Original subtitles

In Brazil, in the 1960's,

with an idea in their heads and a camera in their hands,

moviemakers from Cinema Novo movement

made films with the ambition to change the world.

It was an era where art, utopia and revolution got together.

An adventure of creation, friendship,

nonconformity, with brand new ideas.

That presented new images of Brazil to the world.

This is the temple of magic. The dream factory!

The mantle of memory!

I can give you rivers of tears!

In this land, the only worthy men are those who use their guns

to change their fate.

Not the rosary, Satan.

The rifle and the dagger!

To create a Brazilian image following our ambition to transform Brazil.

- A cinema of disruption. - An act of courage!

- Complete audacity. - Grammar.

- Expression. - "Newcap".

A new capital, Bossa Nova.

Cinema Novo.

It started with Mario Peixoto, Humberto Mauro and Alberto Cavalcanti.

The dreams of Brazilian people, effectively portrayed on the screens.

In history, the revolutionary result of a process of cultural formation...

We knew we needed to be the protagonists of that story.

Cinema, cinema, cinema.

We are talking about cinema.

Mauro is the founder of the Brazilian cinematic style.

He's the pioneer of Cinema Novo.

And his cultural relevance matches that of Villa-Lobos, Guimarães Rosa

or Portinari.

We cannot ignore Mauro now and we can ignore him in the future.

If the current generation has learned so much from his framing style,

his poetic atmosphere, his social and human commentary,

future generations will have even more to learn from him.

In time, his work becomes classical, deeper, more resistant.

Nelson, Nelson Pereira dos Santos.

The first time...

I was near him or felt his presence

was during all that fuss...

about "Rio 40 Degrees".

I watched movies but I'd never thought of making them.

I watched films constantly, every day.

It was playing at the America on Saenz Pena Square.

Lots of queues and lots of conversations.

That was very important.

Then I went to see Nelson. I made a point of watching "Rio, North Side",

Some shootings of "Rio, North Side". Nelson told me to grab a chair.

Because I wanted to know what was that cinema business all about.

I teased her but she didn't even bother

and told me to go back to school and learn the ABC.

So, I told her, "Come and teach me then."

Brunette, come a little closer.

Come, brunette, come teach me the verb to love.

Here I am. Brunette, come

give me your love.

I was afraid of Nelson! What is this guy up to?

Because he was always quiet, his presence was magnetic,

he attracted a lot of people. But, at the same time, fearsome.

Nelson, Ruy and Luis Carlos were the eldest.

But, at that time, I was most afraid of Nelson.

And Nelson's presence was very... He had his ways.

He never told you what to do but you'd end up doing what he wanted.

He had his ways of making you do what he wanted.

And he was a beacon for us.

In the very beginning, it was just a human,

individual impulse.

Obviously, with the support of a big group of people who really

wanted to make cinema in a new and different way.

But the truth is we never started from scratch.

All had worked making films before. But we were also

interested in getting Brazilian cinema in touch with its own reality.

To integrate Brazilian cinema to its own cultural reality.

We came upon a cinematographic void in Brazil.

When "chanchada" started to decline.

Television started,

and those films weren't profitable anymore.

It was already a main issue for our movement, Cinema Novo,

a main issue for to question society,

our bourgeoisie society.

It was the collective awareness

that human problems weren't individual,

but a part of a specific moment in history.

Awareness that Brazil is a part of the third world.

This will of discovering Brazil also led us

in some cases, in quite an accomplished manner,

to discover a style, a storytelling language that's quite Brazilian.

5X FAVELA

"Cat Skin" was born in an argument at Joaquin Pedro's house.

We were a bunch of people pitching scripts.

We pitched the scripts, discussed them and decided what to do next.

So, together, we could get what we needed. Support, even political.

Together, not dispersed in different projects.

Let's do that one! "Cat Skin".

It was the foundation for "5x Favela".

From there, the Center for Popular Culture

sent a proposal so Miguel Borges,

Marcos Faria, Caca Diegues and me could do four more episodes

to put together and make "5x Favela".

Our generation completely understood that,

for being a big industry,

it was attached to the economic, political and social problems in Brazil.

