Is Violent Revolution Really The Answer? Tom ” as Guti ” erred Alea’s La ‘Ultima Cena (The Last Supper) The ideas I intend to express in the following paper are in no way meant to make allowances for the practices of slavery or racism. As I begin this paper, I feel the need to remind the reader that I find slavery, in all of its forms, to be an oppressive and terrible institution. I unwaveringly believe that for centuries, including this one, the narrow-mindedness that slavery has perpetrated is one of the most terrible humiliations leveled upon our civilization. These views are meant only to assess and illuminate the construction of slavery in film. When it comes to films concerning slavery, the role of the filmmaker as educator is significantly heightened. Very often, slavery films unconditionally disparage whites as oppressive forces and stereotype the white class as uniformly tyrannical.
The sympathetic, yet comparatively powerless, whites in this arrangement are frequently left out, giving credence to a stance that portrays race as a division between villains and martyrs. While I see an effort in Tom ” as Guti ” erred Alea’s The Last Supper to move beyond these depictions, how successful the film rises above the typically extreme constructions of character in the slave film is a difficult judgment, particularly for a film from a Cuban director during the Cold War. For John Mraz, the representation of history in Tom ” as Alea’s The Last Supper is commendable work. Mraz believes that the film joins a cinematic compilation where “films meet many of our expectations about what history ought to be” (120). Mraz maintains his praise of Alea’s historical constructions, asserting that the way the film addresses history is impartial and objective: “The Last Supper follows the classic model of both written and filmed history in insisting on the reality of the world that it has in fact created, however much this universe has resulted from research.
The major convention of such history is that it has opened a window onto the past rather than constructed a particular version of it” (121). While I have no qualms with Mraz’s assessment of the uses of the film’s construction of history on the Cuban plantation, I find that the window Mraz speaks of offers a much more vague version of reality than Mraz indicates initially. The validation of slavery by the white people in the film comes off as ridiculous, and yet the abstract strategies to defend slavery that are at work in the film coincide with the arguments used by slavery allies throughout the nineteenth century. Here I intend to explore the view of slavery being pushed on the audience through The Last Supper, a message I find to be a vague one. A constant problem I find in slavery films is that the pro-slavery argument is made to look ridiculous, a design that lends itself to disagreement, a problem definitely represented in this film.
The white characters of the film, whether compassionate to their slaves or not, agree that the African is an inferior being, a savage, privileged to be taught the civilization offered by their slavery. The most patently ridiculous defender of the slave order is the Count. The Count pushes on the slaves the idea that environment has made them inferior and that any ills brought on them are the result of their own foolishness. His view of the world in general is blatantly preposterous, making the institution ludicrous and tyrannical.
This depiction is a perilous one, in that it implies that slave owners unvarying ly believed that blacks were second-rate and that slavery made the African race profitable to the world. This outlook was certainly acknowledged by many whites of the time; however, many slave owners, particularly around the time of the American Civil War, believed slavery was immoral and aberrant but were unwilling to change the system because their economic survival depended upon maintaining the institution of slavery in regards to their businesses. This line of reasoning presents a much different version of inhumanity; one that emphasizes that such evils are the result of economic needs rather that an inborn callousness. The priest offers a more authentic perspective on slavery, defining Christianity as a slave-oriented religion, one that depends on blind obedience from all. In the priest’s paradigm the whites are slaves to God, and the blacks are slaves to both whites and God. The reward for both slave and black is heaven, when the chains come off and sacrifices made in this lifetime are avenged: What is it like to go to Heaven? To go to Heaven is to see God, to be with God, to live in his house…
not in the kitchen, but in the dining room… You eat at God’s table… with the Most Holy Virgin who is our mother… and with the angels and saints who are our brothers. That’s what going to Heaven means. Up there…
nobody gives orders, nobody dislikes anyone… nobody fights or gets angry. All love one another. Nobody says, “This is mine and this is yours.” Everyone’s got enough.
Isn’t that wonderful? Doesn’t it make you long to go heaven? To go, you must be pure… and keep the commandments. The slave must do his duty as a good slave. He must respect and serve his master as God requires. He must love him, because God commands this. (0: 17: 19) The message of this sermon is one of submission.
It states that while it certainly pushes an inferior position on the blacks, Christianity compels slavery on all of its followers. The priest also attempts to push this ideology of the Christian slave on white members of the plantation, particularly the manager, Don Manuel. With the exception of his death, Don Manuel’s most complex fight in the film is with the priest over whether or not the slaves should work on Good Friday. The priest’s motives can only be to satisfy God by having the slave’s rest, since there could be no other political motive for arguing with Don Manuel at this point in the film.
