{"id":1173,"date":"2013-03-07T15:44:32","date_gmt":"2013-03-07T20:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/library.brown.edu\/fivecenturiesofchange\/?page_id=1173"},"modified":"2016-06-06T19:44:56","modified_gmt":"2016-06-06T19:44:56","slug":"cinema-novo","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/fivecenturiesofchange\/chapters\/chapter-8\/cinema-novo\/","title":{"rendered":"Cinema Novo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defining Cinema Novo<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cinema Novo marks an important moment in the history of Brazilian cultural productions because it is understood as the first instance where Brazilian films began to gain a consistent level of positive critical reception outside of Brazil. Cinema Novo has long been popular among academics because it is a movement heavily imbedded with political, philosophical, and historical meaning. These films generally emphasized social and political problems in Brazil in an effort to promote economic reform.\u00a0 While it is difficult to place a clear chronological time frame on this era, we can say that it lasted from the late 1950s to the early 1970s.<\/p>\n

Part of the problem with establishing this timeline is that the filmmakers of Cinema Novo never produced films in a \u201cconsciously\u201d Cinema Novo style. In other words, although Cinema Novo has been associated with certain moviemakers, with an ideal and with an esthetic form, it was not the explicit intention of the filmmakers to create this new movement. Thus, Cinema Novo is a label that scholars and film critics (including some of the filmmakers) use retroactively to describe and organize films of that era. Furthermore, it was not an enclosed form of expression allowing a specific group of directors could to Cinema Novo films. It was, in theory, open to anyone who made films in this new style.[1]<\/a> Anselmo Duarte\u2019s O Pagador de Promessas <\/i>for example, has many similarities with Cinema Novo in terms of subject matter, but Duarte was not a part of the \u2018Cinema Novo\u2019 circle.<\/p>\n

The guiding principle of the Cinema Novo esthetic was to have film show life as it \u201cactually was.\u201d\u00a0 In this sense, it was heavily influenced by Italian Neo-Realism and like it, its production process included the use of non-actors and 16mm cameras. The French New Wave and its Auteur style also influenced Brazilian directors. Additionally Brazilian directors were attracted to French New Wave\u2019s low budget and independent production methods. The fusion of these two principles was captured in the phrase: \u201cuma camera na m\u00e3o, uma ideia na cabe\u00e7a\u201d (a camera in the hand, an idea in the head).\u00a0 This saying, attributed to filmmaker Glauber Rocha has become synonymous with the movement, as it describes a determination to make films that reflected the directors\u2019 ideas while using very little money to do so.<\/p>\n

The lack of capital that characterized Cinema Novo, which was originally a hindrance, became a calling card of the movement, creating what would later be dubbed \u201cthe aesthetic of hunger\u201d by Glauber Rocha in his manifesto by that same name published originally in 1965. This was a combination of European inspired aesthetics adapted to the Brazilian reality. As film director Ismail Xavier comments, \u201cthe overall demands of the modern European cinema d\u2019auteur<\/i> \u2013 the denial of technical restraints, production of values, and narrative codes \u2013 acquired, in Brazil, an anticolonialist thrust.\u201d[2]<\/a> The rationale for this aesthetic principle was that the form of the movie (i.e. the ways in which it is shot and produced) should reflect the subject matter. Crucially, Rocha held that \u201chunger in Latin America is not simply an alarming symptom; it is the essence of our society. Herein lies the tragic originality of Cinema Novo in relation to world cinema. Our originality is our hunger and our greatest misery in that this hunger is felt but not understood.\u201d[3]<\/a> However, in his reflections on the movement Rocha believed that hunger had been misunderstood by the more developed outside world (he singled out Europeans). For them, hunger is glorified as a means to engage with their \u201cnostalgia for the primitive.\u201d He holds that traditionally, hunger has been avoided, but that only through the clear cultural engagement with hunger can it be understood. Aside from the form, and clear preference for marginalized movie subjects, the Aesthetics of Hunger also had a special focus on violence, which Rocha called \u201cthe most noble manifestation of hunger.\u201d This is so because he holds that Brazil is still effectively a colony and that only through violence will the colonizer finally become aware of the colonized.[4]<\/a> Therefore, we may say that the aesthetic of hunger emphasized hunger through form (i.e. low cost production), subject matter (i.e. marginalized protagonists) and in results (violence).\u00a0 This cinematic style, known as the \u2018aesthetic of hunger,\u2019 became closely associated with Cinema Novo and has been its legacy. However, it is important to understand that this is not representative of all Cinema Novo films.<\/p>\n

