2023-05-25 09:40:02
I knew him and already admired him when one night he appeared at my house with one of his children, and that humility of his, to ask me for a favor. How lucky I am! From that night I was his friend. In just over a year he dedicated several of his photographs to me. In one of them that he poses in the living room of my house, he wrote: “For Roberto Chile with the admiration of a friend who likes his work” What an honor! I revere him as one of the greats of our time. For the great human being that he was, for his extraordinary talent and for his keen eye.
Korda was Fidel’s photographer for a few years, long enough to leave an invaluable mark on the history of the Revolution. Together with Fidel, he traveled to Venezuela, the United States, the former Soviet Union and toured Cuba from one end to the other. His relationship with the Commander, whom he never stopped admiring, was transparent, sincere and daring. She was familiar with him at the same time that she respected him. There were others, also talented, who portrayed the leader and the Revolution at that time, but very few with the angel of Korda.
His relationship with Che was more difficult. The Argentine was “hurt” by the photographs. It was not easy for Korda to portray him either at the golf game or at the sugarcane harvest. He was lucky in the massive concentration of 23 and 12, on March 5, 1960, in which he drew with his brush of light, the greatest icon of the modern era. What would Korda be without Che? How much does the figure of Che owe Korda?
Korda was not only an excellent photographer, he was also a man of his time. His greatest contribution is the visual treasure that he bequeathed to us, his contribution to Cuban history and contemporary art, his visionary imprint. His photo of Che turned into a flag is not his only legacy, but that single image would be enough to place him among the prophets of his time. He saw what no one else saw: the face of the future, the rebellion of the peoples, the irremediable struggle of revolutionaries from all over the world to conquer the future.
The documentary Simply KORDA is a passionate look at Cuban photographer Alberto Díaz Gutiérrez, known worldwide as Alberto Korda. It is based on an interview that we filmed in his house with a team of Danish filmmakers, a few months before his sudden death in Paris on May 25, 2001.
Next, the literary script: Simply KORDA. A documentary by Roberto Chile
To Paulita, the girl with the stick doll
On March 4, 1960, the French steamer “La Coubre” exploded in the Havana port, bringing to Cuba a shipment of arms and ammunition acquired by the nascent Cuban Revolution.
On March 5, 1960, at the funeral of the victims of the sabotage of “La Coubre”, Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro pronounced the slogan of Homeland or Death for the first time.
Fidel’s voice: Freedom means Homeland, and our dilemma would be: Homeland or Death!
In the middle of the vibrant concentration was the Cuban photographer Alberto Korda. The photo of him to Che would tour the world years later and would remain established as one of the icons of contemporary times.
Korda: “It’s incredible that this image that I made spontaneously has become the most reproduced image in the history of photography, and it was taken by chance.”
“My job as a photographer has been dedicated to what I love. It does not cause me any prejudice to say it, that one of my first interests and loves in life was the beauty of women.
“The business I had was taking publicity photos and I was the creator of fashion photography in Cuba, because as to this day, I love the female figure.
“But a Revolution led by men triumphs, which is even more beautiful than the beauty of women, and I dedicate myself to it.
“I was born here in this city, in Havana, in a working-class neighborhood, El Cerro. My father was a railway worker, he was a telegraph operator. My mother did not work, like all Cuban women at that time, she was dedicated to the house and I was the only child.
“I studied commerce, which at that time was a career. I studied accounting, shorthand, typing, and well, when I graduated I went to work for the first time in the office of an American consortium, Procter & Gamble, which in Cuba was called Sabatex, manufactured soaps, detergents and that. And I participated in the group of publicity scholars of that company.
“I was a salesman for Remington Rand, an American company of typewriters and counting boxes for accounting offices. And I remember very especially that my father had been given a 35-millimeter photography camera and in my sales case I always carried that camera on top.
“Hence, because sometimes walking through the streets of Havana in my job as a salesman, I took some photos of things that hurt my heart.
“Already being a photographer, my studio was located in front of the casino of the Hotel Capri. Many nights when I left the Capri casino, at midnight there was a woman with two loaded children begging for alms, selling tickets and right then and there I felt bad, I went home.
“They were those great contradictions, those huge cars, some Cadillacs, some beautiful Mercedes Benz convertibles and that woman begging for alms with two little children loaded down. Then I understood that that world could not continue like this, until Fidel Castro came and said: The Commander arrived and ordered it to stop!
