Society for Latin American Studies

Brazilian Cinema Novo Author(s): Randal Johnson Source: Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 3, No. 2 (1984), pp. 95-106 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of Society for Latin American Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3338256 Accessed: 31/08/2009 17:53
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BrazilianCinemaNovol
RANDAL JOHNSON Universityof Florida Over two decades have passed since CinemaNovo burst upon and profoundly altered the Braziliancinematic and cultural scene. In these two decades, many things have changed in Brazil. The populist government of the early 1960s was quite unceremoniously removed by a 1964 military coup d'etat and replaced by a military regime which only now appearsto be losing its hold on power. With them, Brazil's military rulers brought a reign of repressionand torture, which intensified in 1969 and began to ebb only in the mid-1970s. Accompanyingthe repressionwas a period of growth known as the 'economic miracle', which meant the brutal redistributionof already poorly distributed wealth from the working classes to the upper classes. The miracle, in turn, has given way to the nightmare,a 100 billion dollar foreign debt, the servicingof whichconsumesvirtuallyall of the country'sexport earningsand which threatens to tear asunderthe country'ssocial fabric. Braziliancinema has changed as well. In the early 1960s, Glauber Rocha summarizedthe concerns of the initial phase of CinemaNovo in his Fanonianinspired manifesto, 'An Aesthetic of Hunger', also known as 'An Aesthetic of Violence'. In this manifestohe wrote: . . . hungerin Latin Americais not simply an alarming symptom;it is the essence of our society. Hereinlies the tragicoriginalityof CinemaNovo in relation to world cinema. Our originality is our hunger and our greatest miseryis that this hungeris felt but not intellectuallyunderstood... . . only a culture of hungercan qualitativelysurpassits own structures by underminingand destroyingthem. The most noble culturalmanifestation of hungeris violence. CinemaNovo revealsthat violence is normalbehaviourfor the starving. The violence of a starving man is not a sign of a primitivementality . . . Cinema Novo teaches that the aesthetics of violence are revolutionary rather than primitive. The moment of violence is the moment when the colonizer becomes aware of the existence of the colonized. Only when he is confronted with violence can the colonizerunderstand,throughhorror, the strength of the culture he exploits. As long as he does not take up arms,the colonized man remainsa slave.2 Although the manifesto clearly aligns itself with Fanon and the struggle for ThirdWorldliberation, Rocha is speakingnot of realviolence in a revolutionary situation, but ratherof an aesthetic of violence, a metaphoricalusageof violence in a situation (he was writing after the military coup of 1964) which was far from revolutionary.3 His statement is an admittedly extreme and in many ways contradictoryformulationof the thrust of early CinemaNovo, but it is none the

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Rocha and CinemaNovo called for an alternativeform of less representative. cinematic practice which would combat the idealistic illusionismof dominant cinemaand at the sametime participate in the strugglefor nationalliberation. Contrastthat with the situation of the 1970s and 1980s, when, as Robert Stam has put it, the aesthetic of hungersometimesseems to have evolvedinto an aesthetic of gluttony-and perhapsonly Rochahimself,with his highlyidiosyncratic films, can be exempted from this evolution-in which a concern with success in the national and internationalmarketplaceappearsto have neutralized the political concerns of the early phase of Cinema Novo. The situationbecomes even more complex, and seeminglymore contradictory, when one realizesthat since 1973 the Brazilian or otherhas co-produced government wise financed the most significantnationalfilm production,includingvirtually all films made after that date by CinemaNovo participants, includingGlauber Rocha. The current success of Braziliancinema, with films such as DoI a Flor and Her Two Husbands,Bye Bye Brasil,Gaijin,Pixote, I Love You, and They Don't WearBlack-Tie,among others, results largely, in fact, from an alliance or marriage of conveniencebetweenCinemaNovo and the authoritarian Brazilian state. The current situation of Braziliancinema-an apparentmercantilistic attitude supportedby the state-does not in fact representa radicalbreakwith positions held in the early 1960s. It would be simplisticto speakof cooptation by the military regime or to suggest that filmmakersbecame starstruckby commercialsuccess. Rather,the currentsituationis an outgrowthof a number of contradictionsand paradoxesexisting within CinemaNovo from the very beginning.Despite Rocha's