lot of credit for what is going on in Colombia, for what has happened. Your support has sustained that effort that we have done in Colombia to transform the country allowing people to recover freedom, to recover the opportunity to have a life.”
The Trailer:
