Ché Guevara: The Man and the Myth as Reflected in “The Motorcycle Diaries”
Ché Guevara: The Man and the Myth as Reflected in
“The Motorcycle Diaries”
Che is still popular on
College Campuses 40+
years after his death (Ché
Chic, 2004).
Does the popular movie The Motorcycle Diaries introduce the real
Che to this generation or just add to his myth?
The Motor Cycle Diaries was based on Ernesto Ché
Guevara’s journal of his 1952 trip through South America,
Notas de viaje, translation by Ann Wright published as
The Motorcycle Diaries: A Journey around South America
in 1995 (Che Guevara, 2002).
•Ernesto and his friend,
Alberto Granado take
off from Buenos Aires
in December 1951 on a
1939 bike they call
“The Mighty One.”
•They make a 9,000
trek through their
homeland, then Chile,
Peru, Ecuador,
Colombia and
Venezuela.
(Salles, 2004).
But “The Mighty One” does not prove to be so mighty and dies
along the way so they have to make the rest of the trip on foot,
hitchhiking and by boat completing the trip four months later than
anticipated (Salles, 2004).
The film was directed by Brazilian, Walter Salles
and stared Mexican Actor, Gael Garcia Bernal.
The Motorcycle Diaries won the 2005 Academy
Award for best Foreign Language Film.
It was a beautifully filmed and well acted movie but how accurately
did it depict South America in the 1950’s and how much did it tell us
about the person Ernesto Guevara Serna was and the revolutionary
he became as Ché Guevara?
Washington Post film Critic, Stephen
Hunter (2004) says the picture is “less an
evocation of Ché the man than Youth the
experience (para. 1).”
Let the world change you and you can change the world.
Movie:
Guevara was changed
by this experience into
a revolutionary while on
his journey (Salles,
2004).
Reality:
Guevara was influenced by his mother’s
radical political ideas. At age 14, he
joined the Partido Union Democratica
and participated in violent protests
against the government of Juan Peron.
On the other hand,
clearly this trip
confirmed his beliefs
that the poor,
especially the
indigenous peoples of
South America, were
oppressed by the
wealthy
Latifundia
was a system of land tenure that concentrated land ownership in
the lands of wealthy estate owners. These estates were worked by
share croppers or migrant worker who had no share in the profits
and could be displaced at the will of the land owners.
•This concentration
of land ownership
began with the
Spanish conquest
of South America,
grew worse with
independence from
Spain in the 1800’s.
•The situation had
not improved by
the 1950’s when
Guevara made his
trip.
•Today, half a
century later,
inequality of land
ownership is still a
problem in parts of
South America.
Machu Picchu,
the "Lost City of the Incas"
•Royal estate of the Inca emperor.
•Abandoned about the time of the Spain inquest.
•Never found so not destroyed by the Spanish
•Rediscovered by explorer Hiram Bingham’s in 1911
“How is it possible
to feel nostalgic for
a world I never
knew,”
Perhaps the Inca’s most amazing accomplishment was a
series of highways that connected the empire and made
communication and governing possible. (How hard it
would have been to pave roads over the Andes!) The Incan
empire was the largest and most powerful of the Pre-
Columbian civilizations.
Tupac Amaru
Puppet emperor who
rebelled against the
Spanish government and
the Catholic Church in the
late 16th Century.
Alberto is inspired to unite the
Quecha, form a party and
encourage the people to vote.
He wants to “reactivate Tupac
Amaru’s revolution .”
Ernesto’s response was, “A
revolution without guns? It
would never work.”
This is the only indication in the
entire movie that Guevara
advocated violent revolution for
social change.
At the San Pablo Leper ColonyNear the end of their journey, Ernesto, who had dropped out of
Medical School to come on the trip, volunteered in a leper
colony. He is upset by the callousness of the nuns who serve
as nurses there. But it should be noted that he spent only three
week at the colony, while the nuns had dedicated their entire
lives to helping the lepers.
In the postscript of the
film the rest of
Guevara’s life is
summed up as follows:
…Ernesto Ché
Guevara, one of the
most prominent and
inspiring leaders of the
Cuban revolution. Ché
went on to fight for his
ideals in the Congo and
Bolivia where he was
captured and, with the
support of the CIA,
murdered in October
1967.
