Brazilian Cinema Novo

7/27/2019 Brazilian Cinema Novo

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BrazilianCinemaNovolRANDAL JOHNSON

Universityof Florida

Over two decades have passed since CinemaNovo burstupon and profoundlyaltered the Braziliancinematic and culturalscene. In these two decades,manythings have changed in Brazil. The populist government of the early 1960swas quite unceremoniouslyremoved by a 1964 military coup d'etat and re-placed by a military regimewhich only now appearsto be losing its hold onpower. With them, Brazil'smilitary rulers brought a reign of repressionandtorture, which intensified in 1969 and began to ebb only in the mid-1970s.Accompanyingthe repressionwas a period of growthknown as the 'economicmiracle', which meant the brutal redistributionof already poorly distributedwealth from the workingclassesto the upperclasses.The miracle,in turn,hasgiven way to the nightmare,a 100 billion dollarforeigndebt, the servicingofwhich consumesvirtuallyallof the country'sexport earningsandwhichthreatensto tearasunder he country'ssocial fabric.

Braziliancinema has changed as well. In the early 1960s, GlauberRochasummarized he concernsof the initialphase of CinemaNovo in his Fanonian-inspiredmanifesto, 'An Aesthetic of Hunger',also known as 'An Aesthetic ofViolence'. In this manifestohe wrote:. . . hungerin Latin America s not simply analarming ymptom; t is theessence of our society. Herein ies the tragicoriginalityof CinemaNovo inrelation to world cinema. Our originalityis our hungerand our greatestmisery s that thishunger s felt but not intellectuallyunderstood ... . only a cultureof hungercanqualitatively urpassts own structuresby underminingand destroyingthem. The most noble culturalmanifesta-tion of hunger s violence.CinemaNovo revealsthat violenceis normalbehaviour or the starving.The violenceof a starvingman is not a signof a primitivementality . . .CinemaNovo teaches that the aestheticsof violence are revolutionaryrather than primitive. The moment of violence is the moment when thecolonizer becomes awareof the existence of the colonized. Onlywhenheis confronted with violence can the colonizerunderstand, hroughhorror,the strengthof the culture he exploits. As long as he does not take uparms,the colonizedman remainsa slave.2

Although the manifesto clearly aligns itself with Fanon and the struggleforThirdWorld iberation,Rocha is speakingnot of realviolence in a revolutionarysituation,but ratherof anaestheticof violence, a metaphoricalusageof violencein a situation (he was writing after the military coup of 1964) which was farfrom revolutionary.3His statement is an admittedlyextreme and in manywayscontradictoryformulationof the thrust of earlyCinemaNovo, but it is none the


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BULLETINOF LATINAMERICAN ESEARCHless representative.Rocha and CinemaNovo called for an alternative orm ofcinematicpracticewhich would combat the idealisticillusionismof dominantcinemaandat the same timeparticipaten the struggle ornational iberation.Contrast that with the situationof the 1970s and 1980s, when, as RobertStam has put it, the aestheticof hungersometimesseemsto have evolved ntoan aestheticof gluttony-and perhapsonly Rochahimself,withhis highly dio-syncratic films, can be exempted from this evolution-in which a concernwith success in the national and internationalmarketplaceappearsto haveneutralized the political concerns of the early phase of CinemaNovo. Thesituationbecomes evenmorecomplex,andseeminglymorecontradictory,whenone realizes hat since 1973 the Brazilian overnment asco-produced r other-wise financed the most significantnationalfilm production, ncludingvirtuallyall films made after that date by CinemaNovo participants,ncludingGlauberRocha. The currentsuccessof Braziliancinema,with filmssuch as DoIa Florand Her Two Husbands,Bye Bye Brasil,Gaijin,Pixote, I Love You, and TheyDon't WearBlack-Tie,amongothers, resultslargely,in fact, from an allianceormarriagef conveniencebetweenCinemaNovo and the authoritarian razilianstate.The currentsituationof Braziliancinema-an apparentmercantilistic tti-tude supportedby the state-does not in fact representa radicalbreakwithpositionsheld in the early 1960s. It would be simplistic o speakof cooptationby the military regime or to suggest that filmmakersbecame starstruckbycommercialsuccess.Rather,the currentsituationis an outgrowthof a numberof contradictions and paradoxesexisting within CinemaNovo from the verybeginning.Despite Rocha'srevolutionary tatements,a certaindistancealwaysexisted between the rhetoric and the reality of CinemaNovo. In this paperI propose to discuss some of these contradictions,examininghow CinemaNovo arose and evolved duringthe 1960s. A movement such as CinemaNovocannot be isolated from its historicalcontext, for in many ways it responds oand is influencedby the political developmentof Brazilian ociety, it positionsitself in relation to the historical evolutionof Brazilian inema,and it partici-pates in and reflects ideological debatesof the period in which it arose. ByreexaminingCinemaNovo in its variouscontexts, I in no way meanto belittlethe considerableachievementsof the movement,which is largelyresponsiblefor the best that Brazilian inemahas had to offer during he lasttwenty yearsand continues to offer today. In a very realsense,CinemaNovo is synonymouswith Brazilian inema,and its contradictionsarethe contradictions f Braziliancinemaasa whole and Brazilianntellectualsn general.The question mightbe asked if it is validto speakof CinemaNovo existingtoday. Manyhistoricalanalysesof the movementhave said that CinemaNovohad ceased to exist by 1972, if not earlier.Andyet the movement'sonly collec-tive manifesto, known as the 'Luz e Aqao Manifesto',was publishedonly in1973.4 Although Brazilian inema has grownconsiderablyoverthe last twentyyears,now producing ome 100 filmsper year,fourtimesthe annualproductionof the early 1960s, CinemaNovo directorssuch as Leon Hirszman,NelsonPereirados Santos, CarlosDiegues,JoaquimPedro de Andrade,and ArnaldoJabor, amongothers, clearlydominateBrazilian inematoday. They dominatenot only with their films; they also dominatethe state cinematicapparatus