revolutionarystatements,a certain distancealways existed between the rhetoric and the reality of CinemaNovo. In this paper I propose to discuss some of these contradictions,examininghow Cinema Novo arose and evolved duringthe 1960s. A movementsuch as CinemaNovo cannot be isolated from its historicalcontext, for in many ways it respondsto and is influencedby the political developmentof Brazilian society, it positions itself in relation to the historical evolution of Brazilian cinema, and it participates in and reflects ideological debates of the period in which it arose. By reexaminingCinemaNovo in its variouscontexts, I in no way mean to belittle the considerableachievementsof the movement, which is largely responsible for the best that Brazilian cinemahas had to offer duringthe last twenty years and continues to offer today. In a very real sense,CinemaNovo is synonymous with Brazilian of Brazilian cinema, and its contradictionsare the contradictions cinemaas a whole and Brazilian intellectualsin general. The questionmight be asked if it is valid to speak of CinemaNovo existing today. Many historical analysesof the movementhave said that CinemaNovo had ceased to exist by 1972, if not earlier.And yet the movement'sonly collective manifesto, known as the 'Luz e Aqao Manifesto',was publishedonly in 1973.4 Although Brazilian cinemahas grownconsiderablyover the last twenty years, now producingsome 100 films per year, four times the annualproduction of the early 1960s, Cinema Novo directors such as Leon Hirszman,Nelson Pereirados Santos, CarlosDiegues, Joaquim Pedro de Andrade,and Arnaldo cinematoday. They dominate Jabor, among others, clearly dominate Brazilian not only with their films; they also dominate the state cinematic apparatus

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1981 film Eles Ndo UsamBlack(Embrafilme).Leon Hirszman'saward-winning Tie (They Don't Wear Black-Tie)was upon its release referredto as 'Cinema Novo de novo' (Cinema Novo anew). Diegues has recently claimed, and not without a bit of self-servingexaggeration,that he and other leadersof Brazilian cinema are the 'new barbarians'of international cinema since they are free from the gadgetry and large budgets of Hollywood and from the high culture Whenaskedin a recent interand correct ideologicallines of Europeancinema.5 view if Cinema Novo directors still discussed film projects as they did in the early 1960s, Hirszman responded: In a way, we have never stopped discussingour films. Therehave been some personal rifts, but the discussiongoes on. But then the collaboration at the beginning was never quite as intense as people thought. It's a bit like the Beatles:they neverwere really as united before as people thought, nor really as separatedafterward.6 We can thus refer to CinemaNovo existing today if seen as an open-endedprocess of cinematic activity, but clearly not as a narrowly defined, tightly-knit movement or school. Cinema Novo 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 evolved through a number of discerniblephases, each of which correspondsto a specific sociopolitical conjuncture. The seeds of CinemaNovo took root in the early 1950s, especially in three film industry congresses held in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo in 1952 and 1953. It was in these congressesthat filmmakerssuch as Alex Viany, Rodolfo Nanni and Nelson Pereira dos Santos first articulated ideas for the creation of an independent national cinema.7 The country had only recently seen the end of Getfilio Vargas'sEstado Novo (1937-1945), and the process of redemocratization dramaticallyincreased the level of political and cultural activity of Brazil'smiddle sectors. Vargaswas reelected to the presidencyin 1951 in the guise of a populist reformerwho attemptedto mobilize supportthrough,among other things, a nationalist discourse revolving around the creation of a state petroleum industry.Vargascommitted suicide in 1954, leavinga quasi-socialist, messagefor the Brazilian anti-imperialist people. Despite Vargas'sdeath, the nationalisteuphoriahe helped create continued and was strengthened with the election of JuscelinoKubitschekin 1955. Kubitschek, promising fifty years of developmentin five, embarkedon an ambitious plan of economic expansionand industrialdevelopment.He was one of only two presidents in the 1930-64 period to remain in office, legally, throughout his designated term, partially because of his ability to rally the Brazilianpeople or developmentalistaround a common ideology, known as developmentalism nationalism.8Brasilia, with its ultramodernarchitecture,is perhaps the most perfect symbol of Kubitschek'sdevelopmentalist ideology. His brand of developmentalism,however, was fraught with contradiction. the system's Although it was a means of mobilizing support and guaranteeing stability, it was also an effective tool for controllingsocial and political tensions.

