Apparently even HBO has a moral high ground. And it goes something like this: Mobsters, naked hipster New Yorkers and nyphomaniac lovers of funeral-home workers are acceptable cable fodder; vicious Cuban dictators are not.
The network that has received both criticism and praise for its cutting-edge original programming has pulled the plug, at least temporarily, on Oliver Stone's Comandante, a documentary on Cuba's longtime leader Fidel Castro. But after several recent severe crackdowns in the communist country, HBO execs have decided that the film, which was scheduled for broadcast next month, will be indefinitely shelved.
"In light of recent events, we felt unless Oliver Stone can return to Cuba and interview Castro...it was somewhat dated and incomplete," an HBO spokeswoman told Reuters Thursday.
Comandante is the result of Stone's three-day visit to Cuba in February 2002. The Oscar-winning director grilled Castro on a variety of subjects, ranging from the Cuban Missile Crisis to Castro's relationship with revolutionary Ché Guevara and his love of music and the movies. The result is a look at the human side of a man who has been a thorn in the side of the United States for decades.
"We should look to him as one of the Earth's wisest people, one of the people we should consult," Stone told reporters after the film was screened at the Berlin Film Festival in February. At the time, HBO was also supportive. After the network acquired the documentary, a spokesperson called Comandante, "a very interesting look" at Castro, adding, "it's very rare that a filmmaker or a journalist gets that much access."
But the times are a-changin', particularly after harsh crackdowns in Cuba on dissidents following the start of the war in Iraq. The government has jailed 75 Castro opponents for upwards of 28 years each and has also executed three men who hijacked a ferry in an attempt to flee Cuba for America.
Stone's rep said the filmmaker was currently traveling and had no comment on HBO's move, but officials at the cable net have reportedly been in touch with him about revisiting Cuba and asking Castro about recent events. No decisions have been made, but HBO rep Lana Iny told the Associated Press, "We'll have to look at what Oliver's able to do."
Human rights groups are praising HBO's actions.
"To have provided a platform for Castro to try to whitewash his sins would have been an unforgivable insult to the thousands of men and women who suffer in his tropical gulag," Jorge Mas Santos, chairman of the Cuban exile group the Cuban American National Foundation, told the Associated Press.
"The executions have definitely shocked the conscience of a lot of people and probably the producers," Ramón Saúl Sánchez, founder of the Democracia Movement, told the Miami Herald. "But if the makers had done their research, they would have learned that Castro has been doing this from the start of his regime. He has executed some 30,000 people. But we welcome that the producers have decided to respect the memory of those that died."
Regardless, HBO officials say the decision was not made because of pressure from outside groups, and they hope this film sees the light of day eventually, calling Comandante "still in the works."
It may prove difficult to get Stone back to Cuba any time soon, however. He's currently getting ready to shoot Alexander, a biopic about Alexander the Great starring Colin Farrell, which will likely keep him busy throughout the summer and into the fall.