Abstract
Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s film The Last Supper presents
multiple characters as Christ-figures in events on an eighteenth-century
Cuban sugar plantation in order to show the moral bankruptcy
of Christianity’s
images of the “dolorous Christ” and the “celestial
monarch Christ.” Created no more than two decades after
the Cuban revolution, the film fosters the revolutionary spirit
for cultural decolonization and resistance to imperialist endeavors.
For Christians who evoke Jesus as a model of discipleship,
the film draws attention not only to the interpretive nature
of discipleship, but also the importance of critically analyzing
any image of Jesus for being life-giving or oppressive as a
model.
[1] The film industry has produced more than a few portraits of Jesus.
W. Barnes Tatum and Henry Ingram organize these Jesus movies into
two categories, “Jesus-story films” and “Christ-figure
films.”[2] “Jesus-story
films” narrate the life and ministry of Jesus, usually within
a first-century Palestinian setting (for example, the films The
Gospel According to Matthew, The Last Temptation of Christ,
or more recently, The Passion of the Christ). “Christ-figure
films” tell a more contemporary story in which characters,
events, and details resemble the gospel story of Jesus, often imitating
his great suffering and sacrificial death (for example, the films Jesus
of Montreal, Cool Hand Luke, or Shawshank Redemption).
[2] According to this classification, Tomás Gutiérrez
Alea’s The Last Supper is an example of a “Christ-figure
film.”[3] In an act of piety, the Count
of Casa Bayona comes to his sugar plantation right before Holy Week
in order to reenact the Last Supper. On Maundy Thursday he plays
the role of Christ and twelve field slaves are chosen to play the
part of his disciples. Tension increases between his desire for piety
and his assumption that sugar production on the plantation will remain
high. This tension comes to a head on the morning of Good Friday
when, against the wishes of the Count as conveyed to the chosen “disciples”/slaves
during the Last Supper, the overseer makes the slaves work. A rebellion
ensues, resulting in the death of the overseer. Assuming that those
who had feasted with him the night before took advantage of the message
of freedom he had given them and led the rebellion, the Count orders
the capture and death of those slaves. By Easter morning, his command
has been carried out, with the exception of one slave who escapes
to freedom.
[3] Tatum subdivides the “Christ-figure films” into those
that offer an “explicit” Christ figure and those that
offer an “implicit” Christ figure. An explicit Christ-figure
directly identifies him/herself with Jesus or a dimension of Jesus.
Implicit Christ-figures do not understand themselves to be acting
out the Jesus story; the filmmaker uses certain images to evoke this
identification.[4] Remarkably, both sub-types are found in The
Last Supper. The Count takes on the role of Christ knowingly
and he explicitly commands the slaves to imitate Jesus in order to
manipulate them to accept their oppression, but over the course of
the film other characters are presented as Christ-figures indirectly,
that is, unbeknownst to themselves. Because it depicts multiple characters
as Christ-figures rather than just one main character as is typical
of “Christ-figure films,” The Last Supper is distinctive
in its category, and this multiplicity highlights the interpretive
nature of these figures.
[4] For Christians and for those who evoke Jesus as part of a living
tradition that guides their behaviour today, the film also brings
to the fore the nature of discipleship and the care that must be
taken to identify systems of power that lurk behind contemporary
faces of Jesus. The canonical gospels depict Jesus issuing a call
for individuals to “follow” him. Interestingly, rather
than assume that the disciples—especially the chosen twelve—know
the full meaning and nature of discipleship at the time of their
call and acceptance, the canonical gospels instead show how the disciples
are often in need of correction or are teachable in this task. This
model of following Jesus assumes that discipleship is not innate;
it must be learned and developed. Early Christians had to interpret
what “following Jesus/Christ” meant, and this inevitably
resulted in multiple and competing interpretations. For example,
when Paul writes to the Corinthians, “Imitate me as I imitate
Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1), are we to assume that Paul was the only
follower of Jesus who knew the Corinthians and made claims of aligning
himself closely with Jesus? This is not likely. Paul was trying to
convince the Corinthians of his version of Christ as their
model for Christian behaviour.
[5] Over the centuries, guides became more elaborate and intentional
in instructing others to conform their lives to that of Christ’s.