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It toyed with the people's nationalistsentiments,but based its programme of on foreigninvestment. industrialization Former Sao Paulo governorJanio Quadrossucceeded Kubitschekin 1961, but resignedafter a mere seven months in office. Quadroswas replacedby his vice-president, Vargasprotege Joan Goulart,who was intensely dislikedby the Goulart's brief administration, markedby a number of institutional military. crises, witnesseda turn to the Left in domestic and foreignpolicy as the president attempted to implement structuralchangessuch as agrarian reform. He was overthrownby the militaryin 1964. Withinthis historicalcontext, middleclass artists and intellectuals,such as those who createdCinemaNovo, became increasinglypoliticized and sought to commit their art to the transformation of Brazilian they erroneously society, a transformation thoughtto be imminent. After a preparatory period, from 1955-1960, the firstphaseof CinemaNovo goes from 1960 to 1964, a period in which 'nationalquestions'were debated at every level of society. The films of this periodattemptedto contributeto the debate with films about the country'slumpen, often depicted in ruralsettings Os Fuzis, Rocha'sDeus e o Diabo na Terra (dos Santos's VidasSecas, Guerra's do Sol). The secondphaseof CinemaNovo extends from 1964 to 1968, the year of the Fifth InstitutionalAct, which inaugurated a period of extremely repressive military rule. Although political liberties were restrictedand censorship increased,there was still a degreeof space availablefor discussionand debate. Duringthis period, the focus of CinemaNovo shifted from ruralto urbanBrazil, as film-makers turned their cameras,so to speak, on themselvesin an attempt to understandthe failure of the Left in 1964 (Saraceni'sO Desafio, Rocha's Terra em Transe, Dahl's O Bravo Guerreiro,dos Santos's Fome de Amor). A thirdphaserunsfrom 1968 until around1972. Duringthis periodof extremely to expressopinionsdirectly, harshmilitaryrule, it was difficult for film-makers and allegory became the preferredmode of cinematic discourse of what is known as 'Tropicalism' in Brazilian cinema(Andrade's dos Santos's Macunaima, At the sametime a burgeonComoeragostosoo meufrances,Jabor'sPindorama). Novo from the Left, sayingthat it Cinema movementchallenged ing underground had sold out to commercialinterests(Sganzerla's O Bandidoda Luz Vermelha, Bressane's Matoua famlia e foi ao cinema,amongothers).Stylisticand thematic underthe aegisof Embrafilme has markedthe periodsince 1973.9 pluralism Cinema Novo, as part of an ongoing process of cultural transformation, reflects the ideologicalcontradictionsof Brazilian society as a whole. The initial of historical factors and of Novo a number Cinema was informed by phase influenced to a large degree by the formulationsof the Instituto Superiorde Estudos Brasileiros(Higher Institute of BrazilianStudies), which was created by Kubitschek in 1955 with the express purpose of formulatinga national ideology of development.Althoughit would be simplisticto see CinemaNovo merely as a reflection of the ideology of ISEB-indeed, at times CinemaNovo films directly or indirectlyrevealedthe contradictionsof that ideology- it is none the less importantto be aware of the kinds of political and ideological discussionsthat were taking place and examine how CinemaNovo relates to
them. 10

The ISEB was composed of intellectuals of various political persuasions, CandidoMendes,AlvaroVieiraPinto, NelsonWerneck includingHelioJaguaribe,

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Sodr6, and Roland Corbisier.Although members of the institute did not always coincide precisely in the concepts used, they did sharea numberof fundamental ideas. First of all, they saw autonomous, national, industrialdevelopmentas an absolute value, as an unequestionableend to be achieved through a variety of means. And perhaps paradoxically, given the makeup of the Institute, the development they spoke of was based on a capitalist mode of production. It was only after a stage of advancedcapitalismwas achievedthat the question of alternativemodes of productioncould be contemplated. The members of ISEB formulated a nationalist thesis based on a radical which was caused by what they called awarenessof Brazil'sunderdevelopment, the country's 'colonial situation', its relations of dependence to advanced industrialpowers. They saw the continuationof such relationsas an impediment to autonomous development.They therefore conceivedthe majorcontradiction of Braziliansociety as being not capital versuslabour,but ratheras the 'Nation' (that which is authentic) versus the 'anti-Nation'(that which is alienated from the 'Nation's' true historical being). The contradiction was set forth in these terms, rather than, for example, foreign versus national, because they saw imperialismnot as an external determinantbut ratheras an internal or 'internalized' force in Braziliansociety. The 'Nation', seen as the moder, progressivesector of society, includedthe industrialbourgeoisie,the urban and ruralproletariat,and the productivesector of the middle-class. The 'anti-Nation', or the traditional, retrograde,archaic sector of society, included large landowners, export-import groups, the nonproductive sector of the middle-classand certain portions of the proletariat, in other words, sectors whose interests lie not with national developmentbut rather with the continued foreign domination of the nation's economy. This dichotomy reflects a dualist vision of society with, on the one hand, a feudalrural sector dominated by an oligarchy whose interests are tied, through an export economy, to those of industrializedcountries, and, on the other, a modern, urban, industrial society led by a supposedly progressivenational industrialbourgeoisiededicated to autonomousnationalcapitalistdevelopment. The 'Nation'/'anti-Nation'dichotomy as formulated by ISEB cuts across class lines and thus attempts to efface or ignore questions of class conflict, which, once again, are conveniently postponed until after full capitalist development is achieved. The intellectuals associated with ISEB felt that for autonomous national development to occur, it was necessaryfor an enlightenedintelligentsiato create an authentic, national, criticalconsciousnessof the country'sunderdevelopment and its causes and thereby overcome the country's alienation from its true historical being and lead to a process of social transformationand national liberation. Such liberation would come through what they called a 'bourgeois revolution', i.e., transformationled by enlightened intellectuals such as themselves and progressiveelements of the national bourgeoisie. Although I have merely summarizedsome of ISEB'spositions, the contradictionsof this developmentalist ideology are immense. But it is importantto note that largesectors of the Left, includingthe BrazilianCommunistParty, shared,these views, forming a 'populist pact', which Glauber Rocha so brilliantly dissected in Terraem Transe(Land in Anguish, 1967).