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(Embrafilme).Leon Hirszman'saward-winning 981 film ElesNdo UsamBlack-Tie (They Don't WearBlack-Tie)was upon its release referredto as 'CinemaNovo de novo' (Cinema Novo anew). Diegues has recently claimed, and notwithout a bit of self-serving xaggeration, hat he and other leadersof Braziliancinema are the 'new barbarians'of international cinema since they are freefrom the gadgetryand large budgets of Hollywood and from the high cultureand correct ideologicallines of Europeancinema.5Whenasked n a recentinter-view if CinemaNovo directors still discussedfilm projects as they did in theearly 1960s, Hirszman esponded:In a way, we have neverstopped discussingour films. Therehave beensome personalrifts, but the discussiongoeson. But then the collaboration

at the beginningwas never quite as intense as people thought. It's a bitlike the Beatles:they neverwerereallyasunited beforeaspeople thought,nor reallyas separatedafterward.6We can thus referto CinemaNovo existing today if seen as an open-endedpro-cess of cinematic activity, but clearly not as a narrowlydefined, tightly-knitmovement or school.CinemaNovo arose in the late 1950s and early 1960s as part of a broad,heterogeneous movement of cultural transformation that involved theatre,popularmusic, and literature,as well as the cinema. It evolvedthrougha num-ber of discerniblephases,each of which corresponds o a specificsociopoliticalconjuncture.The seeds of CinemaNovo took root in the early 1950s, especiallyin threefilm industry congressesheld in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo in 1952 and1953. It was in these congresses hat filmmakers uch as Alex Viany, RodolfoNanni and Nelson Pereirados Santos first articulated ideas for the creationof an independent national cinema.7 The country had only recently seen theend of GetfilioVargas'sEstadoNovo (1937-1945), and the process of redemo-cratization dramatically ncreased the level of political and culturalactivity ofBrazil'smiddle sectors. Vargaswas reelected to the presidency n 1951 in theguise of a populistreformerwho attemptedto mobilizesupportthrough,amongother things, a nationalist discourse revolvingaround the creation of a statepetroleum industry. Vargascommitted suicide in 1954, leavinga quasi-socialist,anti-imperialistmessagefor the Brazilianpeople.Despite Vargas'sdeath, the nationalisteuphoriahe helped create continuedand was strengthenedwith the election of JuscelinoKubitschek n 1955. Kubits-chek, promisingfifty years of development n five, embarkedon an ambitiousplanof economicexpansionand industrialdevelopment.Hewas one of only twopresidents in the 1930-64 period to remain in office, legally, throughouthisdesignated term, partially because of his ability to rally the Brazilianpeoplearound a common ideology, known as developmentalism r developmentalist-nationalism.8Brasilia, with its ultramodernarchitecture, s perhapsthe mostperfect symbolof Kubitschek'sdevelopmentalist deology.His brand of developmentalism,however, was fraughtwith contradiction.Although it was a means of mobilizing supportand guaranteeing he system'sstability, it was also an effective tool for controllingsocial andpoliticaltensions.