“Then I am on a farm in Pinar del Río taking some field photos for an advertisement and I meet a three or four-year-old girl who was hugging a little piece of wood. And that girl frightens me when she sees me, a stranger with a photographic device and she cornered herself in a corner and said to the stick, she passed her hand and said: don’t cry my baby, don’t cry my baby! That stick was her doll, because she, that girl, had never had the opportunity to hold a doll in her arms.
“After that photo I decided that, even though I was a photographer, not a guerrilla who had fought in the Sierra, far from it, I should dedicate my work to the Revolution that promised to change those inequalities. And so I did to this day!
“I worked as a volunteer in the newspaper Revolución and in the year 59 Fidel decided to visit Venezuela and the director of that newspaper appointed me accompanying photographer and I went with Fidel to Venezuela.
“We returned and in the same year Fidel was invited by the American Press Club to visit the United States and the director of the newspaper once again appointed me accompanying photographer.
“Fidel began to see my photos in the newspaper and it seems that he liked them and there came a time when he was already taking a tour of Cuba, visiting farms, this, that from beyond and the head of the escort would call me and He said to prepare the camera and to accompany him. And so in that almost spontaneous way I became his accompanying photographer for 10 years.
“I must clarify, accompanying photographer. I never received a salary from Fidel. I never had a title that told me that I was the official photographer, far from it. But for 10 years I followed him!
“The newspaper sends me 600 kilometers from Havana to find Che testing the first sugarcane cutting machine that had been his idea with a French engineer.
“So I look for it all over the fields and I can’t find it. I go to the house where he was supposed to rest that night and indeed around 8 or 9 at night he arrives all muddy with dirt and shit, and I very happy I face him and tell him: -Commander I finally found him, The Havana newspaper sent me to do a job on the cane cutting machine. So, he already knew me, and he says to me: Hey Korda! where were you born? I say: in Havana.
He says: in the city or in the country?
I say: No, no, in the city
He says: And have you ever cut cane?
I say: Commander, honestly no, I don’t know that job.
“Oh! So he calls an escort and tells him: get a machete for the photographer who is going to collaborate with the town’s harvest. Go cut cane tomorrow and see you next week. So he had me cut cane for a week before I was able to take a picture of him with the cane cutting machine. I kept getting scared of him because he was tremendous.
“Fidel Castro introduced me to underwater photography through an underwater camera that was given to him. And I will follow him everywhere, under the sea too, Fidel Castro!
“I was so impressed by the beauty of the seabed, of our tropical seas, that when the newspaper changed and lost that beautiful wave of graphics that it had for 8 or 9 years, I said: I’m giving up journalism! And I founded an underwater scientific photography laboratory for the Cuban Academy of Sciences. And I spent 12 years taking photos underwater!
“I care about having passed through the world in such a fragile and fast life, and leaving an image, which, as I told you before, is considered in a French book, the most reproduced image in the history of photography. You will understand that, for a humble Cuban photographer, from a small island of 11 million inhabitants, to have made an image that surpasses the reproduction of all the images in the history of photography… for me, for my grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, they will say, damn it! ! My grandfather, my great great grandfather was a merit guy. And I was lucky enough to take that photo and leave something to Humanity. I don’t leave big palaces, yachts, money in the banks, none of that, I leave a sample of my work in my time in this world.
“I was going to say that in some conferences that I have given, including in North American universities with photography students, these young people have begun to ask me about cameras, lenses, developing systems, films; I let them talk, when they finish asking questions like that, I tell them: Do you think you’re going to be photographers like that? You are wrong! That is learned in two months. The camera, the lenses, the films, the development, all this is learned in two months, that’s not what a photographer does!
“And I quote a phrase from a book by a Frenchman named Antoine de San-Exupéry. He wrote a beautiful book called “The Little Prince”. In that book there is a character who says to another: “You can only see with the heart, what is essential is invisible to the eyes.”
“That’s a photographer!”
Korda died in Paris on May 25, 2001. Along with the myth of the icon Che and his relevant photographic work, his memory survives for all time…
*Script and direction Roberto Chile; production Roberto Chile y Diana Diaz; original music Alexis Bosch; edition Salvador Combarro; direction of photography Roberto Chile; sound Ole Jakobsen; journalist Jorgen Chemnitz; animation Reynier Aquino; post production Robin Pedraja; adviser Rey Almira. Spiked Wings2010.
Alberto Korda Photo Gallery
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