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Within a year of the Lumière
brothers' first experiment in Paris in 1896, the cinematograph machine
appeared in Rio de Janeiro. Ten years later, the capital boasted 22
cinema houses and the first Brazilian feature film, The Stranglers
by Antônio Leal, had been screened. From then on Brazil's film
industry made steady progress and, although it has never been large,
its output over the years has attracted international attention.
In 1930, still the era of the silent
movie in Brazil, Mario Peixoto's film Limit (Limite) was made. Limite
is a surrealistic work dealing with the conflicts raised by the human
condition and how life conspires to prevent total fulfillment. It is
considered a landmark film in Brazilian cinema history. In 1933 Cinédia
produced The Voice of Carnival, the first film with Carmen Miranda.
This film ushered in the chanchada which dominated Brazilian cinema
for many years. Chanchadas are slapstick comedies, generally filled
with musical numbers, and thoroughly appreciated by the public.
By the end of the 1940's Brazilian
film making was becoming an industry. The Vera Cruz
Film Company was created in São Paulo with the goal of producing films of international
quality. It hired technicians from abroad and brought back from Europe
Alberto Cavalcanti, a Brazilian filmmaker with an international reputation,
to head the company. Vera Cruz produced some important films before
it closed in 1954, among them the epic The Brigand (O Cangaceiro) which
won the "Best Adventure Film" award at the Cannes Film Festival
in 1953.
In the 1950's, Brazilian cinema radically
changed the way it made films. In his 1955 film,
Rio 40 Degrees (Rio 40 Graus), director Nelson Pereira dos Santos employed
the filmmaking
techniques of Italian neorealism by using ordinary
people as his actors and by going to the streets to shoot his low budget
film. Nelson Pereira
dos Santos would become one of the most important
Brazilian filmmakers of all time, and it is he who set the stage for
the Brazilian cinema
novo movement. Other directors went outdoors to shoot,
and production of films increased. In 1962, The Payer of Vows (O Pagador
de Promessas)
by Anselmo Duarte won the Golden Palm at the Cannes
Film Festival. By this time cinema novo had established a new concept
in Brazilian
filmmaking - an idea in mind and a camera in the
hands. The cinema novo films dealt with themes related to acute national
problems, from
conflicts in rural areas to human problems in the
large cities, as well as film versions of important Brazilian novels.
Barren Lives (Vidas
Secas), directed by Pereira dos Santos, is based
on a novel by Graciliano Ramos. It tells the story of a northeastern
family chased from their
home by drought. God and The Devil in the Land of
the Sun (Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol) by director Glauber Rocha
deals in an allegorical
way with religious and political fanaticism in Brazil's
northeast. Empty Night (Noite Vazia), goes back to urban, intimate
themes depicting
the anguish of lonely people living in industrial
São Paulo.
At the end of the 1960's, the Tropicalist
movement had taken hold of the music, theatre, and
art scenes in Brazil. It emphasized the need to transform all foreign
influences into a national
product. Cinema also came under its spell; allegory
was its means of expression. The most representative film of the Tropicalist
movement
is Macunaíma, by Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, a metaphorical analysis
of the Brazilian character as expressed in the tale
of a native Indian who leaves the Amazon jungle and goes to the big
city. The film is
based on Mario de Andrade's 1928 novel of the same
name.
Working at the same time as the Tropicalists,
another group of directors emerged in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro
who also made low cost films. This movement - cinema marginal - produced
films with themes that refer to a marginal society. Their films were
considered "difficult". Noteworthy among these films are
Rio Babylon (Rio Babilônia) by Neville d'Almeida, He Killed the
Family and Went to the Movies (Matou a Família e foi ao Cimema)
by Júlio Bressane, and The Red Light Bandit (O Bandido da Luz
Vermelha) by Rogério Sganzerla.
The Government film agency, EMBRAFILME,
created in 1969, was responsible for the co-production,
financing, and distribution of a large percentage of films in the 1970's
and 1980's.
(EMBRAFILME ceased operations in 1990.) EMBRAFILME
added a commercial dimension to the film industry and made it possible
for it to move
on to more ambitious projects. Among the acclaimed
films of the mid 1970's were Pereira do Santos's Ogum's Amulet (Amuleto
de Ogum) about
candomblé and Joaquim Pedro de Andrade's Connubial War (Guerra
Conjugal). In a series of sketches, Connubial War,
based on a short story by Dalton Trevisan, relates the humor and travails
of married
life. Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (Dona Flor e
seus Dois Maridos), directed by Bruno Barreto, was an international
success. Based on the
novel by Jorge Amado, Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
is a delightful story about a widow living a triangular affair with
her second husband
and her deceased husband's spirit.
In the 1980's movies were not well
attended. This was due in part to the popularity
of television. Many theatres closed their doors, especially in the
interior of the country.
Nevertheless, some important films were made. Many
were concerned with political questions: They Don't Wear Black-Tie
(Eles não Usam
Black-Tie), 1981, directed by Leon Hirzman, tells the story of a strike
in the industrial area of São Paulo; Memories of Prison (Memórias
do Cárcere), 1984, by Nelson Pereira dos Santos and based on
a book by Graciliano Ramos, portrays the life of
political prisoners. One of the most outstanding films of the 1980's
was The Hour of the
Star (A Hora da Estrela), 1985, directed by Susana
Amaral and based on a novel by Clarice Lispector. It relates the poignant
story of an
immigrant girl from the northeast in a big metropolis.
Today many contemporary Brazilian films are being shown on television
and in movie theatres
all over the world.
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