Sources of Content: Literature Expressed in Cinematic Form<\/strong><\/p>\n

So where did they get their ideas? While Cinema Novo acquired a lot of influences from outside of Brazil (Italy and France and, to a lesser extent, the United States), obviously there were Brazilian elements within this film genre. Theatre, popular music, and folk literature all greatly influenced these filmmakers. While Brazil struggled initially to create its own movie industry, Cinema Novo filmmakers were influenced by their predecessors. These included works of early filmmakers such as Humberto Mauro, from Minas Gerais, the maker of Ganga Bruta<\/i> (1933) and Mario Peixoto, from Rio de Janeiro, who made the outstanding avant-garde film Limite<\/i> (1931).[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Ganga-bruta-poster01\"<\/a>

Humberto Mauro\u2019s Ganga Bruta (1933) (public domain).<\/p><\/div>\n

Although it is impossible to state that a film had just one singular source of influence, certain elements are so present in films that we may state that the relationship is one of parody (in the literary sense) or allegory.\u00a0 As such, we can trace some broad relationships.<\/p>\n

One frequent source of inspiration for Cinema Novo filmmakers was literature.\u00a0 At times this was a direct relationship, as is the case with a movie like Nelson Perreira dos Santos\u2019 Vidas S\u00eacas <\/i>(1963), which is an adaptation of the famous novel of the same name published by Graciliano Ramos de Oliveira in 1938.<\/p>\n

Special mention must be made of the Brazilian Modernist movement, which began in 1922, and from which the filmmakers also gathered inspiration.\u00a0 Brazilian modernism is often cited as one of the first autochthonous \u2018high\u2019 cultural movement in Brazilian History. Traditionally Brazilian cultural producers looked somewhat imitatively towards Europe and would reproduce works with similar styles. Furthermore, there was often a concern in the nineteenth and early twentieth century with creating a \u201ctruly national\u201d cultural expression. The modernist turned the imitation so criticized by intellectuals into a cultural movement unto itself through the principle described as antropof\u00e1gia<\/i>. Its premise arose through artistic manipulations of images of cannibals in early Brazilian history. The result is that artists are free to \u201cconsume\u201d artistic expressions from abroad and \u2018digest\u2019 their positive elements and \u201creject\u201d those that do not work. What is left is what has been \u201cdigested\u201d into the Brazilian culture thus making it stronger. This will be an extremely important principal, especially for the third phase of Cinema Novo (1968-1972).<\/p>\n

Other novels were present as inspiration, but in a less open way. For example Euclides da Cunha\u2019s Os Sert\u00f5es <\/i>(1902) is an obvious inspiration in Glauber Rocha\u2019s Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol <\/i>(1964). Da Cunha\u2019s book, which depicts the final expedition to destroy the town of Canudos<\/i> and its messianic leader Antonio Conselheiro, was an inspiration for many Cinema Novo filmmakers especially those of the first wave.[6]<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0Other films drew inspiration from the history of Brazil, as was the case with Carlos Diegues\u2019s Ganga Zumba <\/i>(1963), which portrays the seventeenth-century maroon society of Palmares and its struggles against Portuguese colonial authorities. However, despite its reliance on other cultural products, Cinema Novo was a very politically involved and inspired form of film production. Many of these reclaimings of older artistic works were done as a way to allegorize current problems of Brazil while escaping censorship.<\/p>\n

Emergence of Cinema Nova in the 1950s<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"250px-Caca\u0301_Diegues\"<\/a>

Carlos (Cac\u00e1) Diegues (public domain).<\/p><\/div>\n

Although filmmaker Carlos Diegues states, \u201cCinema Novo has no birthdate,\u201d[7]<\/a> making the definition of when Cinema Novo came into being is quite difficult, we can contextualize the movement by focusing on the events around which it emerged. Film scholar Randal Johnson places the \u201croots\u201d of Cinema Novo in the early1950s when filmmakers Alex Viany, Rodolfo Nanni and Nelso Perreira dos Santos first began to articulate the need for an \u201cindependent national cinema.\u201d[8]<\/a> Politically, it emerged around the end of the second Vargas era (1951-54), because Brazilians were experiencing a period of freer cultural expression.<\/p>\n