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BULLETINOF LATINAMERICAN ESEARCHIt toyed with the people's nationalistsentiments,but based its programme findustrializationn foreign nvestment.FormerSao Paulo governorJanio QuadrossucceededKubitschek n 1961,but resignedafter a mere seven months in office. Quadroswas replacedby hisvice-president,VargasprotegeJoan Goulart,who was intenselydislikedby themilitary. Goulart's brief administration,markedby a numberof institutionalcrises,witnessed a turn to the Left in domesticand foreignpolicy as the presi-dent attempted to implementstructuralchangessuch as agrarian eform. Hewas overthrownby the military n 1964. Within his historical ontext, middle-class artists andintellectuals,such as those who createdCinemaNovo, becameincreasinglypoliticized and sought to commit their art to the transformationof Brazilian ociety, a transformationhey erroneously houghtto be imminent.

After a preparatory eriod, from 1955-1960, the firstphaseof CinemaNovogoes from 1960 to 1964, a period in which 'nationalquestions'were debatedat everylevel of society. Thefilmsof thisperiodattempted o contribute o thedebate with films about the country's umpen,often depictedin ruralsettings(dos Santos's VidasSecas, Guerra'sOs Fuzis, Rocha'sDeus e o Diabo na Terrado Sol). Thesecondphaseof CinemaNovoextendsfrom 1964 to 1968, the yearof the Fifth InstitutionalAct, which inaugurated periodof extremely repres-sive military rule. Although political liberties were restrictedand censorshipincreased,there was still a degreeof spaceavailable or discussionand debate.Duringthis period,the focusof CinemaNovoshiftedfromrural o urbanBrazil,as film-makers urned their cameras,so to speak,on themselves n an attemptto understand he failureof the Left in 1964 (Saraceni'sO Desafio, Rocha'sTerra em Transe,Dahl's O Bravo Guerreiro,dos Santos'sFome de Amor).Athirdphaserunsfrom 1968 until around1972. During hisperiodof extremelyharshmilitaryrule, it was difficult for film-makerso expressopinionsdirectly,and allegory became the preferredmode of cinematic discourseof what isknown as 'Tropicalism'n Brazilian inema(Andrade'sMacunaima, os Santos'sComoeragostosoo meu rances,Jabor'sPindorama). t the sametime a burgeon-ingundergroundmovementchallengedCinemaNovo from the Left,sayingthatithad sold out to commercial nterests(Sganzerla'sO Bandidoda Luz Vermelha,Bressane'sMatou afamlia e foi ao cinema,amongothers).Stylisticandthematicpluralism nder he aegisof Embrafilme as marked he periodsince 1973.9Cinema Novo, as part of an ongoing process of cultural transformation,reflects the ideologicalcontradictionsof Brazilianocietyas a whole.Theinitialphase of CinemaNovo was informed by a numberof historical factors andinfluencedto a large degree by the formulationsof the InstitutoSuperiordeEstudos Brasileiros(HigherInstituteof BrazilianStudies),which was createdby Kubitschek in 1955 with the express purpose of formulatinga nationalideology of development.Although t would be simplistic o see CinemaNovomerely as a reflection of the ideology of ISEB-indeed, at timesCinemaNovofilms directly or indirectlyrevealed he contradictionsof that ideology- it isnone the less importantto be awareof the kinds of political and ideologicaldiscussionsthat were taking place and examinehow CinemaNovo relates tothem. 10The ISEB was composed of intellectualsof variouspolitical persuasions,includingHelioJaguaribe,CandidoMendes,AlvaroVieiraPinto,NelsonWerneck

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BULLETINOF LATINAMERICANRESEARCHIn generalterms, CinemaNovo saw itself as part of this processof 'de-alienation' through a strategy of conscientizacdo,or consciousness-raising.It sought,at least during ts initialphase,to show the Brazilianpeoplethe true