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In general terms, Cinema Novo saw itself as part of this process of 'dealienation' through a strategy of conscientizacdo, or consciousness-raising. It sought, at least duringits initial phase, to show the Brazilian people the true face of the country's underdevelopment in the hope that they would gain a criticalconsciousnessand participatein the strugglefor nationalliberation.As Rocha wrote in 'An Aesthetic of Hunger',CinemaNovo 'is not a single film but an evolvingcomplex of films that will ultimatelymake the public awareof its own misery.' Similar to the ideologues of ISEB, CinemaNovo tended to see the major conflict of Braziliansociety as 'colonizer' versus 'colonized', to use Rocha's words, rather than analyse it in terms of class. The movementwas engagedin a struggleto create an authenticnationalculture in opposition to the interests of the colonizer. It also tended to adopt a dualistvision of society, opposing a traditional,feudal, backwardBrazil tied to imperialistinterests with a promodernBrazilled by sectorsof the nationalbourgeoisie. gressive, Cinema Novo's alliance with supposedlyprogressivesectors of the national bourgeoisieis revealednot only in its choice of themes, but also in its sources of financing. Many pre-1964 Cinema Novo films, including classics such as Nelson Pereirados Santos's VidasSecas (1967), Ruy Guerra's Os Fuzis (1964), and GlauberRocha'sDeus e o Diabo na Terrado Sol (1964), were financedby the NationalBank of MinasGerais,which was owned by the familyof politician in the coup d'etat of 1964. Pinto, one of the civilianconspirators Magalhaes In their attempt to de-alienatethe Brazilianpeople, filmmakersinitially attempted to search out the areas of Brazilwhere social contradictionswere Northmost apparent:poor fishingvillages,urbanslums, and the impoverished east, where the three films just mentioned were set. In other words, early Cinema Novo films tended to focus on the traditionalor backwardareas of Brazil, denouncing that backwardnessand the economic sectors (the 'antiNation', in ISEB's formulation)held responsiblefor it. Dos Santos's Vidas Secas outlines a conflict between a landownerand a peasant family duringa Os Fuzis concernssoldierswho guarda landowner's period of drought;Guerra's food warehousefrom starvingpeasants;and Rocha'sDeus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol, while focusing specificallyon the twin alienationsof religiousmysticism that and anarchistic cangaceiroviolence,indirectlydiscussesthe feudalstructure With the more of in the Northeast. a distribution land possible impedes just Os Cafajestes (The Hustlers, exception of Guerra'snouvelle vague-inspired 1962), which denounces the reification of human beings in capitalistsociety, not a single film of the 1960-1964 periodcriticallyexaminesthe contradictions of the bourgeoisie or the supposedlyprogressivesector that was to lead the country along the road to development." Such a critique would appearonly after 1964 in such films as Paulo C6sarSaraceni'sO Desafio (The Challenge, 1965) and Rocha's Terra em Transe,when the failure of the 'populist pact' was painfullyapparent. Paradoxically,however, a curious inversion occurs in these early Cinema Novo films.12If, on the one hand, CinemaNovo aligneditself with the modern and progressiveforces of urban, industrialsociety, on the other it tended to value as authentically Brazilian,authenticallynational, the cultural forms of the traditionalsector. Rocha's first two films, Barravento (The TurningWind,

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1962) and Deus e o Diabo na Terrado Sol exemplify this tendency. The former, on one level, denounces Afro-Brazilian religion as a form of alienation, and yet on another it affirms that religion'svalues as a means of preservingcultural identity and as a potential site of collective resistance.l3Deus e o Diabo na Terrado Sol, on the other hand, uses traditional,oral forms of culturalexpression-the cordel ballad, to be specific-as a structuringdevice.14Authentic Brazilian culture, these films seem to be saying, comes not from the urban, industrialBrazil,but ratherfrom the more traditionalareasof the country. The valorizationof traditionalcultural forms bringswith it anotherparadox, for the cinema itself is an urban, industrialform of cultural and artisticexpression. The early 1960s witnessed an intense debate, which to a certain extent is being repeatedtoday, about the nature of the 'national' and the 'popular'in reference to culturalproduction.'5While on the one hand CinemaNovo tended to preserveand value the cultural expressionof the lower classes, on the other it tended to empty it of its content and use its form to transmit ostensibly revolutionarymessages.In other words, it