Particularly influential in developing the Imitatio Christi movement
were the books Imitation of Christ, ascribed to Thomas à Kempis
of the 15th century and Spiritual Exercises, written
by Ignatius of Loyola in the 16th century. More specifically,
the Imitatio Christi movements of Latin America under the
influence of Spanish Catholicism often projected images of the “dolorous
and defeated Christ” and the “celestial-monarch Christ.” The
body of the dead or dying “dolorous Christ,” graphically
depicted in torturous agony from the blows of his oppressors, presents
an image “calculated to impel a human being to search out happiness
in suffering.”[5] Concurrently,
Christ as the “celestial-monarch” transferred his eternal
authority over all things to earthly representatives, in whom he
is manifested and revealed—monarchs, colonial officials, landowners,
or landlords.[6] For subjugated peoples, the function of these two faces, combined,
was clear: One should develop a Christ-like attitude in patiently
enduring the brutality by those who have Christ-like power and authority
over you. These are the very images of Christ that Gutiérrez
Alea’s film criticizes.
[6] Stern, Jefford, and Debona pointedly remark that “Jesus
films” do not add much to our knowledge of the historical Jesus,
but are cultural responses to a prevalent image of Jesus likely found
in a harmonization of the Gospels. [7] Given
this observation, they propose three lenses with which to analyze “Jesus
films,” two of which I use explicitly in this article to analyze
Gutiérrez Alea’s film The Last Supper.[8] First, I inquire into the producer of the film and the time
in which the film was created in order to gain insight into Cuban
society and its film industry by the mid-70s. This investigation
helps readers to understand the historical context of the film that
shaped its critique of Christianity’s “dolorous” and “celestial
monarch” Christ-figures. Specifically, I highlight Cuba’s
continuing efforts of cultural decolonization and active resistance
to imperialist forays.
[7] Second, numerous details in the film resemble the Gospel record
of Jesus’ life, thereby justifying an analysis of the film
in terms of that Gospel record. It may seem odd to some to use a
Gospel text to analyze a film that so thoroughly critiques Christianity.
However, it must be remembered that the Gospels have been used not
only to develop but also to critique various christologies that have
emerged in the history of systematic theology. This does not deny
that the Gospels themselves are interpretations of Jesus’ life;
it recognizes and acknowledges the foundational nature of these documents. Because
the Gospel of Mark emphasizes suffering, I believe it has a natural
affinity for dialogue with the film’s critique of the “dolorous
Christ” and the “celestial Christ,” even though
Gutiérrez Alea did not likely have this particular Gospel
in mind when he created the film. I recognize that this step imposes a (not the)
standard against which the Christ-figures of the film can be measured.
However, and as I will demonstrate in the article, the fact that
no one in the film meets the standard of Mark’s Christ does
not mean that the film is “wrong” in its conceptualization.
In fact, this observation reinforces the film’s critique of
the images of Christ that colonial Christianity developed to maintain
its power and foster its imperialist endeavors. Nevertheless, the
film’s thorough critique of these images for a 20th century
Cuban audience exposes the tenacity of these oppressive images and
warns generations of viewers to be alert to various permutations
of these images throughout history.
The Film Industry in Cuba after the 1959 Revolution
[8] The Cuban film industry worked closely with the new government
under Castro to forge a country under communist ideals against imperialism
and, in time, against its own growing bureaucratization. In fact,
the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Arts and Industry (ICAIC)
was created within a few months of the successful revolution in 1959
in order to continue cultural liberation and to reinforce revolutionary
ideals.[9] Before the
revolution, Hollywood films were a significant and staple import
in Cuba. After the revolution, Cuba imported films from the Soviet
Union instead or produced its own films through the ICAIC.[10] First
and foremost, the ICAIC produced documentaries that gave instruction
about practical matters in a post-revolution era, recorded principal
mass mobilizations, and informed the public about the revolutionary
process and Cuba’s social and cultural history.[11] Wanting to acknowledge the
key role black Africans played in the Cuban revolution, some of ICAIC’s
film directors depicted the revolutionary spirit extending back to
18th-century African slave resistance to French and Spanish
colonization. The Last Supper provides windows into African
mythology and storytelling that ground the slaves’ ambivalence
toward the Christian messages preached to them and, eventually, their
open rebellion to oppressive conditions on the plantation.
[9] Within a decade of the successful revolution, however, Cuba began
feeling the pressures of keeping the revolutionary spirit alive over
against its own increased bureaucratization. The ICAIC tried to hold
the revolutionary edge by resisting the stereotypical, formulaic
standards. Hollywood films—the old standard—were now
seen to be too slick and smooth, too formulaic for a country trying
to consolidate revolutionary ideals against aggressive economic and
political interference provoked mostly by the United States.[12] This desire for cultural decolonization perhaps
can be seen best in the Cuban film industry’s move toward the “imperfect
cinema” by the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s.