The priest sees the slaves taking off on Good Friday as the final component of the Count’s religious obligation. In enforcing the Count’s obligation to God’s will, the priest is not defending the slaves’ rights for the slaves’s makes; instead, he is trying to make Don Manuel a slave of religious doctrine. The priest has two motivations for demanding the slaves not work. The Count’s order and religious implications imply that through these powers Don Manuel has no choice in the matter and must do as ordered. When Don Manuel refuses to bow to this domination, his behavior is a catalyst for a revolt begun by the Count’s promises, the film’s punishment for going against the established religious order. In this sense, the frames where Don Manuel and the priest fight over whether to stop the work bell or keep it ringing is a tremendous accomplishment for the film.
The natural power struggle here between religion and economics exposes four symbolic positions: The religious need to respect and enforce God’s law through the priest, the owner’s insistence on a lenient policy in regards to the management of the plantation through the Count’s indiscernible presence, the economic need of the overseer to make sure production remains high through Don Manuel, and the slave caught in the middle of these three ideologies through the bell ringer. Understanding Don Manuel’s characterization becomes vital to grasping the conflict here, a conflict the film exposes without defaming anyone, at least in this scene. Don Manuel, in the position of overseer, is in a position believed to require cruelty. The main principle of his position in the film is not to beat slaves. Don Manuel is paid to produce cane. The best way to achieve his goal is by controlling the slave force through fear and brutality.
Executing the cruelty believed essential to achieve the desired production requires the mind set that the slaves are Godless and lazy creatures, beings who exist only to serve and who can best be made to work through constant abuse. While the film certainly passes judgment on Don Manuel’s view of the slave, his reasons to work the slaves on Good Friday are solely financial. Falling more behind in the work is unacceptable, as is the idea that the slaves could possibly understand religion. To recognize this assertion makes Don Manuel’s treatment of the slave’s an economic necessity rather than human abhorrence. The priest believes that giving the slaves rest on Good Friday is Christian law, a law that goes beyond the financial rationalization Don Manuel gives as reason to work them. The priest seems to become the champion of the slave’s, while in reality his reasons are more centered on staying within the bounds of Christian doctrine, rather than those of human decency.
Allowing the slaves work without protest, he endorses sin, working on a day when work is forbidden. The cruelty of Don Manuel’s schedule may be a concern, but only a political one. The priest, having an idea of what transpired at the supper, is warning Don Manuel that he may be causing a revolt, not that his treatment of the slaves is morally unacceptable. Manuel Moreno Fraginals confirms this self-interested portrayal of the sugar mill priest as historically correct: Especially after 1780, numerous permits for sugar mill chapels were granted many impecunious priests immigrated to Havana from Spain and the United States.
Francisco Barrera y Domingo, an eyewitness, tells how European priests settled in sugar mills and prospered in the Lord’s service with masses, intercessions for the departed, marriages, baptisms, and Negro prayer instruction classes. They soon came into conflict with their superiors. The priests became sugar mill employees rather than members of the clergy, and this broke the hierarchical Church structure: while these men made their little piles in the sugar mill, and absorbed the religious offices in neighboring mills, cathedral coffers got a less than satisfactory share of the cash in circulation. (52) Fraginals also points out that, at one time, the church approved the enslavement of Africans: The local Church dutifully built up a body of doctrine justifying slavery. It was based on the belief that the chief reason for bringing the black savage from Africa was to redeem him by work and teach him the road to Christian salvation.
This lent the sugar mill the fragrance of a redemptive shrine and transformed the slave trade into a rosy-cheeked missionary society. (53) The priest touts humanity through self-preservation, a detail which makes him part of the uncaring and selfish white majority. His label of slaves vacillates between Christian children and “daughters of Satan” (19: 45). Such a construction makes the priest unacceptable to Alea’s audience, certainly a friend to the slaves.
The Count is made the vehicle of the revolt. He is the personification of the evils of slave society. The Count orders or watches several terrible act of viciousness which are visited upon the slaves. He either condones the brutality through silence or demands it through rage. His conversation with Don Manuel over the mill production during Holy Week releases the viewer from any sympathy for the Count. This scene illuminates his behavior and morality as despicable: Don Manuel: The priest is not responsible for this year’s production.
Count: Holy Week must be respected. God must be obeyed. Don Manuel: I’ll have to whip them harder. Count: Why tell me? It’s your business – you ” re the overseer. But the church must be respected.
(0: 07: 35) The Count’s indifference to morality is offset by his reaction when he sees this brutality at work. When Don Manuel cut’s off Sebastian’s ear as punishment for attempting to escape, the Count is so traumatized he must be taken away with assistance. However, the Count overturns this compassionate characterization by later saying that Sebastian’s puis warranted: You see where your pride has brought you, Sebastian? You don’t learn. You ” re stubborn. Overseer orders, niggers must shut mouth and obey.