face of the country's underdevelopmentn the hope that they would gaina critical consciousnessandparticipate n the struggle or national iberation.AsRocha wrote in 'An Aesthetic of Hunger',CinemaNovo 'is not a single filmbut an evolvingcomplex of films that will ultimatelymake the publicawareofits own misery.'Similarto the ideologues of ISEB,CinemaNovo tended to see the majorconflict of Braziliansociety as 'colonizer'versus'colonized', to use Rocha'swords, rather than analyse it in termsof class.The movementwas engaged na struggleto createan authenticnational culture in oppositionto the interestsof the colonizer. It also tended to adopt a dualistvision of society, opposinga traditional,feudal, backwardBraziltied to imperialist nterestswith a pro-gressive,modernBrazil ed by sectorsof the nationalbourgeoisie.CinemaNovo's alliancewith supposedlyprogressive ectors of the nationalbourgeoisie s revealednot only in its choice of themes,but also in its sourcesof financing. Many pre-1964 CinemaNovo films, includingclassics such asNelson Pereirados Santos's VidasSecas (1967), Ruy Guerra'sOs Fuzis(1964),and GlauberRocha'sDeus e o Diabo na Terrado Sol (1964), werefinancedbythe NationalBank of MinasGerais,which wasownedby the familyof politicianMagalhaes into,one of the civilianconspiratorsn thecoupd'etatof 1964.In their attempt to de-alienatethe Brazilianpeople, filmmakers nitiallyattempted to searchout the areasof Brazil where social contradictionsweremost apparent:poor fishingvillages,urbanslums,and the impoverishedNorth-east, where the three films just mentioned were set. In other words, earlyCinemaNovo films tended to focus on the traditionalor backwardareasof

Brazil, denouncing that backwardnessand the economic sectors (the 'anti-Nation', in ISEB's formulation)held responsiblefor it. Dos Santos's VidasSecas outlines a conflict between a landownerand a peasant family duringaperiodof drought;Guerra'sOs Fuzis concernssoldierswho guarda landowner'sfood warehousefrom starvingpeasants;and Rocha'sDeus e o Diabo na Terrado Sol, while focusing specificallyon the twin alienationsof religiousmysticismand anarchistic angaceiroviolence, ndirectlydiscusses he feudal structure hatimpedes a more just distributionof land in the Northeast.With the possibleexception of Guerra'snouvelle vague-inspiredOs Cafajestes(The Hustlers,1962), which denounces the reificationof humanbeings in capitalistsociety,not a singlefilm of the 1960-1964 periodcriticallyexamines he contradictionsof the bourgeoisieor the supposedlyprogressive ector that was to lead thecountry along the road to development."Such a critiquewould appearonlyafter 1964 in such films as Paulo C6sarSaraceni'sO Desafio (The Challenge,1965) and Rocha's Terra em Transe,when the failureof the 'populistpact'waspainfullyapparent.Paradoxically,however, a curious inversion occurs in these early CinemaNovo films.12 f, on the one hand,CinemaNovo aligned tself with the modernand progressive orces of urban,industrialsociety, on the other it tended tovalue as authenticallyBrazilian,authenticallynational,the culturalforms ofthe traditionalsector. Rocha's first two films,BarraventoThe TurningWind,

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BRAZILIANCINEMANOVO1962) and Deus e o Diabo na Terrado Sol exemplify this tendency.Theformer,on one level, denounces Afro-Brazilian eligionas a form of alienation,andyeton another it affirms that religion'svalues as a means of preservingculturalidentity and as a potential site of collective resistance.l3Deus e o Diabo naTerrado Sol, on the other hand, uses traditional,oral forms of culturalexpres-sion-the cordel ballad, to be specific-as a structuringdevice.14AuthenticBrazilianculture, these films seem to be saying, comes not from the urban,industrialBrazil,but rather rom the moretraditionalareasof the country.The valorizationof traditionalcultural forms bringswith it anotherparadox,for the cinema itself is an urban,industrial orm of cultural and artisticexpres-sion. The early 1960s witnessed an intense debate, which to a certain extentis being repeated today, about the natureof the 'national' and the 'popular' nreference to culturalproduction.'5While on the one hand CinemaNovo tendedto preserveand value the culturalexpressionof the lower classes,on the otherit tended to empty it of its content and use its form to transmitostensiblyrevolutionarymessages.In other words, it expropriated mpiricallygivenmodesof popularculture and substituted hem with modes of constructed hroughdis-course. Film-makersattempted to impose their own values, their own con-ception of what popularcultureshould be, on the forms of popularculture asthey really existed. Such paternalism s, in the final analysis, authoritarian.It is CinemaNovo's version of the Isebianidea that enlightenedintellectualsshould lead the people to socialtransformation.