Commenting on García Espinosa’s essay “Por
uncine imperfecto” [‘For an Imperfect Cinema’],
Michael Chanan writes, “If a film becomes too perfect—beautifully
controlled surface—it lulls the audience into passive consumption.
An authentically modern cinema makes a film that remains incomplete
unless the actively responsive audience takes it up.”[13] Cuban film producers of this
era wanted audiences to stay alert, never resting comfortably on
formulaic expectations. Standardized by a rich diet of Hollywood
films before the revolution, even the idea of the hero as a universal
and infallible example, was set on edge and brought under scrutiny.[14] The Last Supper, in
presenting multiple characters as Jesus figures, reveals film trends
of the day to encourage alert, critical viewing and a commitment
to active resistance against oppression. Viewers must figure out
for themselves who—if anyone—is really Christ-like or
reject the depicted representations altogether. The interesting parallel
here is that the question of Jesus’ identity is at the root
of Mark’s gospel as well.
Jesus’ Identity
and Discipleship in Mark’s Gospel
[10] Time and again in Mark’s gospel the very people who one
would expect to know Jesus best—his family, people from his
hometown, even his twelve disciples—are depicted as being those
who most misunderstand him.[15] The
question of Jesus’ identity intensifies in 8:27-38 when Jesus
explicitly asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” The
various responses reveal the profuse confusion about his identity—“John
the Baptist”, “Elijah”, “one of the prophets.” Jesus
next presses his disciples, “but who do you say that I am?” Peter
provides the right answer—“you are the Messiah.” Here,
and then repeating the point in at least two subsequent exchanges
with his disciples, Jesus connects his mission and his disciples’ mission
with suffering; their ministry will surely carry them to be scourged
and killed as outcasts and criminals. Each time, though, the disciples
are portrayed as forgetting about or countering the images of humiliation
that Jesus presents to them: Peter rebukes Jesus for making such
a connection (8:33), the twelve argue with one another about who
is the greatest (9:34) and James and John ask Jesus to grant them
to sit on his right and left hands in the assumed Messianic glory
(10:35). Theirs is the conventional perception that the Messiah is
one who will establish God’s rule by military or priestly honor,
power, might, and glory.[16]
[11] Yet Mark shows Jesus attempting to change that image. In 8:35
Jesus states, “those who lose their life for my sake, and for
the sake of the gospel will save it.” In 9:35 he says, “whoever
wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Finally,
in 10:42-45, Jesus declares, “You know that among the Gentiles
those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and
their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you;
but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,
and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For
the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his
life a ransom for many.” These verses stand as correctives
to the disciples’ notions of glory, power, and prestige associated
with the Messiah and with discipleship. The mission entrusted to
Jesus and to the disciples is one of humility that works for the
liberation of others, and it will likely, if not necessarily bring
them into life-threatening conflict with conventional society. So
prominent is this suffering theme that Mark is commonly known to
scholars of the Christian bible as being a long passion narrative
with a little introduction. Just halfway through the gospel, Jesus
already begins “the way” to Jerusalem. Suffering is not,
however, a goal in and of itself;[17] nor
is it to be welcomed as edifying; it is not God’s way of morally
shaping a person.
[12] The significance of Jesus giving his life as a “ransom
for many” is in its connection not to sin sacrifice but to
slavery. A ransom was the price required to redeem captives or to
purchase freedom for indentured servants. At the root of Jesus’ ministry,
Mark claims, is a dedication above all else to confront, without
thought of one’s own benefit or regardless of risk to oneself,
all those powers and conventions in the world that oppress or keep
people from freedom or from being whole. Religion is not without
impunity, for Mark indicates that certain human traditions that had
become oppressive were cloaked deceptively as God ordained (Mark
7:7-8; 13:22-23).[18] We
must be alert to oppressive underpinnings of how people evoke Christ’s
name and imitate him.
The Count as “Christ”
[13] Of all the characters in Gutiérrez Alea’s The
Last Supper, the Count reflects Christ in the most conscious
or obvious way, dramatizing Christ in a reenactment of the Last
Supper. For the Count and those of his class, to imitate Christ
is an act of humility as a form of piety encouraged by the Church
during Holy Week. Upon the Count’s arrival at the plantation,
the local priest complains to him that the overseer, Don Manuel,
did not allow the slaves to attend Palm Sunday church services.[19] The Count is troubled by this news, saying, “Holy Week
must be respected. God must be obeyed.” Yet just as temporary
as the festival week is itself, the Count puts on and takes off
this humility as easily as his topcoat.