expropriatedempiricallygivenmodes of popularculture and substitutedthem with modes of constructedthroughdiscourse. Film-makersattempted to impose their own values, their own conception of what popular culture should be, on the forms of popular culture as they really existed. Such paternalismis, in the final analysis, authoritarian. It is Cinema Novo's version of the Isebian idea that enlightened intellectuals should lead the people to social transformation. Closely linkedto the centraldichotomy set forth by CinemaNovo-colonizer versus colonized-is the movement's attitude toward the developmentof the film industry and toward questions of film aesthetics. To understandCinema Novo's concept of industrial development, we must see the movement within the historical evolution of Braziliancinema generally. The cinema has a long history in Brazil, but until recently it had never attained sufficient levels of industrial development for one basic reason. Since around WorldWar I, the Brazilianmarket has been dominated by foreign, primarilyNorth American, film distributors.Such dominationhas had two basic results: first, since it has been unable to depend even on the small domestic market for a return on investments, Brazilian cinema has lacked the capital to maintain continuous production on an industrial scale, causing development to be cyclical and unstable. Second, foreign films brought with them a level of technical perfection unattainableby the undercapitalizedBrazilianfilm industry. The public soon became accustomed to the production values of foreign films, which early on became the standard by which all films would be judged. For this reason, Braziliancinema has often been considered to be of poor quality and unworthy of support, which has furtherweakened its position in the market and its drive to attain at least minimallevels of stability. Because of the international success of American cinema, the dream of Brazilian producers historically has been to emulate that cinema and create a nationalfilm industrybasedon largestudios.Two attempts at such industrialization are particularly relevantto the present discussion.In 1943, severalproducers joined togetherto form the AtlantidaStudios, which becamethe most successful attempt at concentrated industrializationin the history of Braziliancinema. Atlantida was particularlysuccessful after 1947, when it was acquiredby Luis

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Serveriano Ribeiro,the ownerof the country'slargestexhibitioncircuitas well as the largest national distributor.His acquisitionof Atlantidaprovidedit with a vertically integratedsystem of production,distribution,and exhibition. Atlantida combined its advantageous position in the marketwith a mode of production geared toward and based on the commercialpotential of that market to make a series of relatively inexpensivebut immenselypopular film genres such as the chanchada,or light musicalcomedy, frequentlyset duringCarnival. Its heyday was the period from 1945 tc 1960. After that the growinginfluence of televisioncaused the chanchadato lose appeal,and Atlantidaceasedproducing rather than diversifyits production.CinemaNovo, with a more politicized vision of Braziliansociety, was in part a reactionto the frivolousmerrymaking of the chanchada. In sharp contrast to Atlantidawere the Vera Cruz Studios, founded in Sao Paulo in 1949 and modelled on Hollywood'sMGMstudios. The films of Vera Cruz improvedthe technical quality of Brazilian films, increasedcapital investments in cinema, and incorporatedinto national cinema the 'international cinematiclanguage',with its panoply of conventionaldevices.Vera Cruzset up an expensive and luxurious system without the economic infrastructure on which to base such a system. It tried to conquer the world marketbefore consolidating the Brazilian market. In contrast to Atlantida, Vera Cruz drove production costs far above the lucrative potential of the Brazilianmarket. Unable to recoup its investmentsin the domesticmarketand unable to reach the international in 1954 and took underwith market,VeraCruzwent bankrupt it the perhaps unrealistic dream of developing a film industry based on the studio system.16 large-scale The emergenceof a new mentalityamongBrazilian coincidedwith producers the final years of Vera Cruz. They began to reject the artificialityand expense of the studio system in favourof an independent,artisanmode of production. This new mentality would later blossom into CinemaNovo. At the genesis of Cinema Novo, therefore, was a new attitude toward the structureof the film industry. Influenced by Italian neo-realismand based on the failure of Vera Cruz and the underminingof the chanchadaby television, CinemaNovo corBrazilian marketcould not provide rectly determinedthat the