However it was during this time that a major event happened in the history of Brazilian film: the Hollywood style Vera Cruz production company went bankrupt.\u00a0 The failure of the Companhia Cinematogr\u00e1fica Vera Cruz<\/i>, which opened in 1949, is connected to the rise of Cinema Novo. Its films were high-cost Hollywood style productions intended to compete with American films in Brazil. Its most successful movie, O Cangaceiro<\/i>, a Western about bandits in the northeast of Brazil, came at the end of its existence and was not successful enough to solidify the production company\u2019s finances.[9]<\/a> Vera Cruz\u2019s insolvency in the mid-1950s solidified the belief held by many people that Brazilian productions simply could not compete with foreign films. The only other avenues still available to many moviemakers were the lowbrow but popular movie genre of chanchadas. <\/i>Low production cost auteur films were the only way to effectively make movies that were more high-culture.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

It is important to understand that Brazilian productions did not occur in a cultural vacuum.\u00a0 Brazilian cinemas showed not only Vera Cruz and chanchada films, but also foreign films.\u00a0 In the 1950s Hollywood secured important shares of the Brazilian cinema market, creating an \u201cunfavorable position [for national filmmakers] in a domestic market ruled by Hollywood.\u201d[10]<\/a> Paradoxically, the presence of Hollywood films, produced not only the market rationale and conditions of Cinema Novo, but also images against which Cinema Novo sought to fight. The dominant images of Brazil in films of the 1950s era (and in some cases still to this day) derive from the World War II-era Good Neighbor policy of the Franklyn Delano Roosevelt administration, through which the United States would engage in a foreign policy of aid, cultural exchange (although this was unequal) and non-intervention so as to secure greater Brazilian assistance in the war effort. \u00a0While the Good Neighbor policy did not focus solely on Brazil nor on cinema, it did have tremendous effect on cultural productions. As cultural critics have noted: \u00a0\u201cThe Good Neighbor Policy, its ideology of mutual exchange, and this international event provided an ideal vehicle for the Vargas regime\u2019s promotion of Brazilian export, and Brazil thus drew on Hollywood stereotypes of tropical excess to bolster its image abroad and to attract foreign visitors.\u201d[11]<\/a> The Vargas government\u2019s engagement with Hollywood stereotypes indicates that Brazilians clearly knew about and played with these symbols. Important images of Brazil arose during the Wolrld War II era, which still frame the conceptions of many Americans about Brazilians. Carmen Miranda and Z\u00e9 Carioca are the two most recognizable figures of this time. Many filmmakers and artists reacted to these images. \u201cThe Miranda lookalikes that we see in the chanchadas of the 1950s similarly reveal Brazil\u2019s acknowledgement of its stereotypical Hollywood representation and can therefore be interpreted as an ironic comment on the U.S. film industry\u2019s falsification and homogenization of Latin identity in the Good Neighbor years and beyond.\u201d[12]<\/a> Thus, it was precisely because these images were homogenous and false that they were utterly incapable of portraying the Brazilian reality. Cinema Novo arose out of an artistic need to create an antithesis to the Hollywood stereotypes and production system.<\/p>\n

Phase One: Cinema Novo (1969-1964)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Generally, Cinema Novo is divided into three phases following somewhat major political changes occurring in society more broadly: first phase (1960-1964) the second phase (1964-1968) and the third phase (1968-1972). The first phase arose during and continued in the immediate aftermath of the Juscelino Kubitschek administration (1956-1961) and included the turbulent years of the brief J\u00e2nio Quadros (1961) and Jo\u00e3o Goulart (1961-1964), which culminated in the military coup of 1964. The coup, in some ways, was a response to the growing political polarization in Brazilian society. The left became increasingly nationalistic and looked to solve deep structural problems of Brazil in a decisive manner.\u00a0 The right became increasingly distrustful of the left and leftist politicians. Thus, they became much more willing to call upon the military to intervene to \u201crestore sanity\u201d to the Brazilian political system.\u00a0 This polarization was rooted in both positive and negative reactions to Vargas era policies; particularly those designed to either help or coopt workers. The Cuban Revolution in 1959 further complicated the political environment because it proved that a successful socialist revolution could occur in a Latin American context.\u00a0 Just as the Haitian Revolution in 1791 had created a panic among slave owners and inspired slaves to rebel, the Cuban Revolution made conservative politicians and elites extremely paranoid of leftist policies.<\/p>\n