[14] Perhaps echoing the increased tension and anxiety that Jesus
is presumed to have felt in the Garden of Gethsemane as the Passover
festival drew near (Mark 14:32-41), the Count confides to the priest, “I
can find no peace. I live in constant uneasiness. Even by day I walk
lost in a maze of darkness. Where can I find a way out?” At
this precise moment, the Count holds out his arms to the sides, mirroring
the crucifix on the wall in front of him. The priest responds, “In
Christ, only in Christ.” The camera pans back, however, to
show the mundane meaning of the Count’s gesture: it is a cue
for his personal house slave to finish dressing him by helping him
into his vest. From the film’s beginning, then, the Count’s
sincerity is questioned, for in “putting on Christ,” the
Count has kept the master’s clothes on, in stark contrast to
the bloodied, barely-clad Jesus of the crucifix on the wall.
[15] The process by which the Count selects slaves to play the role
of the disciples in his reenactment also reveals the feigned humility
of his piety. On Maundy Thursday, when the Count orders his personal
slave to give the overseer the message to assemble all the slaves
in the courtyard, his slave asks, “Me too? Do you want me to
assemble, too?” The Count says, “No, you are my slave,
my servant,” conveying that the slave’s higher status
exempts him from having to assemble with the lowly field slaves.
This response gives the impression that the task to be announced
is degrading. However, viewers learn that the slaves are assembled
for the purpose of selecting from among them those who will play
the part of the disciples. Later, during the reenactment, the Count’s
humbling action of eating with his field slaves is poignantly juxtaposed
by the camera’s view of his personal slave in the shadowy background,
ever ready to attend to the Count’s wishes and needs. The Count’s
humility does not extend to his personal slave; this slave is too
necessary to maintain the master’s true power and domination
during his apparent humiliation.
[16] After being cleaned up, or “purified,” the “disciples”/slaves
are brought to the plantation’s chapel for a religious service.
During the service, the Count humbles himself by washing his “disciples”/slaves
feet.[20] However,
this action is performed only half-heartedly, with minimal contact.
To complete the action each time, he barely touches his lips to their
feet and quickly wipes his mouth with a cloth, nauseated by the poor
condition of the feet from work in the sugar cane fields or from
attempted escapes. Thus, though the Count displays some semblance
of humility, his approach betrays his true intention of maintaining
firm boundaries between master and slave.
[17] The reenacted Last Supper in the evening of Maundy Thursday
is a feast overflowing with culinary delights and wine, the perfect
ambiance, the Count believes, to teach the slaves certain Christian
messages. He sets the context before the dinner begins: “All
this is for you. This isn’t a day like any other. It is a special
day because in God’s book on a day like this Christ called
in his friends, his disciples who were his slaves to take leave of
them. Christ was going to die.” Genuinely confused about the
nature of the reenactment, one slave interrupts, “is Master
going to die?” Although visibly pleased and amused with the
slave’s confusion, the Count clarifies: “No. I’m
talking about Christ. Christ was going to heaven.” Even though
the Count does not claim to be Christ, he sees himself as attempting
to imitate him, at least for the duration of Holy Week.
[18] To explain the reason for Jesus’ death, the Count continues, “someone
had to be sacrificed for all suffering mankind; a lamb was needed,
someone to take God’s punishment without protest, in silence.
Somebody had to pay for all the evil done by men.” The Count
believes that he suffers in ways similar to Christ. When the Count
demands during the supper that the recently captured escapee, Sebastian,
answer, “Who am I?”—a clear echo of Jesus’ question
put to the disciples in Mark’s gospel, “Who do you say
that I am?” (Mark 8:29)—Sebastian refuses to answer and,
in fact, spits in the Count’s face. This act ordinarily would
have meant certain death for the slave, and for a visibly tense moment,
the Count prevents himself from retaliating. Yet in dramatizing Christ
in the reenacted Last Supper, the Count considers this derision the
kind of evil Christ experienced and accepted at the hands of his
enemies and even one of his own, Judas; thus, he accepted it too.
However, later, after he believes he has fulfilled the obligations
of Holy Week, the Count mercilessly retaliates against a confrontation
that he perceives as threatening to the workings of the plantation.
