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Cinema Novo is a genre of film noted for its emphasis on social equality, social justice and intellectualism that rose to prominence in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s. As a movement Cinema Novo can be divided into three sequential phases that differ in style, content and ideology. Brazilian director, actor and writer Glauber Rocha is widely claimed to be Cinema Novo's most influential filmmaker.[1] Rocha sought to educate the Latin American public by producing films that subverted the ideals found in traditional Brazilian cinema, which focused on musicals and genre films.

Cinema Novo originated in Latin America in the 1950s in response to class and racial unrest both in Latin America and the United States. Various countries produced Cinema Novo filmmakers and films, but Brazil was the movement's "home."[2] While social factors that would catalyze the movement were evident as early as the 1950s, Cinema Novo first cohered as a political and aesthetic movement during the 1960s. In terms of politics and production, Cinema Novo draws on Italian neorealism and French New Wave.[3]

Origins

Background

In the 1950s Brazilian cinema was dominated by chanchada (musicals, often comedic and "cheap"[4]), big-budget epics that imitated the style of Hollywood[5], and "'serious' cinema" that Cinema Novo filmmaker Carlos Diegues characterizes as "sometimes cerebral and often ridiculously pretentious."[6] This 'traditional' form of Brazilian cinema was supported by foreign producers, distributors and exhibitors. Young Brazilian filmmakers began to protest against what they viewed as films made in "bad taste and ... sordid commercialism, ... a form of cultural prostitution" that relied on the patronage of "an illiterate and impoverished Brazil."[7] By the 1960s Latin American cinema had, in general, become political. Brazil produced the most political cinema in Latin America and thus became the natural “home of the Cinema Novo (New Cinema) movement”.[8]

Cinema Novo rose to prominence at the same time that progressive Brazilian Presidents Juscelino Kubitschek and later João Goulart took office and began to influence Brazilian popular culture. But it was not until 1959 or 1960 that 'Cinema Novo' emerged as a nominative label for the movement.[9] According to authors Randal Johnson and Robert Stam, "[t]he intial phase of Cinema Novo extends from 1960 to 1964, including films completed or near completion when the military overthrew João Goulart on 1 April 1964."[10]

In 1961 the Popular Center of Culture, a subsidiary of the National Students' Union, released Cinco Vezes Favela, a film serialized in five episodes that Johnson and Stam claim to be "one of the first" products of the Cinema Novo movement.[11] The Popular Center of Culture (PCC) sought "to establish a cultural and political link with the Brazilian masses by putting on plays in factories and working-class neighborhoods, producing films and records, and by participating in literacy progams."[12] Johnson and Stam hold that "many of the original members of Cinema Novo" were also active members in the PCC who participated in the production of Cinco Vezes Favela.[13]

Influences

Brazilian filmmakers modeled Cinema Novo after two well-known subversive genres in cinema: Italian neorealism and French New Wave. Italian neorealist films were characterized by stories that filmed on location with nonprofessional actors, and set amongst poor and working class citizens during the hard economic period following World War II. French New Wave, though influenced by classical Hollywood cinema, drew heavily from Italian neorealism, as New Wave directors self-consciously rejected classical cinema and embraced youthful iconoclasm. Proponents of Cinema Novo were "scornful of the politics of the New Wave," perceiving them as somewhat elitist, but were attracted to its use of auteur theory, which enabled filmmakers to independently produce low-budget films while building a cult following based on talent and style. Johnson and Stam additionally claim that Cinema Novo has something in common "with Soviet film of the twenties," which just like Italian neorealism and French New Wave had "a penchant for theorizing it sown cinematic practice." (Johnson & Stam, 55.</ref>

Ideology and Style

"Marxist" and "Free"

Cinema Novo filmmaker Alex Viany describes the movement as a sort of participation culture. According to Viany, while Cinema Novo was initially "as fluid and undefined" as its predecessor French New Wave, it relied on its followers to have a passion for cinema, a desire to use it to shed light on "social and human problems," and a willingness to inject their work with unique talents and personalities. "These affinities gave shape, unity, and a brotherly feeling to the movement. Cinema Novo could never be regarded as a serene, academic movement," writes Viany.[14] With reference to premiere Cinema Novo filmmaker Glauber Rocha, authors Wheeler Winston Dixon and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster claim that "[t]he Marxist implications of [his] cinema are hard to miss".[15]

FREE

Three Phases

Cinema Novo can be divided into three sequential phases that differ in style, content and ideology.

