Limite (1931) dir.

Mario Peixoto

AN EXPLORATION ON

BRAZILIAN
CINEMA
Introduction to Communication
and Media Studies
Castellanos Mata, Marta María.
100452378
Group 40B. Audiovisual
Communication
INTRODUCTION: NEO-COLONIALISM AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH CINEMA HISTORY AND
BRAZIL………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……..….. 3

1 Cidade de Deus (2002) dir. Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund

 INDEX
THE ARRIVAL OF CINEMA TO BRAZIL…………………………………………………………….………….……………………….….... 3

THE FIRST YEARS OF CINEMATIC PRODUCTION: A BELA ÉPOCA…………………………….…………………….…… 4

THE PROBLEMS THAT SURROUND BRAZILIAN CINEMA FIRST APPEAR………….……. 4

AVANT-GARDE FILMMAKING: LIMITE (1931) DIR. MARIO PEIXOTO…………………………………………….………. 5

THE FIRST TRUE BRAZILIAN GENRE: THE CHANCHADA…………………………………………..…………………………… 5

TERERÊ NÃO RESOLVE (1938) DIR. LUIZ DE BARROS…………………………………………………. 5

CARMEN MIRANDA, A SYMBOL AND A TRAITOR…………………………………………………………. 6

THE CONFLICT BETWEEN ARTISAN AND INDUSTRIAL FILMMAKING: THE COMPANHIA

CINEMATOGRÁFICA VERA CRUZ………………………………………………………………………….....……………………………..… 6

ARTISAN/INDEPENDENT FILMMAKING AND CINEMA AS A TOOL FOR SOCIAL CHANGE: CINEMA

NOVO…………………………………………………………….……………………………………………………………………..………………………… 7

THE PHASES OF CINEMA NOVO AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE POLITICAL
CONTEXT..…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 8

DEUS E O DIABO NA TERRA DO SOL (1965) DIR. GLAUBER ROCHA………………………… 8

MILITARY AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNMENT AND THE IRONIC RISE OF NATIONAL CINEMA:

EMBRAFILME………………………………………..……………………………………………………………………………………………………... 9

THE INFLUENCE OF THE MILITARY AUTHORITY ON THE NATIONAL PRODUCTION: THE BIRTH OF
PORNOCHANCHADAS………………………………………..………….…………………………….………………………………. 10

TRANSITIONING TO DEMOCRACY AND REPORTING MILITARY REPRESSION: ABERTURA

NATURALISM…………………………………………………………………………………………………..……………………...……………..….. 10

PIXOTE (1980) DIR. HECTOR BABENCO…………………………………………………………………... 11

THE FALL OF BRAZILIAN CINEMA AND THE REFLEXION OF A WEAK INDUSTRY: 1990s
CRISIS……………………………………………………………….……………………………………………..……………………………..………..…… 11

THE RECUPERATION OF BRAZILIAN CINEMA AND NEW THEMES: LA

RETOMADA………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……………..…………………..…… 12

CIDADE DE DEUS (2002) DIR. FERNANDO MEIRELLES & KÁTIA LUND….…….…… 12

CINEMA IN THE LAST YEARS THROUGH CONCRETE FILMS: ITS THEMES AND ITS DIFFERENCES
WITH THE SOCIAL ACTIVISM OF OTHER TIMES……………………………………………………………………………………. 13

HOJE EU QUERO VOLTAR SOZINHO (2014) DIR. DANIEL RIBEIRO……………………….. 13

QUE HORAS ELA VOLTA? (2015) DIR. ANNA MUYLAERT……………………….……………….. 14

ERA O HOTEL CAMBRIDGE (2016) DIR. ELIANE CAFFÉ…………….…………………………………. 14

CONCLUSION: A REFLEXION ON NEO-COLONIALISM AND THE RICHNESS OF BRAZILIAN CINEMA……….…… 15

SOURCES……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……………………………. 16

FILMS I HAVE SEEN FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT …………………………………………………………….. 16

BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………….…………………………………………… 17

2
 INTRODUCTION:
NEO-COLONIALISM AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH CINEMA
HISTORY AND BRAZIL
Given cinema’s special ability of portraying reality due to its nature of capturing moving images as are seeing
in our real world, the seventh art has become through the years a crucial element for cultural defyning and
national identity. This view of cinema becomes extremely dangerous in our neo-imperialist world dominated
by the United States and, on a lesser level, European’s media, since these countries’ film industries have
come to control the overall film landscape even monopolizing the industry, which is Hollywood’s case.

This US-based structure has conquered cinematic culture provoking the start of a phenomenon that met its
birth in the twentieth century: the occidentalization or, more specifically, the “americanization” of national
culture. This damaging phenomenon concludes with the cultural impoverishment of the “colonized” nations.

As Amerindian cultures once suffered when Crowns such as Spanish and Portuguese arrived to their lands
and stole all what they could call theirs, including their cultures, social structures and overall identity, today’s
situation comes to be the same thing. Using different weapons, the United States has this time conquered
the rest of the world in a more effective way, more customed for our times. By the utilisation of culture and
taking advantage on globalization, we have come to a time in which most of the film billboard is composed
by Hollywood, or at least American, productions. The lack of national sources for cultural expression, such as
what cinema can be, can turn out to be very damaging to a country’s identity, and therefore, history.

What has been previously described is the situation and long fight that has defined Brazilian cinema since
the new medium first arrived to the country. A struggle of self-assurance and cultural identity that lead to
several phases of pure Brazilian reaffirmation alterning with Hollywood copies and parodies or even times of
almost non-existent Brazilian production.