[19] During the reenacted Last Supper, the Count also portrays himself
as imitating Christ’s love and compassion. As the evening progresses,
and with the influence of abundant food, wine, and story-telling,
the Count increasingly feels emotionally and spiritually close to
his ‘disciples’/slaves. At one point the Count sides
with them against the cruelty of the overseer. Later, he compassionately
frees one of the chosen—an elderly slave who has only one year
of indentured service left. Yet, as we shall see in the remaining
sections of this paper, these Christ-like actions are as temporary
as the feast on the table.
[20] This superficial, or temporary, sincerity is illustrated in
the events that follow the reenactment. While the Count is willing,
during the reenactment, to see his “disciples”/slaves
as reasoning human beings, he believes the slaves’ revolt betrays
their true, bestial identities, beyond human consideration and compassion.
The uprising leaves in its wake the deaths of the overseer, his wife,
and several slaves. But when the priest lays out all the bodies of
the dead in the chapel for services, the Count is enraged and demands
an explanation. The priest states, “In death we are all one.” Yet
the Count will have none of it. He states, “they’ve spent
their life devouring one another and now that they’ve found
our flesh is better, they want to devour us.” He demands the
capture of the twelve slaves who had dined with him the previous
evening, believing them to have instigated the rebellion. “Show
them no mercy. I want them dead, as examples. I just want their heads.” To
the Count, the slaves are mere cannibals, not deserving of Christian
burial.[21] He literally
wishes to dismember them from the human race.
[21] All but one of the chosen “disciples”/slaves are
captured and killed by Easter morning. To the remaining slaves, who
he gathers on the plantation’s hilltop, the Count sermonizes
about the events of the past days. “Believing I was obeying
God’s commandments, I saw them [the twelve chosen slaves] and
took pity on them. I humbled myself, and seated them at the Lord’s
table, but they were never satisfied and kept asking for more.” Insatiable
for what? The Count’s sermon implies an association of the
Lord’s table with power. Indeed, during the reenactment, the
Count had asked the slave seated next to him, “Do you like
sitting at the Master’s right?” echoing James and John’s
association of that position with power (Mark 10:37). The slave unselfconsciously
shrugged and replied simply, “there was no other place left.” A
quest for power is not what drove the seating at the supper or the
rebellion, yet the Count is unable to imagine what else it could
be. Interpreting the events of the rebellion, the Count states, “Then
God, chastising me with all His strength, made me understand that
my heart was ensnared in the dark thickets.” According to the
Count, the rebellion was God’s punishment for believing that
humility is required and that slaves are human beings capable of
understanding and accepting the Christian message. He now feels led
to believe that in actuality, the slaves are ravenous animals, in
need of domination for the plantation to be successful.[22] “I shall have no peace until my abode
is raised anew and the temple cleansed of those who traded with my
heart and the whole mill arises from its ashes into plenty.” The
church that the Count will build on the plantation will be a symbol
of “Christian triumph over bestiality and savagery.”
[22] The Count may piously “put on” a recognizable image
of Christ, but the film exposes its roots in power and oppression,
clearly challenging the “celestial-monarch Christ.” Put
along side of characters in Mark’s gospel, the Count betrays
his alignment more with the disciples’ expectations of a militaristic,
kingly Messiah (and therefore their own honor and glory) than with
Jesus’ suffering to end oppression and bring wholeness. The
film exposes the Count’s interest above all in the success
of his plantation and therefore in the oppressive structures of slavery.
Though he portrays himself as “suffering” and humiliates
himself in washing the feet of and eating with those less powerful
than he, as soon as the Count feels he has completed his obligation
of piety, he is back to the business of the plantation, wanting blissfully
not to know the details of its cruelties. Ultimately, he perpetuates
and escalates cycles of violence rather than interrupting them, refusing
to pay them back.[23] The
Count’s piety is superficial, not life-transformative.
The Priest as “Christ”
[23] Institutionally, priests have long been understood to have
a privileged relationship with the resurrected Christ. In complex
ways, church doctrine understands the priesthood to continue Christ’s
presence here on earth, so it is worth investigating how the priest
of Alea’s film fulfills this role.[24] The film portrays the priest
as having the potential and capability to confront the system of
slavery on the plantation; however, this issue pales in comparison
to his concern with the church’s holy days and with promoting
slave obedience. On the one hand, he alone seems to have the power
to bend the ear of the Count in order to report the abuse of slaves
on the plantation with the hopes of changing their situation. Twice
during the film the priest approaches the Count and asks for compassion
in the case of the slaves. Before one of these occasions, he even
attempts—albeit unsuccessfully—to intervene directly
to stop the ringing bell calling the slaves to work on a day that
was to have been their day off. In this way, he appears to be the
voice of the slaves under the weight of an oppressive system, even
if it means putting himself at risk to a certain extent. At some
level, then, the priest’s actions recall the portrait of Jesus
in Mark’s gospel in that he understands that following Christ
may bring one into conflict with social conventions and authorities
of the period.
