''Before Night Falls'' is a 2000 American

biographical A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or c ...

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

directed by

Julian Schnabel Julian Schnabel (born October 26, 1951) is an American painter and filmmaker. In the 1980s, he received international attention for his "plate paintings" — with broken ceramic plates set onto large-scale paintings. Since the 1990s, he has been ...

. The film is based on both the autobiography of the same name by

Reinaldo Arenas Reinaldo Arenas (July 16, 1943 – December 7, 1990) was a Cuban poet, novelist, and playwright known as a vocal critic of Fidel Castro, the Cuban Revolution, and the Cuban government. His memoir of the Cuban dissident movement and of being a po ...

—published in English in 1993—as well as

Jana Boková Jana Boková is a Czech film director. Boková was born in Prague, but left Czechoslovakia in August 1968 to attend a conference of art students in Austria, then emigrated to Paris, France to study at the Sorbonne. She then lived in the United ...

's 1990 documentary ''Havana''. The screenplay was co-written by Schnabel, Lázaro Gómez Carriles and Cunningham O'Keefe. The film stars

Javier Bardem Javier Ángel Encinas Bardem (; born 1 March 1969) is a Spanish actor. Known for his roles in blockbusters and foreign films, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as the psychopathic assassin Anton Chigurh in ...

(his international film debut, and who was nominated for the

Academy Award for Best Actor The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. The ...

Johnny Depp John Christopher Depp II (born June 9, 1963) is an American actor and musician. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Johnny Depp, multiple accolades, including a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Awa ...

Olivier Martinez Olivier Martinez (born 12 January 1966) is a French actor. He became well known after roles in several French films such as '' Un, deux, trois, soleil'' (1993), which garnered him the César Award for "Most Promising Actor", ''The Horseman on t ...

Andrea Di Stefano Andrea Di Stefano (born 15 December 1972) is an Italian actor and film director. Life and career Born in Rome, he moved to New York City to study acting at the Actors Studio. In the U.S. he played in ''Smile'', an independent movie directed by ...

, Santiago Magill and

Michael Wincott Michael Anthony Claudio Wincott (born January 21, 1958) is a Canadian actor. His deep, raspy voice has often led to his being cast in villainous roles. Some of his best-known roles include Guy of Gisborne in '' Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves'' ( ...

. The film had its world premiere at the 2000

Venice International Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival h ...

Plot

In the film, Arenas is born in Oriente in 1943 and raised by his single mother and her parents, who soon move the entire family to Holguín. After moving to

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

in the 1960s to continue his studies, Reinaldo begins to explore his ambitions, as well as his

sexuality Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied wit ...

. After receiving an honorary mention in a writing contest, Arenas is offered the chance to publish his first work. Through his work and friendships with other openly gay men (such as Pepe Malas and Tomas Diego), Arenas manages to find himself. The political climate in Cuba becomes increasingly dangerous, and in the early 1970s Arenas is arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting minors, and for publishing abroad without official consent. In the next decade, he is in and out of prison, attempting and failing to leave the country several times. In 1980, Arenas finally leaves Cuba for the United States, starting a new life with his close friend Lazaro Gomez Carriles. A few years later, Arenas is diagnosed with

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ma ...

, and after spending several years suffering he dies in 1990.

Cast

as Lázaro Gómez Carriles *

as Bon Bon / Lt. Víctor *

Héctor Babenco Héctor Eduardo Babenco (February 7, 1946July 13, 2016) was an Argentine-Brazilian film director, screenwriter, producer and actor who worked in several countries including Brazil, Argentina, and the United States. He was one of the first Braz ...