We also have to understand the historical background of the country, which went from being a colony in the
Imperialism era to a country close to a Third World status in these neo-colonialism times, and all the
complexities that come with it. It is also of vital importance the cultural and ethnic diversity that Brazil
presents within its territory. From indigenous communities that survived the first conquer, to white
descendants of immigrants from Portugal when Brazil was a mere colony of the European country, to black
descendants of former slaves and even to a wide variety of immigrants from all over the world and all classes
that saw on Brazil a promising future. This cultural ambiguity has also been a struggle within the sector of
intellectuals that worked to find and protect Brazilian culture.

THE ARRIVAL OF CINEMA TO BRAZIL

The new invention arrived at Brazil barely six months after the Lumiere brothers first showed what was then
called the cinématographe to the world, being the first screening in Rio de Janeiro on July 8, 1896.

Cinema then was not the big industrial machinery that we know today, but a simple fair entertainment. It
even could not really be called cinema since it was basically formed by short recordings that were later
exhibited in fairs to a diverse public, only limited by the low cost of these screenings. Or at least that was in
the rest of the world, mainly Europe and the United States, since in Brazil, this entertainment quickly found
its public in the wealthiest demographic. Starting, by this, the problems of class and representation that will
appear throughout the whole history of Brazilian cinema, adding to those of cultural identity that were
mentioned before.

3
THE FIRST YEARS OF CINEMATIC PRODUCTION:

A BELA ÉPOCA
In its first years Brazilian cinema started off with what has been called A Bela Época (Golden Age). A period
from 1900 to approximately 1912 that knew a predominant presence of national films achieving even the
number of a hundred films per year produced in national territory. What became the most defyning
characteristic of this age’s cinema were re-creations of iconic real crimes occurred like the renowned 1908
film Os Estranguladores (“The Stranglers”) directed by Francisco Marzullo. This film also was the first widely
popular production in Brazilian cinema history and the peak of the Bela Época. Other productions from this
time include A Mala Sinistra (“The Sinister Suitcase”) and the first ever Brazilian comedy Nhô Anastácio
Chegou de Viagem (“Mr. Anastácio Arrived from a Trip”). The former by António Leal and the latter, by Júlio
Ferrez.

The success of these first motion pictures is explained by the still pronounced innocence of the public’s eye,
which was much more attracted to the lower technical level that their own products had, compared to that
of the foreign films that were, despite all, offered to the public. Their naive perspective of the craft made
them tend to that of what they knew and were more comfortable with: national productions.

THE PROBLEMS THAT SURROUND BRAZILIAN CINEMA

FIRST APPEAR
However, this Golden age ended quickly after North American businessmen laid their eyes on Brazilian
cinema production, especially in Rio de Janeiro, and started investigating the ways to explode its potential
market. After entering the country in 1911, by 1912 Brazilian’s landscape was already filled with foreign films
from the United States, which dominated and surpassed national production. Although the Government’s
desire was to open national borders, it turned out to be a poor move for national production, which could
no longer exist in the same degree that it did before since it did not have the foster and protection of the
national Government.

Thereafter this moment Brazilian cinema started its path to what film critic Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes called
“underdevelopment” in his work “Cinema: A Trajectory within Underdevelopment”. This concept explains the
phenomenon by which cinema production became a marginalized activity within Brazil’s overall national
production and drastically inferior in technical terms to what was seen simultaneously in other parts of the
world. It is this moment which marks the later progress of Brazilian cinema or, for many years, the lack of it.

In the face of foreign domination, some individual filmmakers worked and released their films despite the
adversities they found themselves unprotected towards. These filmmakers include Luiz de Barros - A Viuvinha
(1914), Iracema (1917) and Ubirajara (1919) -, the Escola de Artes Cinematográficas Azzurri from which we
highlight Gilberto Rossi – Exemplo Regenerador (1919), Fragmentos da Vida (1929).

Until the appearance of sound, cinemas were invaded by American culture blocking Brazilian cultural
expressions from getting their audience in the people of the country. Brazilian culture, also called carioca,
was left for the lower strata of society, leaving American films and manifestations to the classes above, from
the small bourgeois to the wealthiest classes. It was then when the unsatisfied desire of seeing Brazilian
culture finally developed saw its road open and found a hole that American sound films could not entirely
fill, in part due to the economic crisis that most harshly affected the United States in 1929.

Yet after a short period in which rural culture saw its way in urban cinemas, North American films found a
way to reconquer the billboards and send Brazilian cinema back to its marginalized form, from which it will
have to find a way to develop by its own again, in a cycle that, as we will see, will repeat unstoppingly
throughout the whole history of cinema in Brazil.

4
AVANT-GARDE FILMMAKING:

LIMITE (1931) DIR. MARIO PEIXOTO

Aside from the trends that were flourishing at the time, a single cinematic event is seen from our perspective,
with the passage of time, essential in the country’s cinematic history. This renowned event is the release of
Mario Peixoto’s avant-garde film Limite in the year 1931. Although other avant-garde films were also
released in that period, Peixoto’s debut is considered the best example of this movement, very in touch with
Europe’s cultural drifts, thus ignoring any type of Brazilian identity and cultural identification.

After his travel to Europe, in particular France, rich family descendant Mario Peixoto put in practice what he
had seen in the artistic atmospheres of the European country in his first and only film -he intended to make
other motion pictures that could not see its finished product-, creating a production which singularity is still
recognized in our days and is seen at the same level as other avant-garde international films such as
Ménilmontant (1926) by Dimitri Kirsanoff and Un chien Andalou / An Andalusian Dog (1928) by Luis Buñuel
and Salvador Dalí.

Limite’s simple plot of three stranded individuals who remember with flashbacks their personal traumatic
events and background story, exists within Brazilian cinematic history as an isolated event in a time where
the typical Brazilian genre known as chanchada was first starting to find its form. A genre that ended up being
radically opposite to the experimentalism and symbolism of Mario Peixoto’s feature film.