[24] On the other hand, the film exposes that this compassion and
confrontation is motivated not by some Christian principle of justice
or freedom, but by the concern about what is appropriate for the
holy days of the Church. Accordingly, the impression Alea gives is
that the cruelties are “too much for [the slaves] to bear” in
some strange way on these days and not on all the other days of the
crop season, let alone the rest of the year. [25] Like the Count, the priest conveys that compassion
and humility are to be reserved for “special,” purifying
times of the year, not everyday behaviours of those in power. The
normal, everyday behaviours are linked to prescribed roles, believed
to be set forth by God: slaves must respect and obey the commands
of the master and overseer, and those in command must punish those
who do not obey. Here, again, the “celestial-monarch Christ” rears
its ugly head: human authorities represent Christ and are to be obeyed
as one would obey him. The priest assures the slaves that their obedience
will lead, after death, to sitting at God’s table in heaven
where there are no social divisions but harmony and plentitude. Clearly
for Alea, religion has become the handmaiden of oppressive structures,
just as Jesus claims in Mark’s gospel (7:6-8).[26] In
contrast, Mark’s Jesus announces, “The Kingdom has come
near” (1:15) and does not delay in bringing release or freedom
to those who need it in this world, this life.
Don Manuel, the Overseer,
as “Christ”
[25] The head overseer of the slaves, Don Manuel, is depicted in
the film as increasingly at odds with the Christian message preached
on the Count’s sugar plantation. Hence, how Don Manuel’s
life comes to be seen as Christ-like is more complex and is not something
that the overseer, himself, consciously assumes. The priest of the
plantation complains that the overseer has spent too much time drinking,
gambling, and having sex with the slave women when he should be in
the chapel. As a result, according to the priest, Don Manuel has
become overly abusive towards the slaves and has not respected the
holy days of the church. The Count agrees in principle with the priest,
but brushes off any sense of obligation to intervene in the business
of the overseer, which is to make sure the plantation meets its sugar
production goals.[27] Don
Manuel, himself, feels the tension increase and it causes him anxiety.
He knows all too well his precarious position at the plantation,
especially at the height of crop season, with the high demand for
product. He admits to another, “When the sugar production is
slowed, I will be first to be blamed for not working the slaves hard
enough.”
[26] The drunken Count directly undermines the overseer’s position
and authority later in the film during the emotional intensity of
the reenacted Last Supper. When one of the slaves relays that the
priest has told the slaves that the overseer is Christ—no doubt
to be understood as the celestial-monarch to be obeyed—the
Count responds, “Don Manuel can never be Christ. … He
is a great sinner because he flogs you and steals from me.” The
Count finds the overseer’s behaviour so reprehensible that
he even tells the “disciples”/slaves that Don Manuel
will be excluded from paradise since that is meant only for Christ
and his followers.
[27] Yet, as we saw in the previous section, the piety that allows
the Count temporarily to side with the slaves against Don Manuel
passes after he feels he has performed his obligation to the church
by humbling himself in the reenacted Last Supper. When the priest
reports that the overseer has made the slaves get up and work on
Good Friday against the Count’s wishes, the Count reverts back
to his earlier position of noninterference. The overseer’s
sins, to the Count, become “necessary sins,” better not
to be known. More telling, only when the Count finds out that the
slaves have rebelled and taken the overseer hostage until they get
justice, does the Count race back to try to retake the plantation
and defend the overseer. “Justice?! We’ll show them justice!” En
route and from a distance, they shoot the slaves coming to meet with
the Count, unaware that these slaves themselves have staved off the
uprising because they convinced the others to see the Count as a
kind, reasonable man who will listen to their grievances and negotiate
with them. Instantaneously, this sparks a full-blown rebellion at
the plantation that the Count and his armed battalion, arriving too
late, cannot prevent. The plantation is on fire and Don Manuel has
been killed. What the Count sees in the manner of his overseer’s
death, with arms spread out in the stocks like a crucifix, is a Christ-like
figure. The Count makes the allusion explicit by asking the priest, “At
what hour did Christ die?” The priest replies, “At this
very hour.” At the film’s end, the Count announces that
he will erect a Church in the overseer’s name, implying that
Don Manuel’s sacrifice of his life is the epitome of what the
church stands for.