This happens to nigger because they ” re stupid. So the overseer is right to treat you like this. Nigger run away, overseer catches him. He must punish him hard, so nigger doesn’t do it again. (0: 32: 15) The Count’s course of action provokes anger from the audience. While he cannot bear to see such violence, he maintains that the violence is warranted.
He comes off as hypocritical, a character flaw that contributes to the revolt, which will take place the next day. While he would never personally beat the slave, he gives orders to control the slaves as necessary, knowing they will be beaten. He will allow the slaves to drink at his table, but not to worship in his church. The inconsistencies in his character are troubling to the viewer. The film attributes these inconsistencies the institution the Count thrives on.
Tomas Alea’s characterization of the count is a difficult one to assess. In many ways the character construction of the slave owner is both truthful and treacherous. He has a scientific explanation of the black’s natural advantage in manual labor, mixed in religious undertones. This coincides with traditional slave supporter rhetoric. The rhetoric suggests a God who creates Africans as mentally inferior and physically inclined for labor. This allows that the institution of slavery serves as both scientifically and religiously just: The black man is better prepared by nature to be a slave…
to be more resistant to pain. Who ever saw a white man singing as he cuts sugar cane? The black man, however, always sings. That’s good, for with song he forgets what he is doing… and his spirit rejoices. The white man suffers more than the black man when he cuts cane. Well now, God arranged things in such a way…
that the Negro has an innate aptitude for cutting cane. You could say he was born for the fields. (0: 56: 40) The slaves’ reactions to this rhetoric, moving between anger and laughter, authenticate the viewer’s resentment of the Count’s justification. This is a dangerous way to represent history. The portrayal of the Count is as liar.
We are shown that his view of the world cannot be argued with and must instead be violently overthrown. Through this characterization of tyranny and the reaction to it, Alea may be inciting the wrong kind of change. The Count now becomes a variable to the slave, rather than a constant. He contributes to a chaotic order, which the slave must work through. His fate results from the failure of the white power structure to agree on what the slave should do. If the slave rings the bell, he disobeys the God he is constantly told will punish him if he is not obedient.
If he stops ringing the bell, he faces the brutal punishments that keep him submissive. These mixed messages come from different sources, but two of these are sources that try to be consistent. Don Manuel’s actions are directed toward productivity, while the priest’s actions coincide with God’s law. But the count is impossible for the slave’s to understand. He has no desire to give any opportunity to the slave’s understanding of white society. The Count’s behavior at the supper is confusing enough to the slaves.
He preaches obedience and punishment, yet he forgives Sebastian for spitting in his face. He emphasizes submissiveness to the overseer, yet he calls the overseer a bastard later in the evening. The Count’s behavior with the whites outside of the supper is just as confusing. He reprimands Don Manuel for not respecting Holy Week, yet when Don Manuel explains what has to be done to maintain production he refuses to listen; defending his refusal by indicating that what has to be done to keep up production is not the Count’s concern. The Count approaches the reenactment of the Last Supper with a great deal of enthusiasm, later backtracking that energy and devotion by labeling the supper as an obligation.
After the revolt he demands the slaves’ heads be put on pikes, personifying the savagery he accuses the slaves of demonstrating. His final speech is self-mocking, a testament to his oppressive and misguided view of the world: I humbled myself, and seated them at the Lord’s table… but they were never satisfied and keep asking for more. Then God, chastising me with all His strength… made me understand that my heart was ensnared in dark thickets. I shall have no peace until my abode is raised anew…
and the temple is cleaned of those who traded with my heart… and the whole mill arises from its ashes into plenty. For this, and so that God may assist me in that work, I shall raise a new church on this site, to Don Manuel’s memory. It will stand as witness to all the sorrows of these days, but also to all the joy of our Christian triumph…
over bestiality and savagery. Amen. (1: 43: 52) Such a characterization makes the Count discreditable to the point of being ridiculous; leading the audience to accept that whatever the Count says cannot be taken seriously. The other clearly pro-slavery character, Don Manuel, has been made villainous through his violence. While his force is meant to serve economic purposes, the viewer, nevertheless, watches him beat slaves, cut off Sebastian’s ear, and discuss putting slaves in the stocks as a daily chore. Excluding a vague priest, we are left with two pro-slavery advocates.
The Count, whose arguments are made ridiculous and Don Manuel, who has become so desensitized by his own cruelty, that he becomes entirely unsympathetic to the viewer. This character construction of the slavery supporters is a perilous one. It is an ideology that endorses violence to overthrow a violent order. The film portrays the revolt as the result of the Count’s inconsistencies intermingled with the untiring viciousness of Don Manuel. The mention of Santo Domingo indicates that the Count’s slaves should also aim to overthrow their oppressors through violence, without any help whatsoever from the society controlling them. The film concludes with Sebastian running through the wilderness, fulfilling his earlier prophecy of defeating the Count through violence and magic.