THE FIRST TRUE BRAZILIAN GENRE:

THE CHANCHADA
Chanchadas were a true Brazilian genre born in the thirties out of Hollywood’s musical comedies’ tropes.
However, despite the parodic identity of these productions, they were seen as true expressions of Brazilian
culture, even if those expressions were mainly directed to and for the upper classes. The genre, with roots in
Brazilian comic theatre and in carnivalistic sung films, brought with it a wave of optimism with its simple light-
hearted plots and its musical and dance numbers. They meant an unstoppable box office success that
translated into a heavy production of these films for around twenty years.

The complex nature of this films was its mix of Western influences and traditions with clear and deep Brazilian
heritage. While also considering that this heritage was from the upper privileged strata of the society or at
least from urban spaces. These portions of Brazilian society were also the main target of these productions
that ensured the long run of this genre: the youngest demographic of urban spaces and economically
comfortable classes.

The chanchada economic structure and cultural importance reproduced the success of the Bela Época, which
was a relieve for Brazilian cinema since the decrease that the sector suffered after the end of this Golden Age
and the beginning of the North American influence in the country’s market. It was the rise of the chanchadas
what served as a weapon to fight against this American influence that condemned Brazilian cinema to
underdevelopment and marginalization.

TERERÊ NÃO RESOLVE (1938) DIR. LUIZ DE BARROS

One example of chanchada is the 1938 film Tererê Não Resolve, another production directed by a director
already mentioned: Luiz de Barros. This casual simple picture about a misunderstanding that results in a
series of comedic situations during Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival, sums perfectly the nature of the Brazilian genre.
They were easy-to-watch enjoyable films, usually about simple problems of the upper class with comedic
characters and situations easily resolved by the end in an abrupt and positive way.

5
CARMEN MIRANDA, A SYMBOL AND A TRAITOR
But we cannot go deep into the chanchada genre without mentioning Brazilian actress Carmen Miranda. The
actress, dedicated entirely to this genre, ended up moving to Hollywood and appearing in North American
productions heavily stereotyped as the Brazilian girl, not very smart, in part for the language barriers that
were used with comedic purposes, in part because her characters were treated one-dimensionally and seen
as the happy foolish girl, always dancing and smiling in carnivalistic outfits. While in the States she was seen
this way, in her country she was often criticised for leaving Brazil and giving up for the American industry,
disregarding her people.

This tragic reality of Carmen Miranda’s persona reflects the struggle between the “colonized” and the
“colonizer” that marks great part of Brazilian cinematic history as is studied by Paulo Emílio Salles in his
Cinema: A Trajectory within Underdevelopment. The rejection of everything that came from or was related
to Hollywood by one part of the demographic can be also linked with another dispute recurring through
Brazil’s history that has still not been mentioned: the fight against industrial/entrepreneurial, seen very alike
to Hollywood’s industry, and artisan/independent cinema.

THE CONFLICT BETWEEN ARTISAN AND INDUSTRIAL

FILMMAKING:

THE COMPANHIA CINEMATOGRÁFICA VERA CRUZ

Is in this next period were this dispute starts to unfold. By the end of the forties a new company was created
which tried to copy Hollywood’s studio system within Brazil’s underdeveloped cinematic landscape: the
Companhia Cinematográfica Vera Cruz. Whether we conclude if the activity of this company is positive or
not, Vera Cruz found a way to create for the first time in Brazil something close to a cinematic industry and a
continuous production of motion pictures in the already complicated Brazilian market. On top of this, it
launched national productions out of borders and included them in the international language, while also
engaging with every portion of the Brazilian audience, for the first time in what we have covered at the
moment of the Brazilian cinematic history.

In the hugely unequal Brazilian society, with a great gap and division between the wealthy and the poor, Vera
Cruz’s industrial products first put in the same space all audiences alike and started the consideration of
cinema as a recurring entertainment for all social strata. It also stopped the monopolization of the little
national production of artisan or independent cinema, which always ends up being for a selected minority,
while industrial and studio-like cinema tends to include in its audience a greater and more diverse
demographic. Ironically, the most capitalistic structure, following these criteria, can be considered “for the
people”, while the independent and technically more humble cinema turns out to be elitist.

Vera Cruz’s varied productions rejected the chanchada genre and aspired for a purely Brazilian cinema with
the quality of foreign industries and the wide catalogue of genres that characterizes them, in its effort to
leave behind the backwards, poorly developed “industry” that Brazilian cinema had and aspire for progress
and international recognition. However, and despite this good intentions of the company, the disregard that
the executives had to the real rooted problems of Brazilian cinema to find a place on the market made
impossible for the films produced to fulfil with their expectations of developing the country’s cinema.

The company thought that a higher technical quality would ensure the establishment of a place for Brazilian
cinema in the market, without considering that the problem could not only be the lack of a national industry
but the excessive influence of the foreign market against the national, and its preponderance, related, as has
been established in the beginning, with the neo-colonized characteristic of Brazil.

The investments that the company made with the object to aspire to the highest quality, did not have a
positive feedback. The company profited far less than what it spent and although it tried to react increasing

6
its production with the hopes that it would end up giving them a positive conclusion, the company was seeing
its end approaching faster than what they had in mind. Accelerating their bankruptcy to 1954. From that
moment and on, companies understood that a throughout analysis of the Brazilian market was crucial for
the establishment of an industrial base grounded on the combination production/distribution/exhibition.
Due to this analysis, filmmakers started denouncing the domination of foreign cinema and the lack of
protectionist legislation that could defend national production against the cultural expression of the
“colonizer”.

Understanding this situation and the barriers they had to confront it, filmmakers tended again towards the
independent artisan production and, after discovering the movements that were starting to flourish in
Europe like the Italian Neo-Realism and the French New Wave, filmmakers began their path to the creation
of a brand new movement, influenced by those mentioned before. A movement that put Brazilian cinema on
the map of the most important and advanced international cinematic manifestations of the time, just behind
countries as occidental as Italy, France, and the always present United States. This movement was called:
Cinema Novo.