[28] The Count’s explicit association of the overseer with
Christ is one of the more jarring scenes of the film since earlier
the Count had emphatically asserted to the slaves during the Last
Supper reenactment that Don Manuel “could never be Christ” and
would never gain heaven because of his horrific abusing and thieving
ways. Don Manuel is indeed caught, “scourged,” and killed,
as was Jesus in Mark’s gospel, but not by the dominating powers
of society and not because he stood up to the plantation’s
oppressive ways. Don Manuel was the plantation’s instrument
of oppression and he was killed by the powerless of society. Neither
his life nor his death freed anyone from slavery; a new overseer
was simply installed. Whereas at one time the Count apparently saw
his own pious self-humiliation as imitating Christ’s self-sacrifice,
he now believes Don Manuel to be that lamb “needed … to
take God’s punishment without protest”—the “dolorous
Christ.” The Count sees the overseer as the necessary scapegoat
in the spiritual war between Christianity and the evils of African
bestiality; that is why the Count names the Church after him. However,
the film drives home the point that the Count refuses to confront
seriously, that is, that the evil resides in the system of slavery
and that Don Manuel is a “dolorous Christ” sacrificed
for the sins of the Count, for it is the Count’s greed that
fuels the sugar production, the plantation, and its slavery.[28]
Gaspar Duclé as “Christ”
[29] Gaspar Dulcé is the master sugar maker on the plantation
and how he imitates Christ is perhaps the least explicit of all representations.
Viewers see that Monsieur Dulcé helps one slave, Sebastian,
escape perhaps by hiding him out in his building after the slave
revolt begins, but at least by not informing the headhunters of Sebastian’s
presence in the building when they come to question Monsieur Duclé.[29] Perhaps
unsure if his life is in danger, Monsieur Duclé is momentarily
surprised by Sebastian’s presence in one of his back rooms.
Yet, when the headhunters knock on his front door, Monsieur Duclé motions
for Sebastian to step back into the darkness so that he could shut
that door and feign worry about the efforts to quell the revolt.
In fact, when questioned why his building was not set fire, Monsieur
Duclé deflects the question by remarking that the church was
not touched either. By preventing Sebastian from being caught, Monsieur
Dulcé could be seen as resembling the Jesus of Mark’s
gospel, for in taking risks to his own career and life, he helps
Sebastian escape the oppressive plantation.
[30] However, Monsieur Dulcé’s motivation is not the
principle of freedom or a direct confrontation of an oppressive system
as portrayed in Mark’s gospel. He simply wants to save his
own skin. When the Count announces that he wants to buy the newest
sugar press on the market, Monsieur Dulcé sees the beginning
of an imbalance of power as more slaves will be needed to cut the
cane necessary to keep up with the new press. “I don’t
want to see my head used by the blacks as a football,” he states,
recalling what had happened in the slave revolt at Santo Domingo
when the number of blacks eventually outnumbered the whites and mulattos: “in
the end, there were only blacks.” Hence, he secretly helps
the strongest, most powerful slave, and in return, neither Monsieur
Dulcé nor his building is harmed in the revolt. If anything,
his actions resemble more the actions of the disciples in Mark rather
than of Christ, for after Jesus is arrested the disciples scatter,
if they do not actually deny any association with him to avoid their
own arrest (14:50, 66-72).
The Slaves as “Christ”
[31] While he plays the part of Christ in the reenactment of the
Last Supper, the Count demands that the chosen “disciples”/slaves
become Christ-like themselves. After feasting and drinking, the general
level of joviality peaks and one of them, an elderly slave, asks
for his freedom with only one year of service left of being indentured.
The Count, feeling magnanimous, grants his wish. Initially elated,
as are the others, the slave shuffles off to leave, but stops in
the threshold of the door and begins to cry when he realizes he has
nowhere to go. The Count uses the slave’s unhappiness as an
opportunity to tell a story that links happiness not with freedom,
but with suffering. He preaches the “dolorous Christ,” asserting
that perfect happiness lies with conquering oneself, submitting to
one’s destiny, and suffering cruelty patiently and with joy,
thinking of Christ’s sufferings.[30] Just as the Count’s portrayal
of Christ justified colonial and imperial power, the Christ he demands
his slaves to emulate encourages passive acceptance of imperialist
exploitation.