The second phase (1964-1968) was cynical, criticizing intellectuals for their failure to protect Brazil's democracy against the authoritarian coups of the 1960s and 1970s. The third phase (1969-1970s) centered on kitsch and technical polish, which led to the reactionary birth of Novo Cinema Novo. Novo Cinema Novo sought to reemphasize the ideals of the first phase.

First Phase

The first phase (1960-1964) best represents the movement's original motivation and goals. First-phase films were earnest in tone and rural in setting, dealing with social ills that affected the working class like starvation, violence, religious alienation and economic exploitation. "The films share a certain political optimism, characteristic of the developmentalist years," write Johnson and Stam, "but due as well to the youth of the directors, a kind of faith that merely showing these problems would be a first step toward their solution."[16]. Unlike traditional Brazilian cinema that depicted beautiful professional actors in tropical paradises, the first phase "searched out the dark corners of Brazilian life--its favelas and its sertão--the places where Brazil's social contradictions appeared most dramatically."[17]

Diegues contends that Cinema Novo films of this era did not care as much about technical precision related to editing or shot-framing as it did about achieving a pragmatic and proletariat ethos. "Brazilian filmmakers (principally in Rio, Bahia, and Sao Paulo) have taken their cameras and gone out into the streets, the country, and the beaches in search of the Brazilian people, the peasant, the worker, the fisherman, the slum dweller."[18]

Second Phase

Second-phase Cinema Novo dealt primarily with the "perplexity" and "anguish" that Latin Americans felt in the late 1960s following several military coups that transformed Brazil from a democracy into an autocracy. Newly self-referential and anti-illusionist, Cinema Novo films at this point were "analyses of failure--of populism, of developmentalism, and of leftist intellectuals."[19]

Third Phase and Novo Cinema Novo

The third phase of Cinema Novo has been called "the cannibal-tropicalist phase."[20] Tropicalism was a movement that focused on kitsch, bad taste and gaudy colors, and in the cinema this emerged as "[a]n artistic response to political repression."[21] 'Cannibalism' was metaphorical, as exemplified by the film How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman--oppressed peoples are depicted thwarting and absorbing the power of a dominant class or ideology. With Brazil modernizing in the global economy, third-stage Cinema Novo also became more polished and professional. This led to the birth of Novo Cinema Novo, also called Udigrudi[nb 1] cinema, which used 'dirty screen' and 'garbage' aesthetics to re-emphasize Cinema Novo's original focus on marginalized characters and social ills.

Glauber Rocha

Most film historians agree that Glauber Rocha, "one of the most well-known and prolific filmmakers to emerge in the late 1950s in Brazil"[22], was the most powerful advocate for the Cinema Novo movement and its ideals. Dixon and Foster contend that Rocha jumpstarted the movement because he was frustrated by genre films and musicals, which he considered vapid and hegemonic. Rocha wanted to make films that educated the public about social equality, art and intellectualism.

In 1964 Rocha released Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (Black God, White Devil), a Brazilian film he directed and wrote “that suggest[ed] that only violence will help those who are sorely oppressed, a theme Rocha embellished in O Dragão da Maldade Contra o Santo Guerreiro (Antonio das Mortes, 1969) … in which the hit man of Black God, White Devil becomes a hero by joining a peasant war against a brutal landlord.”[23]

Entrance into World Cinema

Burnes St. Patrick Hollyman, son of famed American photographer Thomas Hollyman, states that "by 1970, many of the cinema novo films had won numerous awards at international festivals"[24]. This budding global appeal was not lost on Rocha, who in 1970 published a Manifesto on the movement. In the document Rocha expressed his pleasure that Cinema Novo "had gained critical acceptance as part of world cinema" and had become "a nationalist cinema that accurately reflected the artistic and ideological concerns of the Brazilian people."[25]

But Rocha also had concerns for the future of Cinema Novo. He believed its success made it an easy target for commercialism and corporate devaluation. Rocha warned both filmmakers and the public against being too satisfied by what the movement had achieved, claiming that "irresponsibility" would return Brazilian cinema and society to their pre-Cinema Novo state. In his Manifesto Rocha wrote:

The movement is bigger than any one of us. But the young should know that they cannot be irresponsible about the present and the future because today's anarchy can be tomorrow's slavery. Before long, imperialism will start to exploit the newly created films. If the Brazilian cinema is the palm tree of Tropicalism, it is important that the people who have lived through the drought are on guard to make sure that Brazilian cinema doesn't become underdeveloped.[26]

Key Films

First Phase

  • Arraial do Cabo (1960)[27]
  • Cinco Vezes Favela (1962)[28]
  • Barravento (1962)[29]
  • Os Cafajestes ("The Hustlers," 1962)[30]
  • Ganga Zumba (1963)[31]
  • Vidas Secas ("Barren Lives," 1963)[32]
  • Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol ("Black God, White Devil," 1964)[33]
  • Os Fuzis (The Guns, 1964)[34]

    Second Phase

  • O Desafio ("The Challenge," 1966)[35]
  • Terra em Transe ("Land in Anguish," 1967)[36]
  • Bravo Guerreiro ("The Brave Warrior," 1968)[37]
  • Fome de Amor ("Hunger for Love," 1968)[38]

    Third Phase

  • Macunaíma (1969)[39]
  • Antônio das Mortes (1968)[40]
  • Azyllo ("The Gods and the Dead," 1970)[41]
  • Os Herdeiros ("The Heirs," 1969)[42]
  • O Dragão da Maldade Contra o Santo Guerreiro ("Antonio das Mortes," 1969)[43]
  • Como Era Gostoso o Meu Frances ("How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman," 1971)[44]
  • ''Pindorama'' (1971)[45]

    Notes

    1. ^ Brazilian pronunciation of "Underground."

    References

    1. ^ REFERENCE.
    2. ^ Dixon & Foster, 293.
    3. ^ Johnson & Stam, 33.
    4. ^ Viany, 141.
    5. ^ Viany, 141.
    6. ^ Johnson & Stam, 65.
    7. ^ Johnson & Stam, 65.
    8. ^ Dixon & Foster, 292.
    9. ^ Viany, 141.
    10. ^ Johnson & Stam, 32.
    11. ^ Johnson & Stam, 58.
    12. ^ Johnson & Stam, 58.
    13. ^ Johnson & Stam, 58.
    14. ^ Viany, 141.
    15. ^ Dixon & Foster, 292-3.
    16. ^ Johnson & Stam, 34.
    17. ^ Johnson & Stam, 33.
    18. ^ Johnson & Stam, 66.
    19. ^ Johnson & Stam, 35-36.
    20. ^ Johnson & Stam, 37.
    21. ^ Johnson & Stam, 38.
    22. ^ Hollyman, 9.
    23. ^ Dixon & Foster, 292.
    24. ^ Hollyman, 96.
    25. ^ Hollyman, 96.
    26. ^ Qtd. on Hollyman, 97.
    27. ^ Johnson & Stam, 33.
    28. ^ Johnson & Stam, 33.
    29. ^ Johnson & Stam, 33.
    30. ^ Johnson & Stam, 33.
    31. ^ Johnson & Stam, 33.
    32. ^ Johnson & Stam, 33.
    33. ^ Johnson & Stam, 33.
    34. ^ Dixon & Foster, 293.
    35. ^ Johnson & Stam, 35.
    36. ^ Johnson & Stam, 35.
    37. ^ Johnson & Stam, 35.
    38. ^ Johnson & Stam, 35.
    39. ^ Johnson & Stam, 37.
    40. ^ Johnson & Stam, 38.
    41. ^ Johnson & Stam, 38.
    42. ^ Johnson & Stam, 38.
    43. ^ Dixon & Foster, 293.
    44. ^ Dixon & Foster, 293.
    45. ^ Johnson & Stam, 38.

    Bibliography

  • Dixon, Wheeler Winston and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster (2008), A Short History of Cinema, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers.
  • Hollyman, Burnes Saint Patrick (1983), Glauber Rocha and The Cinema Novo, New York & London: Garland.
  • Johnson, Randal and Robert Stam (1995), Brazilian Cinema, New York: Columbia.
  • Viany, Alex (Winter, 1970), "The Old and the New in Brazilian Cinema", The Drama Review, 14(2), 141-144.
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