Closelylinkedto thecentraldichotomyset forthby CinemaNovo-colonizerversus colonized-is the movement's attitude toward the developmentof thefilm industry and toward questions of film aesthetics. To understandCinemaNovo's concept of industrialdevelopment,we must see the movement withinthe historical evolution of Braziliancinema generally.The cinema has a longhistory in Brazil, but until recently it had never attained sufficient levels ofindustrial development for one basic reason. Since around World WarI, theBrazilian market has been dominated by foreign, primarilyNorth American,film distributors.Such domination has had two basic results:first, since it hasbeen unable to depend even on the small domestic market for a return oninvestments, Braziliancinema has lacked the capital to maintain continuousproduction on an industrialscale, causing development to be cyclical and un-stable. Second, foreign films broughtwith them a level of technicalperfectionunattainableby the undercapitalizedBrazilianfilm industry. The public soonbecame accustomed to the production values of foreignfilms, which early onbecame the standardby which all films would be judged. For this reason,Braziliancinemahas often been considered to be of poor qualityandunworthyof support,which has further weakened its position in the marketand its driveto attain at least minimal evelsof stability.Because of the international success of American cinema, the dream ofBrazilianproducers historically has been to emulate that cinema and createa national ilmindustrybasedon largestudios.Two attemptsat such industrializa-tion areparticularly elevant o the presentdiscussion.In 1943, severalproducersjoined togetherto formthe AtlantidaStudios,which became the most successfulattempt at concentrated industrialization n the history of Braziliancinema.Atlantida was particularlysuccessful after 1947, when it was acquiredby Luis

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BULLETINOF LATINAMERICAN ESEARCHServerianoRibeiro, he ownerof the country's argestexhibitioncircuitas well asthe largestnationaldistributor.His acquisitionof Atlantidaprovided t with avertically integratedsystem of production,distribution,andexhibition. Atlan-tida combined its advantageous ositionin the marketwith a mode of produc-tion geared toward and based on the commercialpotential of that marketto make a series of relativelyinexpensivebut immenselypopularfilm genressuch as the chanchada,or light musicalcomedy, frequentlyset duringCarnival.Its heyday was the periodfrom 1945 tc 1960. After that the growingnfluenceof televisioncaused the chanchada o lose appeal,andAtlantidaceasedproduc-ing rather than diversify ts production.CinemaNovo, with a more politicizedvision of Brazilian ociety, was in part a reactionto the frivolousmerrymakingof the chanchada.

In sharpcontrast to Atlantidawere the VeraCruzStudios,founded in SaoPaulo in 1949 and modelled on Hollywood'sMGM tudios.The films of VeraCruz improved he technicalqualityof Brazilian ilms, increasedcapitalinvest-ments in cinema, and incorporatedinto national cinema the 'internationalcinematic anguage',with its panoplyof conventionaldevices.VeraCruzset upan expensive and luxurious system without the economic infrastructure nwhich to base such a system.It tried to conquerthe worldmarketbefore con-solidating the Brazilian market. In contrast to Atlantida,Vera Cruz droveproduction costs far above the lucrativepotential of the Brazilianmarket.Unable to recoup its investments n the domestic market andunable to reachthe internationalmarket,VeraCruzwent bankruptn 1954 and took underwithit the perhapsunrealistic dream of developinga film industrybased on thelarge-scaletudiosystem.16The emergenceof a newmentalityamongBrazilian roducers oincidedwiththe finalyearsof VeraCruz.They beganto rejectthe artificialityand expenseof the studio systemin favourof an independent,artisanmode of production.This new mentality would later blossom into CinemaNovo. At the genesisofCinemaNovo, therefore,was a new attitude towardthe structureof the filmindustry. Influencedby Italian neo-realismand based on the failureof VeraCruz and the underminingof the chanchadaby television,CinemaNovo cor-rectly determined hat the foreign-controlled razilianmarketcould not providean adequatereturn on expensivestudio productionand opted instead for anindependent and inexpensivemode of production using small crews, locationshooting and non-professional ctors.This was the first time in the historyofBraziliancinema that such a mode of productionwas adopted by ideologicalandaestheticchoice rather hanby circumstance.17GlauberRochaperhapsbestexpressesCinemaNovo's attitudetowardmodelsof film production in his 1963 book Revisdo Critica do CinemaBrasileiro.He alignshimselfwith the nouvellevagueand its struggle o freeitself fromtherigidityof industrialcinema and its norms,while at the same time politicizingthe nouvellevague'sconcept of auteur. Theauteur,accordingo Rocha,revoltsagainstthe mercantilistmentalityof industrial inema,whichputs profitabilityand easy communicationabove art. WhilequotingTruffaut,Bazin andGodard,Rocha goes a step furtherthan the initial formulationof the nouvelle vagueandproposesanoppositionbetween'commercial inema' illusionistic echniqueanduntruth)and 'auteurcinema'(freedomof expressionandtruth).In Rocha's