ARTISAN / INDEPENDENT FILMMAKING AND CINEMA AS A

TOOL FOR SOCIAL CHANGE:

CINEMA NOVO
Cinema Novo started in 1960 as a reaction of these situations previously described: the domination of foreign
cinema, the recently found state of Brazilian’s market after the extinction of the Vera Cruz Film Company,
the tension between artisan and industrial cinema and, apart from that, the political situation of the country.
After a phase of optimism and economic growth produced by the investment of foreign agents, ironically the
same foreign influence that prevented Brazilian cinema to develop, middle-classes became politically
conscious and agrarian, rural communities started forming associations to fight their situation. All these
circumstances explained above caused a group of independent filmmakers, who shared among them a deep
friendship, to react and create their films around these themes, with a distinctive technique and influences
both from Italy’s Neo-realism and France’s New Wave.

The movement’s main objective was to show a progressive and critical vision of Brazilian society while also
being politically present and influenced by Marxist views. This influence comes through being conscious of
the neo-imperialism that suffocates Brazilian’s market (the complete conquer of the market by Hollywood
distribution chains) and not so much on the class struggle, a very important issue, especially in Brazil. This
last problem, while it was also tackled, it was not near the main political fight of Cinema Novo’s filmmakers.
Another fight that these creators took to a political level was their stand as independent, artisan, filmmakers
against the industrial productive structures that companies like Vera Cruz had tried to establish in Brazilian
cinema.

Before the actual institution of Cinema Novo in 1960, one specific name stands out as the driving force that
most singularly introduced Italian techniques into his productions from Neo-realism, such as the use of non-
professional actors, natural locations, themes from popular culture and a direct cinematic expression.
Brazilian filmmaker Nelson Pereira dos Santos, though not the first one to introduce these contributions (the
first one was Alex Viany in his 1953 film Agulha no Palheiro / Needle in the Haystack), was the one that made
the most notable step forward in the direction of a new cinema. His films Rio 40 Graus / Rio, 40 Degrees
(1955) and Rio Zona Norte / Rio, Northern Zone (1957) will set the tone to what will be seen in the next years
with the start of Cinema Novo.

7
THE PHASES OF CINEMA NOVO AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP
WITH THE POLITICAL CONTEXT
This movement can be divided in different phases, the first one from 1960 to 1964, the year in which a
military coup d’état was made against the Government of the time, a date so important and impactful that
configurates a shift within the movement that makes it pass to another phase. In the first stage of the
movement, the aesthetic morals, firmly against those that came from Hollywood’s and commerce’s language,
and political views were established in the first features that brought together and defined the movement,
like Vidas Secas (“Barren Lives”) in 1963 by the already renowned Nelson Pereira dos Santos. Their political
views were significant for the movement since they were convinced, they could use their cinematic creations
as a weapon to fight neo-colonialism through independent filmmaking based on the concept of auteurism.

The first milestone Cinema Novo adventured, that the previous cinematic expressions did not, was the focus
on popular real locations, such as favelas and sertão, that represented the actual life of the lower-class, which
had barely been portrayed in a cinema dominated by the wealthy and the accommodated. It took 60 years
for real popular social issues to be pictured in the big screen, let alone in such a wide and diverse way. This
popular and rural themes mixed with a political optimism, linked to the short age of these directors, were,
from a perspective, a contradiction which made the filmmakers receive some criticism, since what they
intended was to make films for the people while also being part of the educated upper middle-class elite.

After the forced political shift in 1964, the movement moved to another phase, which lasted until the year
1968, when another coup d’état obligated the change to an even more reactionary sector of the military
which transformed the already weak Brazilian democracy to an authoritarian military government. These
political transformations, adding to the increase of American capital in Brazilian territory, drastically
interchanged the before optimistic tone of the first period for perplexity and anguish. However, in contrast
to the radical right-wing Government that started being present after the first coup d’état, the political left
did not diminish, on the contrary, it kept dominating the Cinema Novo movement, which was even
radicalizing towards the far left, and mantained their themes and fights which they would reflect on their
productions.

DEUS E O DIABO NA TERRA DO SOL (1965) DIR. GLAUBER

ROCHA
A motion picture that stands out from this period and that will be talked about in depth in this essay as a
representative of the whole Cinema Novo movement is Glauber Rocha’s 1965 production Deus e o Diabo na
Terra do Sol (“Black God, White Devil”). This film focuses on a series of events occurred in a rural area to
peasants Manuel and Rosa, a poor and humble couple that hardly lives off of working with cattle. However,
the events link poverty and religion and end up tackling a complicated issue regarding cults and the
attractiveness that these religious groups have to the lower classes. Rocha, through a narration taken directly
from popular oral tradition and a distinctive anti-commercial, and therefore anti-colonialist, style of
filmmaking, elaborates a process of demystification of the two antagonistic forces that are put against each
other, as the English title reveals, the Black God and the White Devil”. Rocha backs the heavily religious-
themed cinematic production with Manuel’s need to explain his reality and many adversities through
metaphysical entities, since he cannot understand the real roots of his oppressions.

This film does not worry on explaining and denouncing the different struggles that our protagonists suffer
due to their social condition, it rather imposes us many questions left unanswered about the
unconsciousness of the peasantry caused by their uneducated nature, which, on top of that, has a class-
driven explanation.

The last years of this second phase, directors started to take notice that despite their effort of making popular
cinema, a cinema for the people, they did not have the mass back up, targeting their audience within a very

8
limited demographic. Then, knowing their film’s desire to make a change in the political and social reality of
the country would not be fulfilled if their productions kept being admired exclusively by a reduced elite,
filmmakers opted to take action. Firstly, they moderated their radical approach to the idea of artisan and
independent cinema by the creation of a distribution cooperative called Difilm. Secondly, they shifted the
technique of their creations and opened the path for films with a more popular appeal. The first film that
showed the shift of the movement was having its effects reflected in reality was Joaquim Pedro de Andrade’s
Macunaíma (1969), which was both a cultural and box-office success. However, this film was already in the
third and last period of Cinema Novo.