So, before developing a cinematographic awareness, Brazilian filmmakers

developed political awareness of the phenomenon

They found out that, to make cinema, they had to make the revolution first.

That stance changed the cultural landscape completely.

The role of the filmmaker changed.

The birth of the cinema from Bahia with "Redemption" by Roberto Pires,

my film, "The Backyard", "Bahia de Todos os Santos" by Trigueirinho Neto,

"Barravento"...

- Sing it again, my love. - Ai, ai, ai.

Cinema Novo has two origins:

Bahia and the CPC (Center for Popular Culture).

Caca Diegues, Leon Hirszman, Miguel Borges, Amaldo Jabor

and Joaquim wanted to make cinema. A new cinema for Brazil.

There was a manifesto in a section of the newspaper "Jornal do Brazil"

with the neo-concretists: Ferreira Gullar, Lygia Pape, Lygia Clark.

And we made our own: Manifesto Cinema Novo.

The name was "Cinema-cinema", but it was nicknamed "Ball-ball".

Those who made films in Brazil came from completely diverse backgrounds.

We discussed cinema, talked about cinema, vomited cinema.

That was enough to make the placenta that bonded us.

That...

weird and simple phenomenon

was the result of an encounter between people

who then became very close friends.

There's always some bar involved when we talk about Cinema Novo.

Cooperation was the key.

Mostly because we liked each other's films,

and not because we were friends. We were friends because

we liked each other's films.

We were not into those heavy Hollywood machines.

We didn't want to shoot inside studios.

We wanted to shoot exteriors, the streets, that living thing.

The was excitement because of this new thing between

cinema, the camera and reality.

The means to make those films, those new

to approach reality were somehow already there.

Shooting with natural light,

exteriors, on location,

in the streets...

He really let the cameras out in the streets.

He didn't want to disguise Brazilian reality,

or to portray it in a distorted or lees faithful way.

And he looked for themes, a certain kind of people.

He really threw the cinema at the people.

He turned the cameras to people's problems,

what we thought were the people's problems.

I believe cinema will change a lot from now on.

From the camera to the streets, from the camera to problem.

From the camera, from closed doors, to have an open discussion.

"A camera in hand, an idea in the head",

more than concept of language,

was a production method.

Our culture in Brazil, of not having such a separation, so fierce,

so radical between genres,

imaginary or real,

between sacred and profane.

There was a very radical scission between documentary and fiction

and we didn't stick to it.

Because at that time, the aesthetics of Cinema Novo were being created.

There wasn't a frame of reference to talk about aesthetics,

and everything was Cinema Novo.

It had much more to do with generations

than with the articulation of an ideology,

or anything like a frame of reference.

It was being invented as it was created.

In Arraial do Cabo, away from civilization,

fishermen live a primitive life.

Under the laws they created themselves.

Watch.

Nine fishermen taking turns every day.

In their constant and fierce dialogue with the fish and the sea.

Seven on board, all ears to the watchman

who, together with the birds of prey,

waits for the fish to appear.

And the last one in the beach, handling the fishnet.

The light in the Arraial is extremely intense.

Because it's a reflector made of sand, right?

The ground is completely white, it has more contrast than

anything around its.

Except for the sun, maybe or if it's cloudy.

But the sky is blue most of the time.

The sea is resplendent, a fantastic blue.

What's interesting in that film has a lot to do with that look

which came from engravings, paintings, and so on,

and took over the cinematography of that film.

I was ready to make engravings, went on to make cinema

and ended up making an engraving on film.

"Garrincha"...

despite starting out as direct cinema or direct documentary,

because of problems with the footage,

ended up being a montage of archival material.

And I really enjoyed editing that film, it was pyrotechnic.

Many things in it I didn't like, others I did

From then on,

I started reacting to that and looking for purer values.

Values which could...

resist my harshest criticism.

Which led me to "The Priest and The Girl",

which, as a film, always got in my nerves,

it had always irritated and annoyed me.

And that's the way the film was made.

It can be seen in its form.

The film is very static, its framing, is very constrained.

They say priest's women become wraiths.

Headless mules.

