Memories of underdevelopment /

The two basic, indispensable parts of this book are the masterful short story (translated), "Inconsolable Memories" by Edmondo Desnoes, and the script of the film Memories of Underdevelopment by Tomas Gutierrez Alea. These are accompanied by some useful material--a biograpical sketch of the director and 11 pages of "Notes on the Continuity Script." Following are a dozen "Reviews and Commentaries," extremely uneven, touching upon the film's politics, psychological insights, and cinematic merits. Personal recollections by Alea and an interview with him are excellent. Some reviews are routinely intelligent (The New York Times, The New Yorker). Some inclusions are disgracefully pretentious (introduction by Michael Chanan and a study of "rhetorical strategies") or shallow (New Republic, Sight and Sound). One essay by Julianne Burton is brilliant, worth all the rest of the book put together (except, of course, for the story and script). Other items, short newspaper clippings clustering around the idea of "Federal Agents Seize Cuban Festival Films Here" and "U.S. Refuses Visa to Cuban Director to Get Film Award," show the movie itself to be history, as well as importantly about history. An Alea filmography and a Memories bibliography are welcome academic supplements; the obvious and more-than-academic supplement is the videocassette of the film, now available. College and university libraries. P. H. Stacy University of Hartford