In response to this growing desire of appealing to the mass, a new parallel movement arose called Udigrudi,
which defended a radicalization of the original characteristics of Cinema Novo that made the movement not
popular in the first place, both in a technical level and a thematical level. However, this movement did not
begin until the third phase of Cinema Novo.

The last phase, from 1968, when the already mentioned coup-within-the-coup took place, until 1972, also
called the “cannibal-tropicalist” phase, had to adjust to the repressive political changes that took place after
the publication of the Fifth Institutional Act. For this reason, the movement had many difficulties to survive
and by 1972 we can no longer talk about Cinema Novo. Macunaíma, as was said above, is a film released in
this period which matches the characteristics of Tropicalism and, in particular is themed heavily on
cannibalism, which were the tools the filmmakers of this period used to response to political repression in a
more indirect manner. It highlighted the bizarre, the exaggerated, bad taste, vulgar colours, parodying
Carmen Miranda’s tropes of exuberance and the idea of tropical paradise that was put upon Brazil -which
takes us back to the tension between Hollywood (the colonizer) and national popular culture (colonized)-.

As Roberto Shwarz, a Brazilian intellectual, remarks on his article published in France in Les Temps Modernes,
in regards to Tropicalism: “The basic procedure of such a movement consists in submitting the anachronisms
(at first glance grotesque, in reality inevitable) to the white light of the ultra-modern, presenting the result
as an allegory of Brazil”.

Between the years 1971-1972, the political reality of the military authoritarian Government made some of
the Cinema Novo filmmakers seek for finance abroad through co-productions with countries like France and
Italy. In time, these filmmakers left Brazil to escape from the national Government and be able to give
freedom to their creativity without censorship restrictions. Therefore, a movement as important as Cinema
Novo for the history of Brazilian cinema, slowly diminished and passed to a more diverse production within
the political reality and its restrictions.

MILITARY AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNMENT AND THE IRONIC

RISE OF NATIONAL CINEMA:

EMBRAFILME
The years of the dictatorship represented ironically an improvement in Brazilian cinema industrially wise
since the military Government dedicated some effort on creating the industry that Brazil lacked through
Embrafilme. This production, funding and distribution company made Brazilian cinema reach its peak up until
that moment regarding the relationship between the quantity of the audience and the quality and variety of
the films. Brazilian industry got to a very needed modernization and its much-desired engagement with
Brazil’s public.

However, as it may seem ironic the fact that the expansion of the cinematic industry happened finally during
the authoritarian Government, the reality is that the vast majority of the people did not support the
administration but were stuck with it. This translated to a response of the cultural community with the
production of many motion pictures that touched on these themes and had the support of the public which
Cinema Novo directors lacked in the previous decade.

9
This situation: the support of an actual company (Embrafilme), the support of the public and the appearance
of a new generation of young directors with stories to tell and the mastering of the Cinema Novo directors,
made it possible for Brazilian cinema to arrive to its best moment in history because, despite Cinema Novo
was the most significant in regards of its quality and influence, it did not have the public’s support and the
financial possibilities as the industry in the seventies.

Between Cinema Novo and the period, we are currently talking about, there is a significant difference that
relates to a major struggle of the former era. Even though Cinema Novo filmmakers put a lot of effort on
appealing for the people, they could not escape from the elitism of a minority of national and out-of-borders
groups. Meanwhile, in the seventy’s cinema became an entertainment for the people, as the previous
directors had wished for since the second phase of Cinema Novo, with most of the Brazilian audience
engaging with the films.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE MILITARY AUTHORITY ON

NATIONAL PRODUCTION:

THE BIRTH OF PORNOCHANCHADAS

Nevertheless, we cannot talk about cinema in the seventies in Brazil without mentioning, at least on the
surface, a new genre called pornochanchada. They were comedies very in touch with the Brazilian genre
chanchada that decades ago had been of much importance for the cinematic landscape. However, they had
an erotic tone that, in addition to resalting the lifestyle of the petite-bourgeoisie and its luxury, it also offered
a male perspective of the women’s body heavily sexualized. (There also existed reviews of the pure
chanchada genre mostly in the late seventies and eighties). While in the seventies these productions were
not so explicit, in the following decade they became oblivious to any type of modesty and showed very
sexually detailed every situation. The success of this genre throughout the time of the military Government
and the lack of any censorship put upon these productions by the administration is explained pretty simply:
it was the main entertainment of the military elite.

In the seventies Brazilian cinema first started to show a characteristic that has been very present in the
productions of this country. That is metacinema, or also called reflexivity, referring to motion pictures that
highlight the work of the filmmaker, or other features like the intertext of the film or the overall production
and process that had to be undertaken. In many occasions, metacinema takes the form of parodies of other
genres, Hollywood’s tropes or even real Hollywood films.

TRANSITIONING TO DEMOCRACY AND REPORTING

MILITARY REPRESSION:

ABERTURA NATURALISM
The following decade was a confusing moment, a transition between the success and propulsion of Brazilian
cinema to the crisis it will experiment in the 1990’s. While it was not an entirely bad time for cinema
production, the audience diminished, which made many picture theatres close and end their activity. On top
of that, the most successful genre of this time was the pornochanchada, much more raw and explicit than
the films of this theme that were made in the seventies, establishing clearly the state of decay the movie-
going experience was suffering.