These political conditions heavily influenced Cinema Novo filmmakers. Cultural critic Randal Johnson argues that \u201cWithin this historical context, middle class artists and intellectuals, such as those who created Cinema Novo, became increasingly politicized and sought to commit their art to the transformation of Brazilian Society, a transformation they erroneously thought imminent.\u201d[13]<\/a> Johnson points out that this first phase was one in which \u201cnational questions\u201d reflected the ongoing debates throughout society.[14]<\/a>\u00a0 Films of this phase tend to be more optimistic regarding the potential for social change in the country. This is a reflection of a critique of the developmentalist policies of the Vargas, and, especially the Kubitschek administrations. It is also the product of the belief that the State\u2019s intervention in the Brazilian reality would bring concrete benefits to the poor. \u201cCinema Novo was very much a product and reflection of the idealism of that period; indeed, the filmmakers\u2019 progressive, revolutionary spirit and hopes for a more just if not egalitarian society were not radically different from the utopian sentiments of the early planners and builders of Bras\u00edlia.\u201d[15]<\/a> Thus they believed that the films produced could contribute to the creation of knowledge and finding a solution to social and economic problems.\u00a0 Showing national problems was the first step in obtaining a solution to them.<\/p>\n

Indeed the films of the first phase tend to reflect the concern the filmmakers had to show the nation\u2019s ills in a highly personal and stylized way, a traditional marker of the auteur cinema. One of the central political and historical questions of the time was the issue of land reform. A highly controversial issue, it has been linked with Brazil\u2019s colonial legacy of unequal land granting patterns that benefited the wealthy and the politically well-connected. Many critics saw this land problem as the historical cause of Brazil\u2019s unequal distribution of wealth.\u00a0 This \u00a0assessment was prevelant not only in Brazil, but in many countries in Latin America.\u00a0 Therefore, land reform was not a vague political question without any precedence. By 1960 many countries in Latin America had engaged in or had attempted to engage in land reform (Mexico and Cuba being the two major examples in Latin America at the time). Johnson holds this concern over the rural peasantry as the exemplary model of the first phase of Cinema Novo, although many films deviated from this thematic focus.[16]<\/a><\/p>\n

There are two films that are classic examples of the confluence of these socio-economic issues. The first is Nelson Perreira dos Santos\u2019 Vidas S\u00eacas<\/i> (Barren Lives) (1963). The film is an adaptation of a canonical Brazilian novel about the plight of an extremely poor landless peasant family and its struggle to survive in the Brazilian Northeast while facing harsh environmental conditions (drought) and powerlessness in a society where power and wealth are held by a few and used to control the masses. This adaptation remains faithful to the original novel \u00a0and as such the ending is open to interpretation as to its utopian\/dystopian message. In this movie the political implications are clear: the roots of the family\u2019s plight are Brazil\u2019s unequal distribution of land and wealth. Thus, the major themes addressed in this film ( e.g. poverty, violence, corruption, and powerlessness) are all linked to the central theme of inequality.<\/p>\n

The second classic example of the first phase of Cinema Novo is Glauber Rocha\u2019s Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol<\/i> (Black God, White Devil) (1964).\u00a0 Like Vidas S\u00eacas<\/i>, it also tells the story of a family struggling to survive in the arid Northeast of Brazil.\u00a0 The protagonist, Manuel (played by Geraldo del Rey) struggles against all manner of oppressions that conspire to maintain the people of the northeast in figurative chains. In the story, Manuel and his wife Rosa must go from group to group (essentially savior to savior) in their struggle to survive.\u00a0 Like Vidas S\u00eacas<\/i>, this movie is critical of the economic structure of the Northeast at the time of production. The travels of Manuel from his patriarchal landowner to the messianic Sebasti\u00e3o and finally to the violent bandit Corisco represent a sharp criticism of the region\u2019s history of highly unequal wealth distribution and the cultural and historical conditions that made criminal violence and fanaticism possible. It makes various references to real historical events such as the massacre at Canudos and the banditry symbolized by the quasi spiritual connection between Corisco and the memory of the bandit Lampi\u00e3o. However, despite Rocha\u2019s clear position inside the Cinema Novo movement, the high symbolism of his early films is uncharacteristic of first-phase films, and would only become more prevalent after 1964.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>

Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1964) (public domain).<\/p><\/div>\n