Sebastian’s escape in the final scene overcomes the viewer’s image of the slave’s heads on pikes, justifying the revolt and venerating the changing of the system through violent means. However, history indicates that the slave revolts were not only unsuccessful for the rebelling plantation, but that these revolts were also hazardous to the slaves on other plantations. The revolt of Santo Domingo damaged that area’s control of the sugar market, causing a rise both in Caribbean sugar markets and the slave trade. On a more realistic level, the revolts were almost always put down, leading to even more oppressive management of the plantations. The revolt of the slaves was always a fear of the owners who were terrified of the slave’s opportunity for revenge if they became free. Knight’s research demonstrates the even the hint of a revolt meant brutal oppression: The supposed slave revolt of 1844 had absolutely no foundation in fact.
Basing its actions upon the testimony of a female slave that the blacks on a Mtanzas plantation were conspiring with many outsiders to foment a rebellion, the government of Leopoldo O’Donnell precipitately moved in and arrested nearly two thousand whites, free colored persons, and slaves. No one knew the exact number of executions, which included the well-known free colored men Andres Dodge and Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdes, otherwise known as ‘El Placido.’ Many innocent free persons suffered imprisonment and exile to Melilla and Ceuta while the slaves who escaped death were brutally flogged. (81) Not only did revolts lead to more cruel lives for the slaves of the rebelling plantation but for all the plantations and mills of the area. The slave owner’s paranoia was justified by the revolts. It gave credence to the idea that the slave only thought about revenge, and that revenge could only be controlled through strict, cruel treatment and constant abuse.
The cruelty of the whites in the film, fused with the mixed messages of the authority figures, blames the whites for the behavior of the blacks. This blame is redeemed through Don Gaspard. Don Gaspard never beats the slaves, partially out of human decency and partially because he has come to the Cuban plantation with knowledge of the dangers naturally present in the slavery system. He never adopts the Count’s view of the slave as inherently inferior and lazy, nor does he accept Don Manuel’s view that the best means of production comes through beating the slaves into productivity. Don Gaspard’s hiding of Sebastian from the ranchers is the only genuine act of kindness between the races in the film. More importantly, there is no reward for his behavior.
Once Sebastian retreats to the other room Don Gaspard’s life is not in danger. There is also not a tangible reward for hiding a rebellious slave. This is genuine compassion, recognition by a white man that the slavery institution is wrong. It is also a commitment to do what he can to fight that system. His generosity makes the behaviors and ideologies of the Count and Don Gaspard even more upsetting to the viewer. However, the film implies that Don Gaspard’s enlightened nature is the result of rebellious violence.
His previous experience in Santo Domingo reminds him that slaves cannot always be controlled. It is through this experience that he knows that when held through violence, slaves will take revenge on their oppressors when given opportunity: “Because I know them [slaves]. There were more blacks there than whites or mulatto’s. Now only blacks are left. I don’t want to see my head used by blacks as a football” (0: 25: 05).
The slaves of Santo Domingo, through a violent revolt, have created a more liberal mentality in an overseer, a chain reaction that holds dangerous political implications. While I certainly agree that Don Gaspard’s view could be accomplished through the lessons of violent revolt, Don Gaspard can only be considered an exception. History makes clear that, by and large, revolts meant torture and death for the slaves caught, and even harder life for obedient slaves. In closing, while Alea goes beyond the characteristic divergences inherent of slave films, I find his representation of revolt as a perilous construction. Sebastian’s view of the world is glorified. The principles practiced by the whites in power incite anger in the viewer, pushing us to hope for a revolt without thinking about the negative consequences, which loom ominously in the future.
In a tyrannical system, defiant to change, violent overthrow is an unvarying fear. Once that fear is actually realized, those in power become all the more resolute to maintain power through the viciousness and brutality those revolts are meant to eliminate. The outcome is seldom glorious; instead, it is usually tragic. We must remember that the end of slave cultures usually resulted from economic or political pressure put on political leaders by free men in the system, not those meant to be under it. Works CitedFraginals, Manuel Moreno.
The Sugar mill: The Socioeconomic Complex of Sugar in Cuba, 1760-1860. New York: Monthly Review, 1976. Knight, Franklin W. Slave Society in Cuba during the Nineteenth Century. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1970 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. La ‘Ultima Cena (The Last Supper). Dir. Tom ” as Guti ” erred Alea. Perf.
Nelson Villa gra, Leandro M. Espinosa, Tito Junco, Elio Mesa, Silva no Rey, Luis Salvador Romero. Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematograficos, 1976. (Spanish).