The political situation of this moment also influenced the cinematic production that would be seen during
the decade. The eighties were marked by an ongoing aperture of the military regime until its definite end in
1985. Therefore, the films of this moment reflect in many ways this situation, criticizing the political
repression of the two decades before, being finally able to express so in what has been called “abertura
naturalism”.

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Many ways of articulating this feeling flourished and were seen in the cinematic landscape. From the explicit
sex films that we have previously talked about, to intimistic artsy films about existentialism, to detective
thrillers that represented from the inside of the police force and other authorities the repression and
corruption of the dictatorship. These new films about the social situation of Brazil, unlike the ones from the
previous decade that had to appeal to allegories, were now more explicit in their means and more
entertainment-driven with much action and dynamism. Furthermore, the plots of these productions focused
on the theme of the social redemption of the protagonists after seeing what society and social structure has
put upon them.

PIXOTE (1980) DIR. HECTOR BABENCO

From this time we will talk in depth about Hector Babenco’s 1980 film Pixote also called Pixote, a lei do mais
fraco (“Pixote, the law of the weakest”). The motion picture talks about the world of child delinquency which
has our protagonist, Pixote, submerged and stuck. The precarious situation of children, homeless and pushed
to delinquency as a surviving tool, is a devastatingly real theme that threats the children of the lower class.
This situation is opposing the attitude of this gang of children on the face of their circumstances, confronting
it with the feeling of freedom of their actions and unconsciousness to the forces that condition their social
status.

In the first half of the story, when we see the group of children in the reform school, they blame their situation
and corruption that is mixed in that place with death and lies to cover up for the poor management of the
reformatory, to the worker who is in charge of the control of the kids locked in there. Then, when they finally
escape from that place, without the power of the prison manager, they feel complete free, although they are
actually imprisoned by their circumstances.

The film, rather than denouncing the events that happen, it focuses on representing them and leaving the
rest for the audience. Rather than using the plot and ending it on a lesson, it uses the end of the film to
represent the constant cycle of these type of kids’ situation and the doomed future that is ahead of the only
survivor of the gang: Pixote.

As we see, after the dictatorship, the theme of the colonizer and the colonized that was so present in other
times left for the exclusive focus on the situation of the country, very complex after twenty years of an
authoritarian Government. The only times we will see the theme of Hollywood touched again will be in the
many parodies of Hollywood films that still in this decade will be produced. Therefore, we see a shift in
Brazilian society that, while first they were obsessed with the outside and their position in the international
overall landscape, now they are focused in their own situation, also reporting the action of the internal forces
rather than those of international identity.

THE FALL OF BRAZILIAN CINEMA AND THE REFLEXION OF A

WEAK INDUSTRY:

1990s CRISIS
Regardless of the importance cinema finally had on the Brazilian society and the great national production
of the previous years, the 1990’s was a decade of crisis for Brazilian cinema. Although the numbers of the
statistics had anticipated its fall, especially in the second half of the eighties, the crisis still could not be faced
with anticipation and resulted devastating for national production. In the mid-90’s got to its lowest level since
the 1940s. While in the peak of cinematic production of the twentieth century about one hundred films were
made per year of Brazilian production, in the worst moments of the 90’s crisis, this number got down to only
a dozen films.

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A hole was then made in the national market which Hollywood production filled taking advantage of the
situation. However, not even in Hollywood’s memoir is the mid-90’s remembered as a good moment for the
bigger cinematic industry in the world and their production.

A crisis of this magnitude would then be difficult to overcome since it damaged every strata of the already
weak Brazilian industry. From the exhibitors, the distributors and the creative minds and filmmakers behind
a motion picture, the crisis affected them all. In addition to this, we have to consider the already touched on
difficulty of national productions to enter the market, which had been slowly diminished for the action of
Embrafilme. Nevertheless, in the 90’s Embrafilme drastically stopped its activity and could no longer support
national productions which left them unprotected before the face of the crisis.

THE RECUPERATION OF BRAZILIAN CINEMA AND NEW

THEMES:

LA RETOMADA
With filmmakers’ desire to defend, protect and propel Brazilian cinema appeared La Retomada. This is the
name that has been put upon the period in which Brazilian cinema recovered from the crisis that devastated
it in the 90’s. This recovery was materialized in the 1998 film Central do Brasil by Walter Salles.

Retomada directors shared many similarities with those from Cinema Novo. For example, both tendencies
tried to confront the real Brazil with its real problems and the real people that conform the country, being
interested in popular culture and, on top of that, they both locate their stories in rural spaces where the
marginalized and the mistreated habit like favelas and sertão. However, unlike Cinema Novo directors, who
intended to provoke a real social change and made a throughout analysis of the country’s social condition,
despite if they were successful in their commitment or not, Retomada directors are more interested in
showing the reality without an actual political or ideological project, nor even a social and economical
analysis. In many occasions these filmmakers often even appeal to imagination.

In these motion pictures, the multiculturality of the Brazilian society, an issue presented at the beginning of
the essay as a preventing force for creating a compact cultural identity, is represented as a kind image of the
country and not as much as a problem as Cinema Novo often saw the ethnic and racial diversity of the
country.

The new cinema is also very interested in presenting violence as urban folklore and as a deformation of the
“aesthetic of hunger” that, according to Cinema Novo director Glauber Rocha in his work “An Esthetic of
Hunger”, was the usual in the films of his period. We see this tendency in the film of the Retomada that we
are going to analyse in depth: Cidade de Deus / City of God (2002) directed by Fernando Meirelles and co-
directed by Kátia Lund.

CIDADE DE DEUS (2002) DIR. FERNANDO MEIRELLES &

KÁTIA LUND
This motion picture is seen by Ivana Bentes as an example of poor people killing each other used as a
consumable entertainment and an estheticized spectacle. While through a videoclip cinematography and
style, Fernando Meirelles has often said his film is a tool to represent the situation of the marginalized
communities of the favelas, and also hopes this crude representation to provoke some social response.