Os Fuzis<\/i> (the Guns) (1964) by Mozambican-born director Ruy Guerra engages in a similar vein of social criticism.\u00a0 Like Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol<\/i> and Vidas S\u00eacas, <\/i>it is critical of a power structure that is top-down and does not protect the rights of the people. Os Fuzis <\/i>tells the story of the tensions and struggle between the starving residents of a town and the soldiers who are sent in to protect the food store of a politician. In all three of these movies, there is a clear Marxist vision of Brazil\u2019s social problems in which the workers are forced into subservience by those who own the land because they have control over the means of food production.\u00a0 As a result, the protagonists are pressured to obey or else lose access to the source of their sustenance.<\/p>\n

Despite the preference in these early films for discussing the problems of rural Brazil, there were films that engaged with questions and issues in an urban environment as well. In the film Cinco Vezes Favela <\/i>(1962) director Carlos Diegues shows the harshness and dog-eat-dog world of favela residents in Rio de Janeiro. It does not follow the traditional storyline arc of classic Hollywood. Instead it shows five separate stories about five separate people struggling through their day-to-day lives.\u00a0 Major themes found in this movie are hunger, poverty, violence, and corruption.[17]<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Phase Two of Cinema Novo (1964-1968)<\/strong><\/p>\n

On March 31 and April 1 1964, the Brazilian military overthrew the democratically elected government of Jo\u00e3o Goulart. The coup had a tremendous effect on the left, \u201cThe speed and bloodlessness of the coup left Goulart supporters in total disarray. They began to realize how overconfident they had been, which led to much recrimination about responsibility for key errors.\u201d[18]<\/a> \u00a0This sense of disappointment is understandable especially if we take into account that the military met no resistance to its takeover even after pro-Goulart leaders called on supporters to go into the streets.[19]<\/a> This disarray extended to the Cinema Novo filmmakers, as well. It wiped away the optimism they had in seeing the steady rise of the leftist policies of the Jo\u00e3o Goulart\u2019s administration. The policy-makers of the military regime rolled many of Goulart\u2019s policies back in an effort to combat inflation. The orthodox stabilization plan, while successful in combating inflation also led to a \u201cfall in real wage rates and public spending cuts.\u201d[20]<\/a><\/p>\n

During this time period Cinema Novo shifted its perspective from the rural Northeast to the city. This was a more introspective phase of the genre in which filmmakers tried to answer questions about the failure of the left.[21]<\/a> The feeling was extensive, \u201c[i]n the arts and in the social sciences, the post-1964 period is one of strong political and aesthetic criticism of pre-1964 populism.\u201d[22]<\/a> Films were part of this process as well, and Glauber Rocha\u2019s Terra em Transe<\/i> (Land in Anguish<\/i>) (1967) is perhaps the clearest example of this political despair.\u00a0 It tells the story of a young reporter who is struggling to comprehend the political situation of his country, the fictional Eldorado. He is deeply depressed by what he sees as lies perpetrated by politicians of both the left and the right.\u00a0 He is also deeply disappointed in himself and the intelligentsia for their inaction.\u00a0 The movie is a not so subtle allegory for the overthrow of the Goulart administration by the military. This is part of what Ismail Xavier describes as the process in which \u201c[a] self-analysis of the intellectual was developed, and it was Rocha, in Land in Anguish<\/i>, who on the aesthetic level best formulated the reflection on the failure of the revolutionary project.\u201d[23]<\/a> Gone was the optimism of the earlier Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol<\/i>. In Terra en Transe<\/i> there is no glorious ending.<\/p>\n

\"O_Desafio\"<\/a>Paulo C\u00e9sar Saraceni\u2019s\u00a0O Desafio <\/em>(The Challenge) (1965) is another movie directly focused on the questions generated by the Brazilian coup.[24]<\/a> On the surface it is a movie about interclass love between the wife of a rich industrialist and a young leftist student.\u00a0 However, through the dialogue we can appreciate several moments where questions arise about the inability to understand the military coup and the failure of the left to implement lasting change. Like Terra em Transe, O Desafio <\/i>is also deeply pessimistic in tone. Although these two films share a gloomy undertone they are also more explicitly political than their previous counterparts.\u00a0 In part this arises out of a disappointment with politicians, and because the Brazilian military had not yet passed censorship laws aimed at quieting dissident voices that would force Cinema Novo directors to alter the tone of their films and their manner of presentation.<\/p>\n