foreign-controlled an adequate return on expensive studio production and opted instead for an independent and inexpensivemode of productionusing small crews, location actors. This was the first time in the history of shooting and non-professional Braziliancinema that such a mode of productionwas adopted by ideological and aestheticchoice ratherthan by circumstance.17 GlauberRocha perhapsbest expressesCinemaNovo'sattitudetowardmodels of film production in his 1963 book Revisdo Critica do CinemaBrasileiro. He alignshimself with the nouvellevague and its struggleto free itself from the rigidity of industrialcinema and its norms,while at the same time politicizing the nouvelle vague'sconcept of auteur. The auteur, according to Rocha,revolts againstthe mercantilistmentality of industrialcinema, which puts profitability and easy communicationabove art. While quotingTruffaut,Bazin and Godard, Rocha goes a step further than the initial formulationof the nouvelle vague and proposesan oppositionbetween 'commercial cinema'(illusionistictechnique and untruth) and 'auteurcinema' (freedomof expressionand truth). In Rocha's

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words, 'If commercial cinema is the tradition,auteur cinema is the revolution. The politics of a modern auteur are revolutionarypolitics: and today it is not even necessaryto qualify an auteur as revolutionary,becauseauteuris a totalizing noun . . . The auteur is responsiblefor the truth: his esthetics arehis ethics, his mise-en-scenehis politics.'18Rocha not only defends individualexpression, but claimsthat it is revolutionary. In Rocha's formulationof the problem, we see resonancesof the colonizer/ colonized dichotomy of 'An Aesthetic of Hunger'. Cinema Novo rejected the studio system, a model borrowed from the metropolis, as being by definition dedicated to the falsification of reality. Because of an extreme scarcity of finance capital for film production, CinemaNovo could not hope to equal the technical level of most foreign films. So ratherthan imitate dominantcinema, which would make their work merely symptomatic of underdevelopment,they chose to resist by turning 'scarcityinto a signifier'.19 Rocha's manifesto is the theoreticalexpressionof this consciousresistance. The model of neo-realismserved Cinema Novo well as a production and aesthetic strategy, especially during the first phase of the movement, as filmundermakers attempted to portray what they saw as the true face of Brazilian development.The criticalrealismof films markedby the 'aestheticof hunger'sad, ugly, screamingfilms, in Rocha's words-served an importanttactical and political function by expressingthe radical 'otherness' of Braziliancinema in relation to world cinema.20In short, as part of their project of decolonizing cinemaand attemptingto create a criticalconsciousnessin the Brazilian Brazilian people, in opposition to the alienated consciousness fostered by Hollywood, Cinema Novo adopted a new attitude toward the industrial development of Braziliancinema and a new attitude toward the aesthetics of film, privileging ideas over technical perfection. The movement's slogan-uma camerana mao e uma ideia na cabeca-summarizes these attitudes. Despite the movement's real contributionsalong these lines, a paradox also appears in their strategies.Although it opposed traditionalmodes of cinematic production and the aesthetic forms accompanyingthem, its participantsmade no real attempt to create alternativeor parallelexhibition circuits.Rather,they released their films in established commercial circuits which had been built primarily for the exhibition of foreign films. The Brazilianpublic, long conditioned by the illusionism of Hollywood, was generally unreceptive to the films of Cinema Novo, which became in many ways a group of films made by and for an enlightened,intellectual elite, and not for broad sectors of the filmmasses. going public, much less for Brazil'simpoverished Even CinemaNovo's low-cost productionmethods soon began to show their limitations. Like Vera Cruz before it, CinemaNovo made the mistakeof assuming that simply making a film was sufficient for it to be successfullyplaced on the market. Directors and producers came to depend on distributorsand even exhibitors for postproductionfinancing,which put them in the disadvantageous position of havingto pay a largerpercentagethan usual for the distributionand exhibition of their films. The problem of a return on investments became critical. Exhibitors argued that Cinema Novo films were too intellectual for success in the market, and the production of more popular films thus became imperativeif CinemaNovo was to continue to exist. As GustavoDahl once said,