The story, based on real events occurred in a favela called City of God, divided by two sides, confronts them
violently in a life or death situation. However, the events are presented as an anecdote through the individual
perspective of the protagonist, Buscapé who does not show any desire for revolution to change the situation
of the favela, nor the corruption of the authorities is questioned. This is shown when, at the end of the film,
Buscapé has the chance to change things and start some type of conversation regarding the morality of the

12
favela structure and the corruption of the police, but decides to publish in the paper a rather more
sensationalist picture of the dead body of Zé Pequenho. Violence is not only decontextualized and used as a
tool to please the eye and the style, but also presented as unavoidable and eternal.

The film, with lack of a class analysis, can be compared to another production that has been studied before,
Pixote. In both, child delinquency is the central theme of the story and devastates both societies without the
option of running away from this lifestyle. In Cidade de Deus, the children of the favela feel forced to
participate in the confrontation, may it be because of social pressure or by means of vengeance and honour,
but somehow most of the kids of the favela end up filling the army of each side. In Pixote the protagonists
are forced to this lifestyle since is the only way they know of to survive in the hostile world that wants them
dead because they are seen as a problem. In addition to that, the most important similarity of both
productions is the pessimistic end, with the lesson that child delinquency is an unstoppable cycle that cannot
be stopped so simply. In Cidade de Deus we see it very explicitly when the younger group of children, who
shares many parallelisms with the former group that controlled the favela, end up killing every member that
is above them in the hierarchy, even Zé Pequenho, the psychotic and ruthless chief of the gang.

CINEMA IN THE LAST YEARS THROUGH CONCRETE FILMS:

ITS THEMES AND ITS DIFFERENCES WITH THE SOCIAL

ACTIVISM OF OTHER TIMES
Lastly, we will talk about three different films that summarize the last years of Brazilian cinema and, most
importantly, its themes. Apart from the typical entertainment genres of action and comedy pictures that
have been released in the last years, assimilating Brazilian cinema with other international markets, there
have also been productions that continue the social denouncing tendency that we have previously seen in
the overall history of Brazilian cinema.

HOJE EU QUERO VOLTAR SOZINHO (2014) DIR. DANIEL

RIBEIRO
The first one of them, released in 2014 and directed by Daniel Ribeiro, is Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho (“The
Way He Looks”). This film, set in a middle-class household and environment, disregards completely the social
issues to talk about another theme: homosexuality. However, this film does not focus on the feeling of self-
rejection after discovering your sexuality, it is rather focused on the desperation of unrequited love or the
anguish of not knowing if the love is returned or not. Basically, the film generally accepts as normal the
feelings that the characters have for each other, apart from some comments from the school bullies.

Nevertheless, the twist of this film comes when we discover the protagonist is completely blind. Here is
where we find the subject of self-acceptance. The protagonist desperately wants to be normal and not be
treated differently and will have to slowly understand the conditions that are put upon him and the
adversities that he will have to face different from his friends and classmates.

While the film is not interested on denouncing the social situation of the characters or the discrimination
that they suffer (only in a not big portion by the school bullies), it is concerned in giving representation to
two minorities. Not only representation but a good representation that will defend these minorities: the blind
and the homosexual community.

This film is very different from the ones that we have discussed in the rest of the essay, since neither it is
politically conscioues nor represents the real issues of the rural Brazil, nor it expresses itself as a parody of
the colonizer to report the Third World condition of Brazil. It rather acts obliviate from those issues and limits
itself to share the story of a middle-class boy discovering how romantic love feels for the first time and
overcoming his issues with his blindness.

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QUE HORAS ELA VOLTA? (2015) DIR. ANNA MUYLAERT
The second film that we will analyze is the 2015 feature Que Horas Ela Volta? (“The Second Mother”) directed
by Anna Muylaert. This motion picture is much more socially conscious than the previous one we talked
about since it touches on the theme of the servant and housekeeper of an upper middle-class family, Val.
The film becomes a journey of the protagonist to come in peace with her personal life (her relationship with
her daughter) and her social situation. She thinks the way she is treated in the family’s house as inferior or
even at times a mere piece of furniture is the way things are supposed to be. Until her daughter does not
enter the scene and makes her reconsider her position, she is oblivious of how differently the family treats
her.

In many points of the story, Val is invisible for the other characters’ eyes, of a higher social situation. Feature
which the plot takes advantage of to show the events on Val’s perspective but without her intervening on
the actions, simply observing as another audience member. Furthermore, there are other ways used to
represent how different and socially separate is the family from Val’s situation that come from direction and
frame composition. In any way, the film does everything to make the audience understand that Val’s world
and the family’s world are two different ones and while many times the intention is to make them be in
touch, it results as impossible.

The motion picture denounces Val’s situation and links it through a social and political analysis with the
colonization and the consequences that this situation has on contemporary Brazil. Val, a northeastern-born
lower classs middle-aged woman with a difficult personal situation forced this way by economic reasons,
feels forced to make a living out of housekeeping the home of a light-skinned upper class family with a stable
work and an unhappy family situation for personal reasons. The family, especially the mother, is treated one-
dimensionally to emphasize the intention of the movie: just denounce Val’s situation. The family is only a
plot tool to show Val’s hero story.

The story also gives hope for social change through the character of Jessica, Val’s daughter, who, despite her
humble social origin, she will study in one of the most important univeristies in Sao Paulo to dedicate
professionally to architecture, which she thinks is a tool for social change.

The social means and intentions that are hidden in this film recreate those that we have seen throughout the
history of Brazilian cinema in this analysis. The story wants to depict the real situation that is seen in a
present-day Brazilian upper middle-class household and represent the often times invisible story of these
types of workers. It clearly situates on the side of the lower class and makes the audience empathise with
them. However, the similarities with other times in Brazilian cinematic history end in its social intentions
since the film follows a very conventional style among independent filmmaking of our days.