One major change during the second phase was the abandonment of Cinema Novo\u2019s outright rejection of commercialism. Although the movement\u2019s roots sought to disassociate art from commercialism, by the mid-1960s a debate emerged about the ability of Cinema Novo to sustain itself without a broader appeal. This was due to the success of the conservative modernization of the media by the military regime, which saw other cultural production methods greatly improve.[25]<\/a> Cinema Novo films, however, were not able to take full advantage of these new advances. For example they had to pay a higher percentage than other filmmakess to distributors and exhibitors to display their films.\u00a0 This higher rate was due to increased risk of a Cinema Novo movie being commercially unsuccessful and, thus, economically unviable for the producer or distributor.[26]<\/a> Its esthetic style also faced critics. In this regard Cinema Novo was not unlike the Brazilian Modernist Movement of the twenties, \u201cwhich called in theory for a democratization of art but in practice remained an elitist form of expression.\u201d[27]<\/a> Recognizing this problem, filmmakers began to make movies that sought greater appeal, such as comedies or once again the adaptations of canonical novels, which was the case with the movie Menino de Engenho <\/i>[Plantation Boy] (1965), an adaptation of the novel of the same name, written by Jos\u00e9 Lins do Rego.<\/p>\n

Phase Three of Cinema Novo (1968-1972)<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1968, the military regime passes Institutional Act No. 5, which limited freedoms to a greater extent than had been previously the case. The act temporaily closed Congress, deemed radical political opposition a violation of\u00a0 \u201cNational Security\u201d and introduced greater censorship.[28]<\/a> This repressive political atmosphere led many intellectuals and artists into \u201cself-exile.\u201d For example Glauber Rocha left Brazil in 1971 and spent most of the remainder of his life in exile. \u00a0This new repressive regime meant that films could no longer be openly political. As a result filmmakers developed numerous forms of artistic manipulation, such as allegories based on comedy and history, to pass the censors.<\/p>\n

Out of this moment, the increased censorship and the need for greater marketability, arose the third phase of Cinema Novo: Tropicalism, a form of cultural production originally associated with the work of musicians Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso in which foreign cultural productions are co-opted by Brazilian artists to create and strengthen cultural productions. The inspiration for this movement was found in the modernist of the 1920s, especially writer Oswaldo de Andrade, who advocated for this style of interaction between Brazil and foreign cultural productions. Ismail Xavier reminds us that, while intertextuality (or the influence of other texts upon a new text) of cultural productions may not seem like a highly polemical issue, it shocked and angered many people who felt that it watered down Brazil\u2019s \u2018original\u2019 cultural products.[29]<\/a>\u00a0 What is especially interesting is that this intense mixing of cultural productions led to a gaudy and kitsch aesthetic, which was the antithesis of the earlier Cinema Novo minimialist esthetic principle.<\/p>\n

\"475px-Nelson_Pereira_dos_Santos\"<\/a>

A representation of Nelson Pereira dos Santos (public domain).<\/p><\/div>\n

The two most popular films of this phase were Joaquim Pedro de Andrade\u2019s Macuna\u00edma<\/i> (1969) and Nelson Pereira dos Santos\u2019 Como Era Gostoso o Meu Fran\u00e7es<\/i> (How Tasty was my little Frenchman) (1971).[30]<\/a> Despite their popular appeal both movies are allegorical. Macuna\u00edma<\/i> is a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by modernist writer M\u00e1rio de Andrade.[31]<\/a> It is a comedy that tells a fictitious folklore of a Brazilian native named Macuna\u00edma who is born a full-grown and black man (played by the actor Grande Otelo) and then is turned white by the waters of a geyser (from then on the part is played by Paulo Jos\u00e9). This is often read as a critique of Brazilian policy-makers attempts to whiten the population during the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. In the film\u2019s climax, the villain attempts to shove Macuna\u00edma into a pool where the Brazilian dish of feijoada<\/i> is being prepared so that he may devour him. Randal Johnson and Robert Stam note that \u201c Both films [Macuna\u00edma<\/i> and Terra em Transe<\/i>] clearly express the need to locate discussions of the \u2018national\u2019 at cultural levels, first by positing the investigation of the formation of symbolic universes and national imaginaries as a necessary complement to analyses of economic domination and, secondly, by calling for self-criticism and for assessments of cultural practices that would link national identity and political processes in order to help explain the recent defeat [of democracy].\u201d[32]<\/a> Like Terra em Transe, Macuna\u00edma<\/i> is also highly critical of everything from revolutionaries to the inherent and persistent racism in Brazilian society.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>