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the makingof popularfilms becamethe sine qua non of political action in the cinema.The strugglefor the marketbecamea priority. CinemaNovo took a numberof steps to amelioratethe problemof reaching a broad audience.First, together with Luis CarlosBarreto, producersand directors formed the distributioncooperativeDifilm as a strategyfor placingtheir films more easily in the multinational-controlled market. This measure was important,since it is on the level of distributionthat Americancinema dominmarket. In 1973 Embrafilme, the governmentfilm enterprise ates the Brazilian created in 1969, took up and expanded the idea of a central distributorfor Brazilian films. Second, they began to make films with a more popularappeal.On the one hand they turned towardliteraryclassics:JoaquimPedrode Andrade's O Padre e a Moca (The Priest and the Girl, 1965) is based on a poem by CarlosDrummond de Andrade;Walter Lima Jr.'s Menino de Engenho (Plantation Boy, 1965) on a novel by Jose Lins do Rego; Roberto Santos'sA Hora e Vez de Augusto Matraga(Matraga,1966) on a short story by Joao GuimaraesRosa; and Paulo CesarSaraceni's Capitu(1968) is basedon Machadode Assis'smasterDom On the mode Casmurro. other hand, comedy became an acceptable piece, of discourse,with such films as Nelson Pereirados Santos'sEl Justiceiro(The Todasas Mulheresdo Mundo (All the Enforcer, 1967), Domingosde Oliveira's Women in the World, 1967), and Roberto Farias'sToda Donzela Ter un Pai que e umaFera (EveryMaidenHas a FatherWhoIs a Beast, 1967). Even so, the major problem of Cinema Novo continued to be production financing, and very early on they looked toward the state for financial assistance. In late 1963, Guanabara GovernorCarlosLacerda,a strong supporter of the 1964 coup, signed into law a decree creatingCAIC, the Comissdode for Aid to the Film Industry). (Commission Cinematogrdfica Auxi?ioa Indtustria CAIC would administertwo basic programmesof financialassistanceto the or subsidiesfor producers to the industry:(1) a system of cash awards according of of film income in and a films exhibited the state, progross (2) programme duction financing.21 Lacerda'sdecree was not the first measure,on the state level, to directly aid the industry, but it was the first attempt to exert ideological control over the industry. The decree founding CAIC stated that the benefits of the law would be denied any script or film advocating, amongother of and the use to social racial or violence subvert the order, things, political class prejudice, propagandaagainst the democratic system based on party or againstprivateproperty,and so on. pluralism In fact, the restrictionsof the decree were more flexible than they may at first appear, and CAICwas one of the major sources of funding for Cinema Novo filmmakers.Almost coinciding with the 1964 coup, therefore, was the beginningof a tacit alliance between the state and CinemaNovo, an alliance that would continue with the federal government'screation of the Instituto Nacional do Cinema(National Film Institute)in 1966 and Embrafilme in 1969 and that would become formalized in 1973 when Roberto Farias, Cinema Novo's chosen candidate, became head of Embrafilme.Among CinemaNovo films partiallyfinanced by CAICwere WalterLima Jr.'s Menino de Engenho, Roberto Santos's Matraga,Joaquim Pedro de Andrade'sO Padre e a Moca, and Arnaldo Jabor's documentary about the middle class, OpinidoPublica

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(Public Opinion, 1967). In subsequentyears, films such as Andrade'sMacunaima (1969), CarlosDiegues'sOsHerdeiros(The Heirs, 1968), and dos Santos'sComo era gostoso o meu frances (How Tasty WasMy Little Frenchman,1971) would also be financedby state-sponsored programmes. If state support was important for the developmentof CinemaNovo, it was also responsible for its first major rift, a rift which in many ways continues until today. Divisions arose within CinemaNovo concerningthe position filmmakers should take in relation to CAIC'sprogrammeof financing, especially given the ideological restrictions written into the law. Ruy Guerrasaw such financing as a form of cooptation. Most of the others disagreed,and Guerra soon found himself distancedfrom the movement as a whole. The 1964 debate is echoed in the currentconjunctureof Braziliancinema. other CinemaNovo participants Whereas have rushedto supportEmbrafilme and its policy of co-productions, Guerra has warned of the dangersof too close a relationship with the state. He opposes those who he feels have adopted a 'public at all cost' philosophy and have abandoneda criticalvision of society for commercialsuccess.Hehas been criticalas well of Nelson Pereirados Santos's recent campaign for a 'popular cinema', saying instead that Braziliancinema will be popular only when there is a radical transformationof the economic structuresof