GLAUBER ROCHA
Glauber Rocha was one of the most important movie directors in Brazil. His work is symbolic, almost weird. He is the personification of the Cinema Novo, the new film and movie current that appeared in the mid 1960s, at a time of political, social and economic transformation. His message was a cry against injustice, poverty and oppression.
WEALTH and POVERTY in the CINEMA NOVO
"Latin hunger is not only an alarming system: it is the nerve of its own society.
There the tragic originality of the New Cinema is displayed before the world movies:
our originality is our hunger and our greatest poverty is that this hunger,
being felt, it is not understood "
Glauber Rocha 70
The Brazilian Movie Industry
Glauber Rocha's sceneries in its films as God and the devil in the earth of the sun (1964), Antonio of the deaths (1968) and Earth in he/she Understands one another (1967) they are at that time symbols of the situation of the Brazilian movies of its accomplishments: poor, primitive and beggar. The market cinematográfico was suffocated by the foreign productions, that dictated the norms and filming patterns (gestualidade, fotogenia, speaks), being been worth of technology and production resources that were besides to financial possibilities of the national film. It was a situation desanimadora for the directors and Brazilian producers. Ideas didn't lack; what there was not in the Brazilian movies it was capital to explore this talent and to film the beautiful filmings and to count the heroic histories of the Brazilian people.
Poverty as Cinema
As there were not investors sufficiently audacious for its ariscar capital in the industry of the national movies, the way was to leave for the improvisãção and to explore the material poverty--but not human--of the interior of the northeast as he/she made Glauber Rocha. It was the ideal stage. There were not need of studios, sets or expensive vestiários, because the scenery of the film would be nothing else and nothing less than the reality of the area: poverty and simple life. The thematic and route of the film would be also easy: the suffered life of the northeast, showing the man's anguish living and being explored by other similar ones.
In the interior Glauber found the place and the subject adapted for a production with few financial resources. Leaving of this philosophical beginning, Glauber did much more than to show the poverty and the injustices of the Northeast, he/she made a picture of the society as a whole and still focalizou the situation inmfeliz of the Brazilian movies. While Glauber proclaimed the scandal of the social injustice, it denounced the abandonment of the industry Brazilian cinematográfica.
Cangaceiros - the symbology of the Outlaw
In the film Antonio of the Deaths (1968) Glauber shows a character almost mystic, the upright, a cangaceiros eliminador. The camera of Glauber is stopped while the character (Valle's actor Maurício) he/she/it moves giving a show in a restricted space and without a lot of action. Its features mark the scene, the ones which, combined with the arid scenery of the interior, they produce an effect that projects an image of hardness and irrealidade. Through the presence of the verses of the line literature, the discussion ferrenha between the upright and cangaceiro creates a form and rhythm that it stands out the duel among the two. The improvised poetry of the line is said with arrogance and hate feeling, but in the interlineations of the verses there is a clear allusion to the political and social situation of the nation:
I have more than a thousand collections for doing
But to speak of whole the earth will tremble
I only want to collect the favorite ones
of the testament of Lampião
Who is man he/she sees woman
Who is woman he/she asks for forgiveness
Social Justice, Hunger and Suffering
In the continuation, the verses speak about the hunger that the people are passing. The verses also proclaim the laws of the cangaço, where the prisoner is free and the jailer is going for chain. An important and frequent element in the music is the woman lady's image, that marries at the church with veil and grinalda, symbolizing the purity and the innocence of the simple people of the northeast. Even so, the thematic main it is the lack of social justice in the interior:
I want money for my poverty
I want food for my people
If they don't assist me I will return here again.
The young man's duel with the cangaceiro--both tends in the mouths an arrested white handkerchief in the teeth and facões in the hands--it is one of the best moments of the film. This it is fought he/she resembles each other to a ballet where the camera almost registers the opponents' movements as if it was a retired image of a Japanese film of samurai. The rhythm of the music, spoken than tune, he/she has a strong African influence, reminding the slaves that were brought Brazil--an insinuation to the Brazilian people enslaved by the system. Surprisingly, for coincidence or not, he/she sees him in the rhythm and rhymes of the music modern rap of the American black population many elements common with the Brazilian line.
The Public as the Cast of Characters
The figurantes in you film it of Rocha they always represent themselves. Its poverty in the film is the same poverty in the real life. The actions and arbitrary decisions of the cangaceiros and colonels in the film are the same ones taken arbitrarily in the real life. They were not famous and so little invited actors it was necessary special clothes for the filming; they are the own inhabitants of the lugarejo, that in that moment without having conscience of the event, they become part of the history of the New Movies.
Military Regime and Brazilian Movie Industry
In Earth in he/she understands one another Glauber he/she not makes a comment very disguised on the military regime of 1964. The characters, as well as the own earth, are in conflict. The individual fight overflows for the social fight. The film is highly political, but the subject is discussed of a vague form and insinuation. Even so, as he/she says the old dictation: " for the good expert, stocking word it is enough ". The poet of the film has a political and social participation. He wants to influence and to solve the problems of the society; finally he/she wants to save the world. The scenes of violence of the healthy film as images that foresee that a bomb is to explode. It was this the feeling of Glauber in that instant.
Political Expression and Economic and Social Development
In the movies of Glauber, Brazil and the subdesenvolvimento they are seen as uncomfortable partners. There was in the film director close friend a revolt when it showed the peasant's poverty and the vicious circle of the unhappy life of the people native of northeastern Brazil. The work of Glauber implored a transformation, and the accusation appeared like this to the social system. With the arrival of the military ones to the power in 1964, the Movies New vein to suffer deep transformations. The film directors, artists and intellectuals were considered of the left and soon they were offered with the dislike and it censors of the government. Many, including Glauber, they sought safety and expression opportunities in the exile.
The movies of Glauber has a fort component eisensteiniano because, as the Russian film director, he/she also intends to highlight, instead of the character, its symbol. In the conception of Eisenstein, the reality can be shown without altering the truthfulness of the facts in a fictitious way. That is clear in God and the devil in the earth of the sun, with the conflict among the devout person, that leads a great number of followerses, and the cangaceiro that tries to solve everything by means of the violence. The weapons are symbols of the military ones, that are used to suffocate the pure spirit and the faith, the simple man's of the interior qualities.
Rocha's Importance to Brazilian Cinema
The movies commemorates on this year a century of life. The Brazilian movies is active and it also participates of the celebrations. Glauber Rocha's movies is reminded as an opening and a first step in direction the autonomy and expression of the national movies. With films as God and the devil in the earth of the sun gave to the thematic Brazilian and own language. Glauber was the maximum exponent of its time. Restless, controvertido and talented, he/she had the power to express the historical moment in that lived. Earth in he/she understands one another (1967) it is representative of the end of the utopia, of the failure of the dream and of the project. With the AI-5, in December of 1968, the confirmation of the the film director ideal revolutionary's defeat would come. He believed in the possibilities of the Brazilian movies and it resisted to more difficult moments. The wealth of its productions is in the fact that was not afraid of to be primitive and to do film in the third world. United States can have its " Hollywood ", a factory of false dreams, but in Brazil the situation is different: THE New Movies was born of the conscience of the social injustices and it suffered with this all the consequences of exposing such an unpleasant reality (Glauber 88). Today, analyzing the poverty and wealth of the New Movies can say: - Thank you, Glauber, your work was very valuable!
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