Macuna\u00edma (1969) (public domain).<\/p><\/div>\n

Como era gostoso o meu fran\u00e7es<\/i> is also a highly allegorical film with popular appeal.\u00a0 It takes as its point of departure the texts of early colonial Brazil. In this film a French Huguenot is captured by a native tribe in Rio de Janeiro. He is then integrated into the tribe and, as a part of the process, he is given a wife. The film ends with his being killed and eaten by the tribe including his wife. Again as in Macunaima, anthropofagie<\/i> is a defining theme. But more importantly, its criticism of the military regime is not readily apparent, which allowed it to pass the censor. According to one critic, \u201c[t]his film plays on the idea of the natural \u2018savage, sinless life\u2019 in order to destroy idyllic expectations of a harmonic encounter between cultures, making the audience confront the inevitable violence implicit in territorial expansion.\u201d[33]<\/a> The resulting message is clear if we take into consideration that many of the Cinema Novo filmmakers were Marxist-influenced and believed that Brazil was still a colony, thus, violence and the territorial expansion can be read as a critique of the violence of capitalism and imperialism. And it is important to understand that this political view fits into the broader tropes found within Cinema Novo films;<\/p>\n

Economically and religiously, Europe constructed an imaginary of salvation and of plenty as the telos<\/i> of its spectacular migration to the tropics: Eldorado, earthly paradise, the promise of redemption in the New World, the American Dream. It is precisely this imaginary, the result of an alliance between the Christian theology of salvation and military mercantilist pragmatism, that the Brazilian cinema brings back on a different register between 1964 and 1974. Once associated with the ruling classes, these imaginary constructs are deliberately inverted, for filmmakers argue that the concrete future defined by the Utopian voyages were, after all, a preamble to hell rather than paradise.[34]<\/a><\/p>\n

Thus, Como era gostoso meu fran\u00e7\u00eas<\/i> represents an example of how Cinema Novo directors liked to allegorize Brazilian history through its inversion and perversion creating a product filled with critical political messages.<\/p>\n

Government Policy and Cinema Novo<\/strong><\/p>\n

Finally in order to have a well-rounded view of the movement, we must explore the role of the government in Cinema Novo.\u00a0 It is well known that the government during the time of Cinema Novo (1960-1972) was not generally engaged with policies that would produce a \u2018healthy\u2019 film industry. Censorship made work especially hard for artists, and harassment by government officials led many people to self-exile. However, it is simplistic to state that the relationship between the state and Cinema Novo was simply antagonistic.\u00a0 Government subsidies were an important source of revenue for many filmmakers. Randal Johnson points out that through a variety of programs and subsidies aimed at promoting Brazilian films there \u201cwas the beginning of a tacit alliance between the state and Cinema Novo, an alliance that would continue with the federal government’s creation of the Instituto Nacional do Cinema (National Film Institute) in 1966 and Embrafilme in 1969 and that would become formalized in 1973 when Roberto Farias, Cinema Novo’s chosen candidate, became head of Embrafilme.\u201d[35]<\/a> This relationship does not take away from the messages provided by Cinema Novo, but should rather serve to complicate the history of the movement.\u00a0 It should always be remembered that despite the wishes of many filmmakers, film is not only art; it is also an industry.\u00a0 The fact that Cinema Novo directors engaged with parts of the State for financial support does not mean that they were endorsing state policies at other levels.<\/p>\n

Cinema Novo as a cultural expression did not have mass appeal inside Brazil.\u00a0 It was often criticized as too erudite for mass consumption.\u00a0 However true that may be, it is impossible to gain a proper understanding of the history of Brazilian film as an industry and as an art form without taking Cinema Novo into account.\u00a0 We must remember that Cinema Novo is representative of a school of thought within Brazilian Cinema from the late 1950s to the early 1970s (again, it\u2019s difficult to delineate), as such, it should not<\/i> be taken as an all-encompassing history of film at that time. Yet, given its high critical praise and its popularity among intellectuals and film critics from all over the world, Cinema Novo\u2019s reach and its cultural resonance are extensive, and have served to open up the country to foreign eyes.<\/p>\n

Cinema Novo Directors<\/strong><\/p>\n