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words, 'If commercial cinema is the tradition,auteur cinema is the revolution.The politics of a modernauteur are revolutionarypolitics: and today it is noteven necessaryto qualify an auteur as revolutionary,becauseauteuris a totaliz-ing noun . . . The auteur is responsiblefor the truth: his esthetics are his ethics,his mise-en-scenehis politics.'18Rocha not only defends individualexpression,but claims that it is revolutionary.In Rocha's formulationof the problem,we see resonancesof the colonizer/colonized dichotomy of 'An Aesthetic of Hunger'.CinemaNovo rejectedthestudio system, a model borrowed from the metropolis, as being by definitiondedicated to the falsification of reality. Because of an extreme scarcity offinance capital for film production,CinemaNovo could not hope to equal thetechnical level of most foreignfilms. So ratherthan imitate dominantcinema,which would make their work merely symptomaticof underdevelopment, heychose to resist by turning 'scarcity nto a signifier'.19Rocha'smanifesto is thetheoreticalexpressionof this conscious resistance.The model of neo-realism served Cinema Novo well as a production andaesthetic strategy, especially duringthe first phase of the movement, as film-makersattemptedto portraywhat they saw as the true face of Brazilian nder-development.Thecriticalrealismof films markedby the 'aestheticof hunger'-sad, ugly, screaming ilms, in Rocha's words-served an importanttacticalandpolitical function by expressingthe radical 'otherness'of Braziliancinema inrelation to world cinema.20 n short, as part of their project of decolonizingBrazilian inema andattempting o create a criticalconsciousness n the Brazilianpeople, in opposition to the alienatedconsciousness fostered by Hollywood,Cinema Novo adopted a new attitude toward the industrialdevelopmentofBraziliancinema and a new attitude toward the aesthetics of film, privilegingideas over technical perfection. The movement'sslogan-uma camerana maoe uma ideiana cabeca-summarizes these attitudes.

Despite the movement's real contributionsalong these lines, a paradoxalsoappearsin their strategies.Althoughit opposed traditionalmodes of cinematicproduction and the aesthetic forms accompanying hem, its participantsmadeno real attempt to create alternativeor parallelexhibition circuits.Rather,theyreleased their films in established commercial circuits which had been builtprimarily for the exhibition of foreign films. The Brazilianpublic, long con-ditioned by the illusionism of Hollywood, was generally unreceptive to thefilms of CinemaNovo, which became in many ways a groupof films made byand for an enlightened, ntellectualelite, and not for broad sectors of the film-going public,muchless for Brazil's mpoverishedmasses.Even Cinema Novo's low-cost productionmethods soon beganto showtheirlimitations. Like VeraCruzbefore it, CinemaNovomade the mistakeof assum-ing that simplymakinga film was sufficient for it to be successfullyplaced onthe market. Directors and producerscame to depend on distributorsand evenexhibitors for postproductionfinancing,which put them in the disadvantageousposition of havingto pay a largerpercentage han usualfor the distributionandexhibition of their films. The problem of a return on investments becamecritical. Exhibitors argued that Cinema Novo films were too intellectual forsuccess in the market, and the productionof more popularfilms thus becameimperative f CinemaNovo was to continueto exist. As GustavoDahl once said,

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BULLETINOF LATINAMERICAN ESEARCHthe makingof popularfilms became the sine quanon of politicalaction in thecinema.Thestruggle or the marketbecamea priority.CinemaNovo took a numberof steps to ameliorate he problemof reachinga broad audience.First,togetherwith LuisCarlosBarreto,producersanddirec-tors formed the distributioncooperativeDifilm as a strategyfor placingtheirfilms more easily in the multinational-controlledmarket. This measure wasimportant,since it is on the level of distribution hat Americancinema domin-ates the Brazilianmarket. In 1973 Embrafilme,he government ilm enterprisecreated in 1969, took up and expandedthe idea of a central distributor orBrazilian ilms.