Brazilian society. In conclusion, there has not been a radical change in the propositions of CinemaNovo and its associatesover the last twenty years. Film-makers are now more concerned with production values and with success in the marketplace, but this concern deriveslargely from an early decision to use establishedcommercial circuits for the exhibition of their films and to make the marketplace the site of struggleagainstthe colonizer. Associationwith the state has increased dramatically, especially during the last ten years, but it too has roots in the early 1960s and in the seemingly eternal problem of the undercapitalization of the industry. It would be simplistic to say that the political concerns of Cinema Novo have disappearedall together. Nelson Pereirados Santos is now filming Graciliano Ramos's Prison Memoirs, a denunciation of the Estado Novo's authoritarianism and repression.Roberto Farias, who has always been more commercially-oriented than some of his counterparts,recently made Pra Frente Brasil (Onward Brasil, 1982), about torture and repressionin the early 1970s. CarlosDiegues is completing what is in many ways a sequel to his 1963 film GangaZumba, about the Republic of Palmareswhich was set up by runEles away slaves in 17th century Brazil. And Leon Hirszman'saward-winning nao usam Black-Tie (They Don't Wear Black Tie, 1981), which was totally financed by Embrafilme, deals with labour struggles in contemporary Sao Paulo. These films and others express political concerns and are at the same time much more communicativethan most early CinemaNovo films. To quote Hirszman once again: The true path to both the national and the popular passes through the valorizationof popular emotion. One should not manipulateemotion in the mannerof mass culture,in the mannerof TV. But without emotion, you cannot communicateyour ideas. There has to be a dialecticof reason and emotion.22

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That, perhaps, is the greatest lesson Cinema Novo learned over the last twenty years. NOTES Novo x 5: Masters Cinema 1. Portionsof this paper appearin my forthcoming of Conof TexasPress,Austin. Brazilian Film, University temporary 2. 'Uma Estetica da Fome', Revista Civilizacdo no. 3 (July 1965); English Brasileira, versionin RandalJohnsonand RobertStam(eds.) (1982), Brazilian Cinema, Fairleigh DickinsonUniversity in Michael Chanan Press,Rutherford, N.J., pp. 68-71; reprinted (ed.) (1983), Twenty-fiveYearsof the New Latin AmericanCinema,BritishFilm FourTelevision, Institute/Channel London,pp. 13-14. 3. IsmailXavier(1983), SertaoMar: Glauber Rocha e a estetica da fome, Brasiliense/ Sao Paulo,pp. 153-67. Embrafilme, 4. English translation in Brazilian Cinema, pp. 90-2. ScienceMonitor,22 March 5. Christian 1984. 6. RandalJohnsonand Robert Stam, 'Recovering with PopularEmotion:An Interview LeonHirszman', Cineaste, XIII,no. 2 (1984), pp. 20-3, 58. 7. MariaRita Galvio, 'O desenvolvimento dasid6iassobrecinemaindependente', Cinema BR (Sao Paulo),no. 1 (September1977), pp. 15-19. Thesecondpartof this articleis in CinemaBR, no. 2 (December1977), pp. 10-17. Complete article reprintedin 30 Anos de CinemaPaulista,Caderos da Cinemateca 4 (Sao Paulo:Fundagao CinematecaBrasileira, 1980), pp. 13-23. 8. For a discussionof this period, see ThomasE. Skidmore(1967), Politics in Brazil, Victoriade 1930-1964, Oxford UniversityPress,New York, pp. 163-86; and Maria Paz e Terra, Rio de Janeiro. Benevides (1976), 0 Governo Kubitschek, Mesquita Film History',in Brazilian 9. RandalJohnsonand RobertStam, 'The Shapeof Brazilian Cinema, pp. 15-51. 10. The following summaryof some of the ideas of the Instituto Superiorde Estudos Brasileiros was extracted from Caio Navarrode Toledo (1978), ISEB: Fdbricade Ideologias, Atica, Sio Paulo. 11. Jean-Claude Brasileiro: Berardet (1979), Cinema parauma Historia,Paz e Propostas Rio de Janeiro, Terra, p. 48. 12. Xavier,op. cit. 13. Ibid.,pp. 17-41. of History',in Brazilian 14. IsmailXavier,'Black God, WhiteDevil: The Representation Cinema, pp. 134-48; alsoSertaoMar,pp. 69-119, 153-67. 15. Xavier, SertaoMar,pp. 153-67. e Cinema: 16. For a discussionof Vera Cruz,see MariaRita Galvao(1981), Burguesia o Caso VeraCruz,Civiliza9ao andidem.,'Vera Rio de Janeiro; Brasileira/Embrafilme, Cruz:A Brazilian Cinema, Hollywood',in Brazilian pp. 270-80. 17. Johnsonand Stam,'The Shapeof Brazilian FilmHistory'. Rio de Janeiro, 18. Revisdo Critica do CinemaBrasileiro(1963), Civilizacao Brasileira, pp. 13-14. From the "Aestheticsof 19. Ismail Xavier (1982), 'Allegoriesof Underdevelopment: New York University, Hunger"to the "Aestheticsof Garbage"',Ph.D. Dissertation, p. 18. 20. Ibid.,pp. 18-21. 21. Estadode SaoPaulo,12 January 1963. with LeonHirszman'. Emotion:An Interview 22. Johnsonand Stam,'Recovering Popular