While the above statement is basically accurate, it leaves out
some important facts.
After the trip in the Motorcycle Diaries,
• Ernesto went on to finish medical school but decided not to
practice medicine.
• Went toGuatemala where he became a supporter of the president,
Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. When Arbenz was deposed, Ernesto
joined the revolutionary forces trying to reinstate him.
• In Mexico, he met Fidel
Castro and signed up as a
physician for Castro’s army of
Cuban revolutionaries.
Ultimate Guerrilla Warrior.
Castro’s right hand men.
In 1961, he published Guerrilla Warfare, a
training manual he hoped would help
bring about revolution in Latin America
and the rest of the world.
Unsuccessful president of the Cuban
National Bank and head of the Ministry of
Industry.
About this same time, Guevara began criticizing the Soviet
Union for their lack of support for the new Communist state.
Castro needing Soviet backing seems to have forced Guevara
out of office.
Ché Guevara in
the Palace of
Snakes,
Dahomey (now
Benin),
January 1965.
Guerrilla Warfare in Africa
Guevara tried to put the principles of Guerrilla Warfare into
practice in the Congo. The revolution backfired when a coup
replaced the besieged president of the Congo with a rightist
military junta.
After returning to Cuba,
Guevara assembly a group
of guerrillas to spread the
revolution to Bolivia. But
he had misread the
situation in the country,
where the president had
just been elected and
seemed to have popular
support.
He didn’t get along with the members of the Bolivian
Communist Party who resented him for telling them how to
run their own revolution. In the end a number of Bolivian
recruits deserted Ché and attempted to turn him over to the
Bolivian army. Eventually he was captured and executed in
Bolivia.
After his death,
Ché became a
martyr and a
symbol of
idealistic
rebellion. It is
really this symbol
rather than the
man that The
Motorcycle
Diaries is about.
Although many critics loved the movie, a number point out that
it gives a idealized impression of a man who was far from ideal.
L to R: Che Guevara, Raul Castro, and Fidel Castro
effective Communist leader without also being the conscienceless monster. I
know "Motorcycle Diaries" took place well before Guevara took up arms, but not
acknowledging the whole truth does neither the legend nor history any
favors…. It makes for a nice night at the movies, though. The story, for
"Motorcycle Diaries" is a film about the sowing of revolution designed for the
approval of bourgeois gentlefolk - for the very type of person that Ché , once
one himself, would not think twice about putting a bullet into. There I go again;
but why can't a film acknowledge that violence and repression were at least as
much a part of his legacy as egalitarianism, martyrdom and a really popular
poster?
-- Bob Strauss (2004), LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
This is, then, a feel-good movie
about a guy who helped to
establish the Castro dictatorship
in Cuba, for which he killed many
and ordered the executions of
many more. That is the negative
spin, of course; the other is that
Ché was a tireless champion of
the suffering masses, and bravely
sacrificed his own life for their
cause. But he could not be the
One Critic’s Comments
References
“Ché Chic. ” (2004). The Wilson Quarterly, 28(4), 10-11. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/197249921?accountid=36334
Che Guevara. (2002). In Contemporary Hispanic Biography (Vol. 2). Detroit:
Gale. Retrieved from http://tinyurl.com/ztthqdh
Dorfman, A. (1999). Che Guevara. (Cover story). Time, 153(23), 210. Retrieved
from https://lynn-
lang.student.lynn.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.as
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Hunter, S. (2004, Oct 01). 'Motorcycle diaries': Che guevara's ride of
passage. The Washington Post . Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/409802567?accountid=36334
McCormick, G. H. (1998). Che Guevara: The legacy of a revolutionary
man. World Policy Journal, 14(4), 63. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/232590328?accountid=36334
Salles, W. (Director). (2004). The Motorcycle Diaries [Motion picture]. United
States: Universal.
Strauss, B. (2004, September 23). Meet a kinder, gentler Ché in ‘Motorcycle
Diaries.’ Los Angeles Daily News. Retrieved from
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/MEET+A+KINDER,+GENTLER+CHE+IN+%6
0MOTORCYCLE+DIARIES'.-a0122482986
Tennenbaum, B. A., (ed). (1996). Encyclopedia of Latin American History and
Culture. New York: Simon & Schuster MacMillan.