I don't know if it's the devil or god inside my body.

One line was cut short.

See this little line cut in half?

A beautiful inclination, interrupted, the priest. That's where you cut.

And the music.

We'll use the music from the theater.

Here, cut.

We were editing "5x Favela" and that amazing thing happened.

Ruy Guerra was editing my episode,

and Nelson Pereira dos Santos was editing Leon's.

So, we would meet every day and I watched Nelson,

because there was only one moviola,

watched Nelson edit Leon's film,

and Leon watched Ruy edit mine.

At the time. Nelson was also editing Glauber's "Barravento".

Nelson edited "São Diogo's Quarry", and "Absolute Majority",

my first two films, both shorts.

And that editing work, with the moviola, the whole thing...

We felt we were two filmmaker staking over the moviola.

We had taken it and were discussing cinema in a new level.

It wasn't just editing this or that film, we were discussing cinema itself

and everything that was going on.

I don't mean you cant do that with an editor but

between filmmakers, you get to

the creative field, the projects, other films, maybe in a more fertile way.

It was very positive for me, and my work.

After that, I went on to make "The Deceased".

THE DECEASED

30's literature, regional literature, Graciliano, Jorge Amado,

José Lins do Rego, Erico Veríssimo.

Each of them tried to express in their own way

the rescue of the social and popular reality in their regions,

and also their storytelling style.

Cinema Novo followed that.

I think he has his region,

as a foundation for his reality, his realism.

But I think he transcends that. For his own themes,

he transcends the regional aspect.

It seems he's portraying Brazil

and also the third world.

- Where did you work? - At the Santa Terezinha plant.

- What did you do there? - Sugarcane. Weeding cane fields.

How much did you make there? I worked from 5:30am to 7:00pm

and made 700 cruzeiros.

Everyone was making the same amount?

Yes. It's impossible to get more, right?

I'm a farmer and I need to buy a kilo of flour, to eat.

That's horrible, humiliating.

We are all farmers here, there's a world of land around us

and I need to buy a kilo of flour.

Who buys a kilo of flour, are people from the city

because they're workers who don't work the land.

But what do we farmers do? Those are the landowners.

Who take the lands for themselves and don't let us plant anything.

Those who were being exploited, oppressed and silenced

needed space on the screens.

But there was also a need to allow every filmmaker their own expression

as they evolved.

Somehow, we were breaking up with the movement.

It wasn't a movement as a stylistic unity,

as was the case with certain filmmakers from neorealism.

Or even certain filmmakers from the golden age of Soviet cinema.

Filmmakers are close to each other in terms of narrative and cinematography

but you see a bigger difference.

This is my city.

My big city.

People dreaming in the seaside.

They are happy and singing.

Making a carnival out of we.

Singing we dove evil away.

In this city of love.

From radical Rosselinians, like Paulo César Saraceni

to Fordians, like Walter Lima Junior, Eisensteinians, like Leon, obviously,

the neorealists, like Nelson..

It had the ambition, national and international, of synthesizing.

Italian neorealism, Russian revolutionary cinema,

the spectacle of American cinema.

The formal evolution of Nouvelle Vague with the traditions of Brazilian cinema,

which were few but existed,

To reign in the island, to reign in the island.

- My wife is possessed by the devil! - It's a lie it's a lie!

Tomorrow it'll rain gold! The desert will turn into the sea!

Lies! Lies!

The sea will turn into a desert!

Lies! Lies!

We can only get to the island

if we wash the souls of the sinners with the blood of the innocents!

Glauber's role was never letting us think we had won the war.

Never letting us think that things ever got to an end.

Things were always critical, always changing.

When you achieve victory, you must start all over again.

You can't just sleep on your laurels.

We didn't just like each other, we were growing into each other

more and more finding things in common.

Let's go.

Come on, damn you!

Get up.

Come on it's over there!

There're soldiers around.

I was waiting for a sign! I dreamed of the end!

Today, we die!

Die, how? Are you nuts?!

When you dreamed of it it was over!

I saw the devil's rifles shoot twice!

One for each eye!

Yours Virgulino!

Cast your jinx aside.

Who'll ever shoot my eye?