Virgilio Piñera Virgilio Piñera Llera ( Cárdenas, Cuba, August 4, 1912 – Havana, October 18, 1979) was a Cuban author, playwright, poet, short story writer, essayist and translator. His most notorious works are the poem ''La isla en peso'' (1943), the collec ...

as Pepe Malas * Santiago Magill as Tomás Diego * John Ortiz as Juan Abreu * Manuel González as José Lezama Lima * Francisco Gattorno as Jorge Camacho * Marisol Padilla Sánchez as Margarita Camacho *

as Herberto Zorilla Ochoa * Pedro Armendáriz Jr. as Reinaldo's Grandfather *

Sean Penn Sean Justin Penn (born August 17, 1960) is an American actor and film director. He has won two Academy Awards, for his roles in the mystery drama ''Mystic River'' (2003) and the biopic ''Milk'' (2008). Penn began his acting career in televisi ...

as Cuco Sanchez *

Najwa Nimri Najwa Nimri Urrutikoetxea (; born 14 February 1972) is a Spanish actress and singer. Early life Nimri's mother is from Pamplona and her father, Karam Nimri, is Jordanian. She has a brother named Karim Nimri, a half-brother named Andre Nimri an ...

as Fina Zorilla Ochoa *

Diego Luna Diego Dionisio Luna Alexander (; born 29 December 1979) is a Mexican actor, director, and producer. He is known for his portrayal of Cassian Andor in '' Rogue One: A Star Wars Story'' and the Disney+ series ''Andor''. Following an early car ...

as Carlos * Cy and Olmo Schnabel as Reinaldo's classmates * Vito Maria Schnabel as Teenage Reinaldo * Lola Schnabel as Girl with keys * Stella Schnabel as Valeria * Jack and Esther G. Schnabel as Mr. and Mrs. Greenberg * Olatz López Garmendia as Mrs. Arenas

Production

got the idea of making ''Before Night Falls'' immediately after making '' Basquiat''; however, it took four years to actually produce the film. Bardem spent one-and-a-half months in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

with Arenas's best friend, Lazaro Gomez Carriles, taking two hours a day to study how Arenas walked and talked.

Reception

Critical response

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, the film has a 73% approval rating based on 98 reviews and an average rating of 6.8/10. The site's consensus states: "An impressionistic, fragmented look at Reinaldo Arenas, ''Before Night Falls'' imagery manages to evoke a sense of the writer's artistry, and Bardem's strong performance holds the film together. Finally, a biopic done well."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

reports an 85 out of 100 rating based on 26 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, stating, "One is reminded a little of the

Marquis de Sade Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade (; 2 June 1740 – 2 December 1814), was a French nobleman, revolutionary politician, philosopher and writer famous for his literary depictions of a libertine sexuality as well as numerous accusati ...

, as portrayed in '' Quills''. It was never simply what they wrote, but that, standing outside convention, taunting the authorities, inhabiting impossible lives, they wrote at all."

Peter Travers Peter Joseph Travers (born ) is an American film critic, journalist, and television presenter. He reviews films for ABC News and previously served as a movie critic for ''People'' and ''Rolling Stone''. Travers also hosts the film interview prog ...

from ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'' awarded the film a full five out of five stars, writing, "In uniting to honor Arenas, Bardem and Schnabel create something extraordinary."

Box office

The film opened in eight venues on December 22, 2000, and earned $85,230 in its first weekend, ranking #34 in the North American box office. The film received a wide release on February 23, 2001. ''Before Night Falls'' grossed $4.2 million in the US and $4.3 million overseas for a worldwide total of $8.5 million from an estimated $20 million budget.

Accolades

Notes

References

External links

* * * * * {{Authority control 2000 films 2000 romantic drama films 2000 LGBT-related films 2000 biographical drama films American biographical drama films American independent films American LGBT-related films American romantic drama films French-language American films 2000s Russian-language films Spanish-language American films Biographical films about writers Films based on autobiographies Films set in Cuba Films set in New York (state) Films set in the 1950s Films set in the 1960s Films set in the 1970s Films set in the 1980s Films shot in Mexico Films shot in New York (state) Venice Grand Jury Prize winners Films scored by Carter Burwell Films directed by Julian Schnabel Gay-related films Biographical films about poets 2000 independent films Films produced by Jon Kilik 2000s English-language films 2000s American films