ERA O HOTEL CAMBRIDGE (2016) DIR. ELIANE CAFFÉ

The third film of contemporary cinema that we will touch on is Era O Hotel Cambridge (“Hotel Cambridge”),
2016, directed by Eliane Caffé. This film is the most realistic and socially conscious and denouncing of the last
three. It circles around a community that has occupied an uninhabited building and their fight to prevent the
eviction that the bank has forced upon them.

The community is formed by individuals from various orgins, some immigrant, some Brazilian-born, but all of
them with the same class-struggle and fight that unites them for a cause.

The motion picture is filmed in a documentary-like style that gives the impresion that the events are even
more real, because that is the purpose of the film: showing a reality of a big part of the Brazilian society that
is not very talked about and make them present in cinema to aspire for social change. In the film we get in
touch with the personal lives of many of the members of the community and empathise with their personal
and political struggles, which are used as a tool for the audience member to jump on the lesson and intent

14
of the film, the drive to action to the fight of the characters. These fights, the film concerns much on making
the public understand that are seen in present-day Brazil and are more common than we think.

This move to action and social analysis and consciousness that we see in the film gets us back to the sixties
and seventies when the common rule for artisan or independent features was to contain this type of
messages. It also relates to the capacity of cinema to move the masses and speak of their reality, exploited
in this film since, as we have established, the ultimate intention of the filmmaker is to move to change.

The documentary style becomes real in the last moments of the film, when not only we do not really see the
outcome of the events but at the end we also cut to different shots of occupied buildings with flags and
posters used as manifestation signs with give us the sense that this fight does not stop and will not stop until
every Brazilian has a roof to sleep under and a bed to lay at night.

CONCLUSION:

A REFLEXION ON NEO-COLONIALISM AND THE RICHNESS OF

BRAZILIAN CINEMA
The history of Brazilian cinema is one of struggle against external forces of diverse identity, from the
monopolization of the market by Hollywood and foreign cinema, Brazil’s character of neo-colonialized Third
World country, the circumstances of the national political context and even the ethnic diversity that such a
vast country with an origin form its type, that make for a culturally ambiguous territory, therefore cultural
representation on cinema and the reclaim of the national market against the colonizer’s forces become
especially complex.

Brazilian cinema, as we have seen, is a cinema very heavy on social denouncing and representation of the
lower class and the most real rural areas. This feature is very common in the cinema of the Third World and
relates to a really important quality that the seventh art has: the ability to portray reality, to report the
injustices of the world and apply for the mercy of the audience to understand the situation and hopefully
move for social change. However, in Brazil social change did not happen through this via since the country is
so hierarchysized and ruled by a far elite that would not make social change easy nor possible.

Due to Neo-colonialism, the domination of the United States culture in the whole world, it is not very easy
for the cinema of other parts of the world, especially if it comes from a Third World country, to get to our
billboards and become internationally known and successful. However, as we have seen with Brazil’s case,
these cinematic expressions that the state of the world does not let us see, is one of incredible richness. It
may even be more impressive and valuable since these countries had to overcome adversities that attacked
their capacity to flourish their creativity that creators from Occidental countries did not.

The ending of this Hollywood domination seems very far and impossible, though stream platforms are
making it easier since the public does not have to choose in a billboard with a limited number of films
which mostly are American. But when this ending comes, and the cultural expressions of neo-colonialized
countries are respected, the world will finally be a diverse place.

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 FILMS I HAVE SEEN FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT

Limite (1931)
1h54min | Romance, Drama

Director: Mario Peixoto

Writer: Mario Peixoto

Tererê Não Resolve (1938)

53min | Comedy (chanchada)

Director: Luiz de Barros

Writers: Bandeira Duarte, Luiz de Barros

Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1964)

2h | Adventure, Crime, Drama

Director: Glauber Rocha

Writer: Glauber Rocha

Pixote: A Lei do Mais

Fraco (1981)

2h 8min | Crime, Drama

Director: Hector Babenco

Writer: Hector Babenco,

Jorge Durán

Cidade de Deus (2002)

2h 1omin | Crime, Drama

Directors: Fernando Meirelles,

Kátia Lund

Writer: Bráulio Mantovani

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Hoje Eu Quero Era O Hotel
Voltar Cambridge (2016)

Sozinho (2014) 1h 39min | Drama

1h 36min | Drama, Romance Director: Eliane Caffé

Director: Daniel Ribeiro Writer: Eliane Caffé, Bruno

Campello, Luis Alberto de
Writer: Daniel Ribeiro Abreu, Inês Figueró

Que Horas Ela

Volta? (2015)

1h 52min | Comedy, Drama

Director: Anna Muylaert

Writer: Anna Muylaert

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adam, J. C. (2017). “Deus eo diabo na terra do sol” lived religion, conflict, and intolerance in brazilian
films. Lived religion and the politics of (in) tolerance (pp. 111-132) Springer.

Bascón, M. Á G. (2008). Multiculturalidad, exclusión y representación en el cine brasileño de la"

retomada".¿ la herencia del tercer cine? Frame: Revista De Cine De La Biblioteca De La Facultad
De Comunicación, (3), 58-73.

Da Silva, A. M., & Cunha, M. (2017). Space and subjectivity in contemporary brazilian
cinema Springer.

Graf, A. (2006) Ten contemporary views on Mário Peixoto ‘s Limite. Korfmann, M.

Johnson, R., 1948-, & Stam, R. (1995). Brazilian cinema (Expanded ed., Morningside ed. ed.). New
York: New York : Columbia University Press.

Mahieu, J. A. (1984). Nuevos apuntes sobre cine brasileño. Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, (414), 134-
147.

Rocha, G. (1971). Revisión crítica del cine brasileño Editorial Fundamentos.

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