I'm protected by Priest Cicero.

But it was a sign, a sign!

It will be at the crack of dawn.

Here in my burrow, only if it's you.

If you betray me, I'll kill you.

No!

Leave him!

Enough! Enough! Enough!

Brazil is a seaside civilization.

It grew along 7000 km of coastline.

Nevertheless, they are all men of the inland.

Because Brazil's biggest problem is immigration.

We are all men who long for the land.

And when we have the means to talk about something,

through journalism or cinema.

We are always drawn to that longing

and to the struggle in the isolated inland of Brazil.

As we say in Brazil, orphans.

People with no mother or father.

They are real orphans for they live in complete dereliction.

I believe any filmmaker who wishes to say anything that matters,

or whatever matters to him,

must translate it...

to the oscillating balance of the modern world.

In my films, I try to talk about reality in all its complexity

which is really hard.

But I also want to show what affects men, individuals.

I'd like to make an epic film.

But I don't think I'll be able to.

I don't think I can show a character without showing

all its ties to the structure, of the country.

Believe there's something in common in all our films

I think it's the awareness of...

a specific kind of underdevelopment.

All characters in our films are real.

They are people who existed until the forties,

when I was in the northeast of Brazil as a reporter.

First, I talked to people who had met these characters.

And even characters like Antonio Das Mortes, the hitman

in the film, once existed and killed 40 brigands.

And also Corisco, who's still alive and gave me an interview.

He also told me some stories.

Then I talked to his wife, who also told me some stories.

Read several books, mostly popular poetry.

There are many books in Brazil, popular songs about these characters.

Someday, there will be a major war in this desert.

A big war, God and the Devil will be looking.

To get this war started,

I, who have killed Sebastião, will kill Corisco.

And then die, once and for all.

We are all the same thing.

In '64, we had three films in Cannes. Two in the competition.

"God and the Devil" and "Barren Lives".

And one in the "Critic's Week", my film "Ganga Zumba".

In that same year, "Porto das Caixas" had won an award in the north of Italy

Ruy Guerra had "The Rifles" and had won an award in Berlin.

That was the year when Cinema Novo made its name.

Cinema Novo was discovered by European critics,

Italian and French, mostly.

And we started to hobnob with the guys from Cahiers du Cinema in France.

Carlos Diegues,

Glauber Rocha, Roberto Faria,

Paulo Cesar Saraceni,

Joaquim Pedro de Andrade,

Leon Hirszman, Geraldo Sarno,

Eduardo Coutinho,

Walter Hugo Khouri, Ruy Guerra,

Alex Vianny, who also made films,

Vinicius de Moraes who collaborated in some films.

Future Brazilian filmmaker and critic, Gustavo Dahl,

Edgar Morin,

Jean Rouch,

I forgot Margot Benacerraf,

from Venezuela.

Claude Antoine, defender of Brazilian cinema,

Marco Belocchio...

Cinema Novo went international in '62 at the Third World Seminary

organized by Columbianum, a Jesuitical agency in Genoa,

which gathered all cinema from Latin America.

There was a retrospective in Santa Margherita Liguri.

They showed "The Big Fair", "The Promise".

'62 was the year of the Palme d'or

and Cinema Novo was beginning, "Cat Skin" won Oberhausen...

Cinema Novo usually took the European style aback.

Wealthy well-behaved.

That combination of freedom and...

Brazil already gave those films a strength

that made them known first abroad,

in international festivals.

And then, in an always colonized dynamic,

the recognition had an internal impact.

I was in Italy when I got the invitation

to invite as assistant director...

Lucchino Visconti in the shooting of "Murdered House".

I answered with a letter, saying I'd invite no Visconti,

and I would direct "Murdered House".

When I got here, it was a mess.

Jânio Quadros had resigned.

The producers had a misunderstanding and the film wasn't made.

So, Lucio Cardozo and me went around the state of Rio de Janeiro

looking for locations to make "Murdered House"

and found this place called "Porto das Caixas".

Why didn't you come by yesterday?

You should have seen me yesterday.

I thought I'd go insane.

Listen...

I waited all night long.

