The entry begins:
I think my novel Hotel Cuba is wonderfully cinematic. It’s the story of two sheltered Russian Jewish sisters, desperate to find refuge in America after the Russian Revolution, who find themselves trapped in the sultry, hedonistic world of 1920s Havana.Visit Aaron Hamburger's website.
Perhaps in a different political climate, the movie could actually be filmed in Havana, to capture the atmosphere of the tropical setting, and the heat and the light, combined with the gorgeous Baroque architecture of Old Town. Since this is a fantasy, I would have the Merchant Ivory team direct and produce the movie, in the style of A Room with a View or Howards End, with their frequent collaborator, the novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala writing an elegant and literary screenplay. I can imagine a lush and lyrical soundtrack, and lovely period costumes to evoke 1922 Cuba, with the American tourists dressed in cream-colored linen suits or pale dusty pink and pistachio green flowing dresses. My heroine, Pearl, is a seamstress and aspiring designer who would have loved being a costume designer for the film!
To play Pearl, I would want a dark-haired actress who projects an inner intelligence and strength, perhaps Oscar winner Rachel Weisz, who like Pearl happens to be Jewish. And then...[read on]
The Page 69 Test: Hotel Cuba.
My Book, The Movie: Hotel Cuba.
--Marshal Zeringue
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