Second, they began to make filmswith a more popularappeal.On the onehandthey turnedtoward iteraryclassics:JoaquimPedrode Andrade'sOPadree a Moca (The Priest and the Girl, 1965) is basedon a poem by CarlosDrum-mond de Andrade;Walter Lima Jr.'s Menino de Engenho (PlantationBoy,1965) on a novel by Jose Lins do Rego; Roberto Santos'sA Hora e Vez deAugusto Matraga Matraga,1966) on a short story by Joao GuimaraesRosa;andPaulo CesarSaraceni'sCapitu 1968) is basedon Machadode Assis'smaster-piece, Dom Casmurro.On the otherhand,comedy became anacceptablemodeof discourse,with such films as Nelson Pereirados Santos'sEl Justiceiro(TheEnforcer,1967), Domingosde Oliveira'sTodas as Mulheresdo Mundo(All theWomenin the World, 1967), and Roberto Farias'sToda Donzela Ter un Paique e uma Fera(EveryMaidenHasa FatherWhoIs a Beast,1967).Even so, the majorproblemof CinemaNovo continued to be productionfinancing,and very early on they looked toward the state for financialassis-tance. In late 1963, GuanabaraGovernorCarlosLacerda,a strongsupporterof the 1964 coup, signedinto law a decree creatingCAIC,the ComissdodeAuxi?ioa IndtustriaCinematogrdficaCommissionor Aidto the FilmIndustry).CAICwould administertwo basic programmesof financial assistance o theindustry:(1) a systemof cashawards r subsidies or producers ccordingo thegross income of films exhibitedin the state, and(2) a programme f film pro-duction financing.21Lacerda'sdecree was not the first measure,on the statelevel, to directly aid the industry,but it was the first attempt to exert ideo-logical control over the industry.The decree foundingCAIC stated that thebenefits of the law would be deniedany scriptor filmadvocating, mongotherthings, the use of violence to subvert the political and social order, racialorclass prejudice, propagandaagainst the democratic system based on partypluralism r againstprivateproperty,and so on.In fact, the restrictionsof the decree were more flexible than they may atfirst appear,and CAICwas one of the majorsourcesof fundingfor CinemaNovo filmmakers.Almost coincidingwith the 1964 coup, therefore,was thebeginningof a tacit alliance between the state and CinemaNovo, an alliancethat would continue with the federalgovernment's reationof the InstitutoNacionaldo Cinema NationalFilm Institute)in 1966 and Embrafilmen 1969and that would become formalizedin 1973 when Roberto Farias,CinemaNovo's chosen candidate,becamehead of Embrafilme.Among CinemaNovofilms partiallyfinancedby CAIC were WalterLima Jr.'sMenino de Engenho,Roberto Santos'sMatraga,Joaquim Pedro de Andrade'sO Padre e a Moca,and Arnaldo Jabor's documentaryabout the middle class, OpinidoPublica

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(Public Opinion, 1967). In subsequentyears,films suchas Andrade'sMacunaima(1969), CarlosDiegues'sOs Herdeiros The Heirs,1968), anddos Santos'sComoeragostoso o meu frances (How Tasty WasMy Little Frenchman,1971) wouldalsobe financedby state-sponsored rogrammes.If state supportwas importantfor the developmentof CinemaNovo, it wasalso responsible for its first major rift, a rift which in many ways continuesuntil today. Divisions arose within CinemaNovo concerningthe position film-makers should take in relation to CAIC'sprogrammeof financing,especiallygiven the ideological restrictions written into the law. Ruy Guerrasaw suchfinancing as a form of cooptation. Most of the others disagreed,and Guerrasoon foundhimselfdistanced romthe movement as a whole.The 1964 debate is echoed in the currentconjunctureof Braziliancinema.Whereas therCinemaNovo participantshaverushed o supportEmbrafilme ndits policy of co-productions,Guerra has warned of the dangersof too closea relationshipwith the state. He opposes those who he feels have adopteda 'publicat all cost' philosophyandhave abandoneda critical vision of societyfor commercial uccess.Hehas beencritical as well of NelsonPereirados Santos'srecent campaign for a 'popularcinema', saying instead that Braziliancinemawill be popular only when there is a radical transformationof the economicstructuresof Brazilian ociety.In conclusion, there has not been a radicalchange in the propositionsofCinemaNovo and its associatesover the last twenty years.Film-makers renowmore concerned with productionvalues and with success in the marketplace,but this concern derives argelyfrom an early decisionto use establishedcom-mercial circuits for the exhibition of their films and to make the marketplacethe site of struggleagainst he colonizer.Associationwith the statehas increaseddramatically,especially duringthe last ten years, but it too has roots in theearly 1960s and in the seemingly eternal problem of the undercapitalizationof the industry. It would be simplistic to say that the political concerns ofCinemaNovo have disappearedall together. Nelson Pereirados Santos is nowfilming Graciliano Ramos's Prison Memoirs, a denunciation of the EstadoNovo's authoritarianism nd repression.Roberto Farias,who has alwaysbeenmore commercially-orientedhan some of his counterparts,recentlymade PraFrente Brasil (OnwardBrasil, 1982), about torture and repression n the early1970s. CarlosDieguesis completingwhat is in many ways a sequel to his 1963film GangaZumba, about the Republic of Palmareswhich was set up by run-away slaves in 17th century Brazil. And Leon Hirszman'saward-winning lesnao usam Black-Tie (They Don't Wear Black Tie, 1981), which was totallyfinanced by Embrafilme, deals with labour struggles in contemporarySaoPaulo. These films and others express political concerns and are at the sametime much more communicative han most early CinemaNovo films. To quoteHirszman nce again:

The true path to both the national and the popular passes throughthe valorizationof popularemotion. One should not manipulateemotionin the mannerof massculture, n the mannerof TV. But without emotion,you cannot communicateyour ideas. There has to be a dialecticof reasonandemotion.22

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BULLETINOF LATINAMERICANRESEARCHThat, perhaps, is the greatest lesson Cinema Novo learned over the last twentyyears.NOTES

1. Portionsof this paperappearn my forthcomingCinemaNovo x 5: Masters f Con-temporaryBrazilian ilm, University f TexasPress,Austin.2. 'Uma Estetica da Fome', RevistaCivilizacdoBrasileira,no. 3 (July 1965); Englishversion n RandalJohnsonandRobert Stam eds.) (1982),BrazilianCinema,FairleighDickinsonUniversityPress,Rutherford,N.J.,pp. 68-71; reprintedn MichaelChanan(ed.) (1983), Twenty-fiveYearsof the New LatinAmericanCinema,BritishFilmInstitute/ChannelourTelevision,London,pp. 13-14.3. IsmailXavier(1983), SertaoMar: GlauberRocha e a esteticada fome, Brasiliense/Embrafilme,aoPaulo,pp. 153-67.4. Englishranslationn BrazilianCinema, p. 90-2.5. Christian cienceMonitor,22 March 984.6. RandalJohnson and RobertStam,'Recovering opularEmotion:An InterviewwithLeonHirszman',Cineaste,XIII,no. 2 (1984), pp. 20-3, 58.7. MariaRitaGalvio, 'Odesenvolvimento as d6ias obrecinema ndependente',CinemaBR (SaoPaulo),no. 1 (September1977), pp. 15-19. The secondpartof this article sin CinemaBR, no. 2 (December1977), pp. 10-17. Completearticlereprintedn30 Anos de CinemaPaulista,Caderos da Cinemateca (SaoPaulo:FundagaoCine-matecaBrasileira, 980),pp. 13-23.8. For a discussionof this period,see ThomasE. Skidmore 1967), Politicsin Brazil,1930-1964, OxfordUniversityPress,New York,pp. 163-86; andMariaVictoriadeMesquitaBenevides1976), 0 GovernoKubitschek, aze Terra,Rio de Janeiro.9. RandalJohnsonandRobertStam,'TheShapeof BrazilianFilmHistory',nBrazilianCinema, p. 15-51.10. The following summaryof some of the ideasof the InstitutoSuperiorde EstudosBrasileiroswas extracted from Caio Navarrode Toledo (1978), ISEB: FdbricadeIdeologias,Atica,Sio Paulo.11. Jean-Claude erardet (1979), CinemaBrasileiro: ropostas araumaHistoria,PazeTerra,Rio deJaneiro,p. 48.12. Xavier,op. cit.13. Ibid.,pp. 17-41.14. IsmailXavier, BlackGod, WhiteDevil: The Representationf History', n BrazilianCinema, p. 134-48; alsoSertaoMar,pp. 69-119, 153-67.15. Xavier,SertaoMar,pp. 153-67.16. For a discussionof VeraCruz,see MariaRita Galvao(1981), Burguesia Cinema:o Caso VeraCruz,Civiliza9aoBrasileira/Embrafilme,io de Janeiro; nd dem., VeraCruz:A BrazilianHollywood',n BrazilianCinema, p. 270-80.17. JohnsonandStam, TheShapeof Brazilian ilmHistory'.18. RevisdoCriticado CinemaBrasileiro 1963), CivilizacaoBrasileira,Rio de Janeiro,pp. 13-14.19. IsmailXavier (1982), 'Allegoriesof Underdevelopment: rom the "AestheticsofHunger" o the "Aestheticsof Garbage"',Ph.D.Dissertation,NewYorkUniversity,p. 18.20. Ibid.,pp. 18-21.21. Estadode SaoPaulo,12 January 963.22. JohnsonandStam, Recovering opularEmotion:AnInterviewwithLeonHirszman'.

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