Joaquim, how's your relationship with the critics?

With some of the critics, very well, I believe.

I've...

never resented criticism or anything like that.

And I think Brazilian film critics,

from newspapers and magazines,

is really very small, if we think of how it could be.

It could play a more important role, it could be more complex.

That need for stardom, to make an easy impression,

sometimes creates a kind of critic...

better suited for weekly magazines.

As for newspapers, I'm not reading newspapers from São Paulo much.

The ones from Rio are quite sclerotic when it comes to film critic.

Which are really the big problems with Cinema Novo?

Now for you in aesthetic economic, political terms.

The big current aesthetic problem for Cinema Novo is economical.

I think our big aesthetic problem, the grave aesthetic risk for Cinema Novo

is to be taken over by foreign companies.

In Brazil, it's possible to revitalize a new and influential artistic theory.

I'm not trying to be a prophet... I've always studied the case rationally

and tried to see with an open mind the elements for the process

of creating a new cinema.

One thing is to win the audience, like Joaquim did with "Macunaíma",

to exploit the audience is a different thing.

Filmmakers want the adventure of conquest.

Come! Come! Come!

If you're thinking of escaping, I'll never eat anyone anymore!

Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Glauber Rocha,

Carlos Diegues, Joaquim Pedro,

Leon Hirszman, Roberto Santos,

Roberto Farias, Júlio Bressane,

Gustavo Dahl, Walter Lima,

Maurice Capovila.

Carlos Diegues, in Cinelândia, visits the theaters where

"The Big City" premieres.

With him is producer Zellito Viana, producer extraordinaire.

A group of directors got together

around a company to distribute their own films.

That year, 80% of Brazilian films

shown in the country were distributed by DiFilm.

Everybody wanted their films distributed by DiFilms

because we fought for the films.

We didn't fight for the company, we fought for the films.

DiFilm came out of the need of a group

which makes films with shared... political and cultural views

to organize themselves and better place those films

in the Brazilian exhibition market.

Our films,

are usually restricted to small venues,

are released in mainstream theaters.

And, despite all our work,

that still represents only a 70% of their potential presence in the market.

Brazilian productions must find their markets spontaneously

and not become some kind of beggar.

We need to put an end to this unbelievable situation,

that's been going on for 70 years,

where Brazilian cinema is marginalized in its own territory.

What do you think of national cinema?

National cinema, despite its best efforts, is still kind of weak.

National cinema is cool, great, I love it, you dig?

It's better than American cinema.

What do you think about National cinema?

I don't like it.

- And you? - I like it, yes.

I think it's cool. The actors, most of all.

If we don't solve the problem of exhibition, nothing will be solved.

We need to free up the venues.

Every state should have free venues

to exhibit different things

when we produce them

and not imitations, for example,

or these films that think they follow the popular taste.

The infrastructure of Brazilian TV was set up by the state,

investing millions of dollars.

Cinema never had any infrastructure,

They only invest in the superstructure, which creates dependency, paternalism.

We must solve that infrastructurally.

Run brother, run!

Cinema Novo lives a fundamental contradiction.

None of us can sleep well until we solve that problem.

Our cinema is popular for its disposition, its appetites

But, actually, the people don't go see our films.

We need to continue the fight

to penetrate the consciousness of the people,

to show the audience what we want to say

and seduce them at the same time. That's a contradiction.

Truth is we are up against the majority of Brazilian people.

A new cinema, facing the people.

This contact, still aggressive, is sought through films which

try to unveil Brazilian reality.

To face an audience that has been formed by mainstream cinema for years.

Sign of its time, this young Brazilian cinema is necessarily controversial.

The fight has just begun.

In a country like ours, everything is yet to be done.

Your film "Antonio Das Mortes", is extremely violent.

It reaches paroxysm in the depiction of physical violence

and French audiences have reacted accordingly.

Some are talking about gratuitous provocation,

others say it's a concession to the spectators' lowest instincts,

How do you explain it?

You know Latin America is a violent continent, bloody.

Even when such tradition is generally hidden.

I faced that problem,

because I couldn't hide that violence, that character,

that behavior people have.

