"Could you really say with any confidence that the same thing could never happen now?" - Documentarian Emer Reynolds on "Here Was Cuba"

Emer Reynolds sat down with me at the Irish Film Institute's Stranger Than Fiction Documentary Film Festival to talk about Here Was Cuba, a documentary she co-directed along with John Murray. It re-examines one of the most crucial and infamous events of the Cold War when Cuba, Russia and the United States played a game of nerves and threatened to wipe planet Earth off the the face of the universe.

 

 

MM: Why make a documentary about the Cuban Missile Crisis?

EM: What drew us to the story initially was that it was coming up to the fiftieth anniversary of the crisis, which was last year. John Murray, the co-director, was constantly worrying about it and how it was treated as an ordinary story of the Cold War, whereas in fact it almost led to the end of humanity. So, we started researching for it many years ago, and discovered that over the years there had been a number of really interesting things de-classified from all three areas – Russia, Cuba and the United States. On top of that, there had never been a major feature length documentary about the Cuban Missile Crisis. There had been narrative films made on it and TV docs about it, but the time was right to be big and bold and loud about it. And hopefully also reflect on its resonance for today.

 

 

This film uses a Cold War thriller approach and that makes it very gripping and entertaining in a narrative sense.

That was our leading light. We would try and tell it like a contemporary Cold War thriller, like you were experiencing the events real-time and hopefully, if we were successful, that people would forget the outcome.

 

 

This documentary also sheds new light on many of the event’s stories, such as the one about the submarine that almost launched a nuclear torpedo.

We did a lot of research. That submarine story gets told and re-told down through the decades in all different forms. We were familiar with the version that had one heroic first officer refusing to press the button, therefore saving the planet. That man even got awards for his intervention. But actually, the story that came out in our research is a similar one but it’s more accidental. It wasn’t the heroic first officer, it was more that after the command was given somebody got stuck going up the stairs and in the meantime somebody else saw that the American ships were signalling. So, a lot of the story that came out of our research were more about human fallibility. People are just doing the best they can when they are face with these situations.

 

 

Some of the archive material you use in Here Was Cuba would never have been used in a documentary before. Was it hard to get your hands on it?

The archive research very complex and very intense. We wanted to cut it like a thriller so we needed lots of material to build up the tension and for setting the scene. We also wanted to come up with stuff that hadn’t been shown before. Examples of that would be the Kennedy archive, the audio that Kennedy had recorded in the White House. Hundreds and hundreds of hours of material to listen through, to pick out the key moments. And they were electric to listen to, all these men deliberating the end of the world. Then all these little things, which I love, like these handwritten notes by Kennedy.

 

 

This also goes to show that you made the choice of authenticity.

Especially if you’re taking quite a dynamic contemporary approach you need to be absolutely rigorous about historical accuracy. I’m actually not a big fan or historical re-enactments. Some people do it really well, but very often they leave me feeling cold or pushed out of the film. We do these creative interpretations during the film of certain moments, like Khrushchev typing his letter or the map when the U2 pilots got lost by being blinded by the aurora borealis. Some people think they are archive, but they were actually dreamed up by our talented cinematographer Kate McCullough.

 

 

With all these material in your hands, the editing becomes crucial for the setting of the pace. What was your approach like in the editing room?

As you know, I was the co-director and the editor, so there was a through line in this case. The pace probably built itself because it’s such a dense story, so it had to be quite fast. You could have made twenty films out of it, but we had to make a gripping seventy or eighty minute film that would cover all the material so each event had to sing for its supper and tell its story very quickly. The edit was really tense and intense but really good fun.

 

 

A lot of the people you were able to talk to played lived the Missile Crisis first hand. Some of them are truly rewarding, like the contributions by Khrushchev’s son. Were they hard to get?

Research. We had amazing researchers in all the three areas. Plus, it was our second guiding light. The first was that we wanted it to feel like a contemporary Cold War thriller and the second one was that we wanted to try to make it through first hand reports. Obviously, there is historical narratives too from experts but a lot of it is by people who lived these first hand experiences. And a lot of them were quite elderly so it was probably their last chance to tell their story. One of our last interviews was with Ted Sorensen, Kennedy’s chief advisor. I mean, this is the man who wrote – or at least it seems like he wrote – the ‘ask not what your country can do for you’ speech and we interviewed him shortly before he died. He took us right in that room, with the tension from the military so it was fantastic. Equally, Sergei Khrushchev – I mean he is an extremely accomplished political academic and he was an amazingly dense storyteller about the period but also extremely generous about revealing an intimate side to his father.

 

 

Speaking of Khrushchev, Here Was Cuba almost re-defines his role. It’s one of those things that you take home with you.

That’s a very good thing to know because a lot of people came up to me after the movie and said that the always thought that it was Kennedy who saved the world whereas, in fact, it was Khrushchev who, at the eleventh hour, couldn’t do it. He had experienced two world wars and in fact my favourite story is how he took it on the chin that he had lost, that he had backed down whereas it turned out years later that he was the one who got the guarantee that they would remove the Jupiter missiles from Turkey but wasn’t allowed to make it public.

 

 

What do you mean by the film’s subtitle ‘A Cautionary Tale’

It’s like that old saying, those who don’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it. With this story, it could have kicked off at any day and there was nothing anyone could have done about it. The thing is that the same could happen today. Could you really say with any confidence that the same thing could never happen now, that we have people in charge in all these countries that we can trust not to be guided by pride or provocation to set off missiles? As we speak, there are nine countries we know of with nuclear missiles. And even when we considered America, when they let off those two bombs in Japan they were considered a relatively sane and balanced government. So it’s nothing to do with rationality or sanity. Why do we need these weapons in the world at all? Did you hear that speech by Rouhani, the president of Iran. He said ‘there is no right hands for these wrong weapons’. That’s today, that’s why it’s a cautionary tale. Things can light up at any second.

 

 

What do you think of the state of documentary features today?

I think it’s easy and difficult. The right film, the right story and the right idea can fly. It’s difficult to get funding – like it is for everything. But documentary is getting a new life in the cinemas, there is renewed interest in them so it’s a good time to make them if you can find the right project. You have to have a television funder on board, so that can bring its own complexities.

 

 

Was it difficult to get Here Was Cuba financed?

No. It wasn’t easy but the Film Board came on board very quickly and PBS, our other chief funder came on. They wanted the TV version done for last year’s fiftieth anniversary, so everyone just miraculously flew into place at the right moment.

 

 

Are you working on any new project at the moment?

Yes. I can’t quite say what I’m working on at the moment but some of them are very close to coming to fruition. In documentary, you always have to work on a few projects at the one time just in case one of those ideas will take off.

 

 

Here Was Cuba by Emer Reynolds and John Murray will be screening on More 4 this Saturday, 16th of November. The film is listed under Kennedy's Nuclear Nightmare and will be screened as part of a series of film based around the subject of JFK's assassination.

 

 

-          Matt Micucci