[32] The slave who most needs to learn this lesson, the Count believes,
is Sebastian. Sebastian is the slave who most desires freedom, who
most resists attempts to constrain him. When the film begins, a search
party has been initiated to trail yet another of his escapes and
again, he is tracked down by the dogs. The overseer remarks that
there is something special about Sebastian because his spirit has
not been broken by the typical punishments meted out after each attempted
escape. Indeed, after getting caught this time, one of his ears is
cut off, but instead of bowing into subjugation, Sebastian looks
for the next way to attempt an escape. Most of the slaves see through
the message the Count gives at the Last Supper, but Sebastian actively
resists it, drawing on African storytelling and ritual, willing even
to die in the pursuit of freedom.
[33] In order to quell the revolt, the Count orders the capture and
beheading of all the “disciples”/slaves who dined with
him the previous night. They are to be used as examples of what will
happen to those who, he assumes, take advantage of his Christian
message of power and freedom. By Easter Sunday morning, all the chosen “disciples”/slaves
have been caught and killed, except for one. In the last few minutes
of the film, when the Count announces that he will build a church
in the name of Don Manuel, the camera pans out to reveal a hilltop
scene likened to Golgotha. Twelve tall stakes are positioned like
crucifixes, with the heads of the captured slaves impaled on the
tops. The film never portrays Sebastian as a Christian, yet paradoxically,
it is Sebastian’s “cross” that remains empty, and
his escape alone carries the hope of success, of new life.
[34] In general, the African slaves resemble Mark’s Christ
not when they passively endure but when they actively resist their
oppression and perform acts that may help to free others even if
it might bring their own deaths. [31] Sebastian seems to embody most
clearly the freedom that Mark’s Christ lives and dies for.
As one of two slaves who spring an attack on Don Manuel and place
him in the stockades, we can view Sebastian as participant in an
act that places his own life at risk to help liberate others. But
ultimately, it is Sebastian’s desire for his own freedom, not
that of others, that drives him. Even this drive is mixed with a
desire for revenge, for before he escapes, he kills Don Manuel in
the stockades with a machete. Violence is paid back with violence.
Viewers are not given a chance to see what might have been had not
Don Manuel been killed. What we witness is Don Manuel’s murder,
which prompts the Count’s escalation of violence in revenge
under a new overseer, ending finally in the cruel and horrendous
deaths of Sebastian’s fellow slaves.
Conclusion
[35] Mark’s Christ, who confounds his followers’ assumptions
about his identity and purpose, is only one interpretation applied
in this article to Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s film, The
Last Supper. An interesting discussion could evolve if the film
were analyzed using the gospel of John’s portrait of Jesus
instead of that of Mark. Musa W. Dube has argued that the gospel
of John portrays Jesus with such a high Christology that it easily
supports colonial ideology of domination. [32] Alternatively, one could examine the Christ-figures
of the film through the lens of the Christ of black theology. At
the very least, through these resources one could explore more fully
the possibilities for a shift from the suffering Christ as a model
that keeps the system of oppression intact (as the Count expounds
upon in the film) to the suffering Christ as a model for resistance
to systems of oppression. Such analysis would offer a historical
view of how Africans who converted to Christianity have adopted and
changed the very models that once oppressed them.
[36] A cultural studies approach to texts “looks upon all
interpretive models, retrievals of meaning from texts, and reconstructions
of history as constructs—formulated and advanced by positioned
readers, flesh-and-blood persons reading and interpreting from different
and highly complex social locations.”[33] This is true of the “text” of
Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s film, The Last Supper,
as much as it is of the text of Mark’s gospel. The dialogue
between the film and the gospel may be said to represent interwoven
moebius strips, each retrieving pieces of the past while recording
the present and pressing audiences to participate actively in creating
the future, all in a continuous process of critique and interpretation.
In 1970s Cuba, working to keep alive the revolutionary spirit over
and against foreign political pressures especially by the United
States, the film reaches back into Cuban history to recuperate the
power of African culture and religion to resist systems of colonial
domination. In doing so, this film also reaches further back to recall
the events of Jesus’ life as portrayed in the Gospels in order
to critique models of discipleship—the “dolorous Christ” and
the “celestial-monarch Christ”—that perpetuated
imperialist oppressions. The complex interactions of history and
of the question of Jesus’ identity that arise when The Last
Supper and the Gospel of Mark are placed side by side echo what
David Jasper states about narratives that “comprise a living
tradition”: from them “we learn the conditions of truth,
and as narratives are tested against our ongoing, historical experience,
so they are challenged and renewed within the context of each new
generation of readers.” [34] Jesus’ question of “Who
do you say that I am?” must be answered anew by those individuals
and groups searching for better ways to live the gospel into the
present, attentive to challenges leveled by the past.
Notes