If I had cut those scenes of violence,

I'd become a censor myself.

We read on the newspapers, every day, that people kill with 40 shots,

50, 45 stabs.

That's the truth, not poetry or a symbol, the truth.

I'm not promoting blood for the blood itself.

There wasn't a border between public and private.

Public and private lire were all one and the same thing.

The loved woman and revolution were the same thing,

country and cinema were the same thing.

Hollywood films are as terrible

as films that have to be political,

that have to be dogmatic, that have to be anything.

Freedom is lost.

If we lose freedom and democracy we can't make any poetry.

It's impossible to make a political film.

I want political films that are also the best poetry.

The coup of '64 was led by Castelo Branco,

together with the Brazilian oligarchy.

Brazilian bourgeoisie, afraid of communism,

didn't want to install a military dictatorship.

In other words, a Brazilian bourgeoisie, allied to imperialism,

and how these military sectors, liberal fascists,

wanted to get rid of Goulart and establish a fascist liberal regime,

They didn't want the country to be seen as a military dictatorship.

Goulart didn't fear a coup d'etat because he believed there was

a very strong popular organization, capable of resisting the coup.

But that popular organization was only superficial.

When small leftist factions of the army tried to arm the people,

there were no guns and the people was already dispersed.

They tried to call for a general strike

but they found that the communist units were completely ineffective

when they needed to deal with the people.

Developmentalism,

ultimate hope for the Brazilian people,

of the most progressive force and also ours, young people.

After hearing the members of the National Security Council have decided

to sign the institutional act

in order to preserve the revolution

of March 1964. So, we are able to...

Walking through this atmosphere of anxiety

which generates distrust, discomfort,

and tries to harm the regime we defend,

we need to sign this institutional act.

President Costa e Silva,

solemnly sworn under the terms of the constitution,

promising to respect it, to promote the well-being of Brazil

and to defend its integrity and sovereignty.

"Eight squad members dead in the night of the big massacre."

You can't be divided like that.

Poetry and politics are too much for only one man.

I'd love it if you could stay with us.

Write again.

I don't herald songs of peace

and the flowers of style don't interest me.

I eat a thousand bitter news every day.

They define the world I live in.

Dawns don't cause me...

the same pain they did in my adolescence.

Peacefully, I give back to the landscape,

the vomits of experience.

The victory of the regime was to separate us.

To set us apart and to turn the Brazilian cinematographic experience

into an individual experience.

It's all in here.

Arms, faces...

Guts, all alive.

Moving and walking like things, like people.

I'll bring forth poisons and leprosies.

Speeches that eat away rust bone and wood.

I'll bring to in machetes, hot lead and gunpowder.

I'll bring forth a mussurana, long like the river.

And spill out blood,

more blood and still blood, and always blood.

And blood that never stops being blood, until all is blood

and blood is all!

Until the slumber of the sun, until the slumber of the moon.

Until the slumber of green, until the slumber of men.

Until the slumber of time.

I'll give birth!

I'll give birth until it's all a rotten mass!

Until it's all poison. Until everything kills everything.

Until the rotten stinks its own stink.

Until I kill life...

And this world doesn't have more room or time even for death.

No smell, no death.

I don't think you can talk about culture without talking about politics.

And you can't talk about politics and not talk about individual liberties.

To talk about the atmosphere where culture is created.

Is more important than discussing the economy or censorship.

It's about everyday life, right?

Culture in the sense of social relationships and human creativity

in a certain country, in a certain moment in time.

If a filmmaker keeps talking about his bad economic situation,

he's forgetting a basic aspect of it all, which is participation.

Everyone's need to participate in the general process of Brazilian society.

And there can only be participation when there's no fear.

I think that, 4 years from now, people will understand

they must see our films.

I think they'll be convinced that this cinema is necessary

for them to witness their own lives, the current history of Brazil.

Your fight is only getting started, then?

We are willing to continue.

We'll continue, at any cost, we'll go on.

There's no fortune without blood!

The power of the people is stronger!

The Cinema Novo movement doesn't exist.

But the idea of Cinema Novo does.

The idea is eternal, new is eternal.

That idea will live on.