Brazil. Cinema Novo and Tropical Modernism, 1926-2003

May 25 to June 26, 2005

In the framework of the Vienna Festival 2005 the Film Museum presents a comprehensive Retrospective of Brazilian cinema. This will be the biggest and most lavish show on this subject that has ever been staged in Austria. Its time frame stretches from the avant-garde of the 1920s to contemporary film; some of the films are being shown in Europe for the first time, and many will be screened in newly restored versions. The selection of 50 works was guided by the influential role of Brazilian cinema in interaction with the various currents of cultural innovation, "modernisms" and popular-oppositional movements which have been a defining feature of this country for nearly a century.

A major spotlight is on the Cinema Novo, the internationally celebrated Brazilian “new wave” of the 1960s which became highly influential not only in aesthetic terms but also in debates about a “Third Cinema” around the world. The Cinema Novo was set in motion by such films as Bahia de todos os santos, Vidas secas and Deus e o diabo na terra do sol. Influenced by both Italian neorealism and the French Nouvelle vague, and led by directors such as Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Ruy Guerra and Carlos Diegues, the Cinema Novo retained a significant role in the political-cultural discourse in Brazil long after the beginning of the military dictatorship in 1964. It developed from a foundation of economic, social and cultural modernization endeavours in the late 1950s; this was a thoroughly optimistic era which found its identity and its symbols in the fields of architecture (Brasilia, the new capital city), popular music (the global triumph of Bossa Nova), but also in the culture of everyday life: 1958 was the year that Brazil, with Pélé and Garrincha, won the Soccer World Cup for the first time.

Against a background of increasing social polarization and political militance, Cinema Novo, as of 1960, made its appearance as a kind of critical corrective for Brazilian society with its “aesthetics of hunger”. It was further radicalized after 1964, positing a harsh challenge to the military government (as can be seen in Rocha's enormous masterpiece Terra em transe). For a long time, the "tragic carnival of Brazilian politics" (Rocha) in the 60s was not able to shake the film-cultural hegemony of the left. It wasn't until the intensified repressions which followed the second military coup in 1968 that new strategies became necessary. These included evasive maneuvers into the popular allegories of Tropicalismo, as in the 1969 cult film Macunaíma, the establishment of a very lively undergound cinema scene and “garbage aesthetics” (Bang-Bang by Andrea Tonacci, or the horror films of cult director José Mojica Marins), not to mention voluntary exile in Cuba or Europe.

Modern Brazilian cinema can't be reduced to Cinema Novo, however. As early as the 1910s and 20s, Brazilian artists were seeking contact with the international avant-garde, at the same time that they were staking their own claim for original, national forms of Modernism, as in the literary modernismo or in Oswald de Andrade's Movimento antropófago ("cannibalistic movement":  the incorporation of foreign influences), which are still being taken up today. The multi-voiced link between modernity, folklore, popular forms of expression and the experiences of the indigenous population, the former slaves and the former colonizers has remained an essential strategy for Brazil's "tropical multiculturalism" (Robert Stam).

Films such as São Paolo – A Symphonia da Metrópole, Limite (the stroke of genius and sole film of 20-year-old artist Mario Peixoto) and Ganga bruta (one of the principal works of the great Humberto Mauro) show the influence of both the Western and Brazilian avant-garde on cinema. Mauro, and later Peixoto, became important models for Cinema Novo and underground films. Alberto Cavalcanti, probably the most famous Brazilian avant-garde film artist, was active exclusively in Europe during the 20s and 30s, but his early works such as Rien que les heures strongly influenced the art scene back in Brazil. The opposite direction was taken by Orson Welles in his (unfinished) Brazilian-American documentary It's All True, the restoration of which wasn't presented until 1993. This left-leaning film maudit which was partly responsible for Welles' break with Hollywood, would be repeatedly quoted and "continued" by Brazilian directors (above all in the works of Rogério Sganzerla). 

Even since the official end of Cinema Novo, Brazilian films have stood out due to their variety of advanced, self-reflective positions. Starting in 1974, both democratic and film-political progress became evident. The boost in state subsidies for films led to a situation in which socially critical films d'auteur became successful both artistically and at the box office; these films also functioned as international calling cards of the country in times of a fading dictatorship. They include outstanding late works of the Cinema Novo generation like A Queda by Ruy Guerra and Bye Bye Brasil  by Carlos Diegues, as well as works by younger directors such as the worldwide success Pixote by the Argentinian emigré Hector Babenco.

After a period of crisis from the mid 1980s to the late 90s, recent years have seen a reblossoming of Brazilian cinema accompanied by a dynamic association with contemporary popular culture. The mythologies of the Sertão (the hinterlands of Northeastern Brazil with their still predominantly feudal structures) and the Cangaceiro (social bandits) have returned from the era of the Cinema Novo – as have the debates about national identity.

A sector which approaches these questions in an advanced and self-critical fashion is that of documentary film. Eduardo Coutinho, the greatest film documentarist of his country, examines the social realities and the political history of Brazil with the methods of Cinéma vérité. An excellent example of this is his masterpiece Cabra marcado para morrer (vinte anos depois), which was begun in the dangerous turning-point year 1964 and was not completed until the "inverted" turning-point year 1984.  Other works such as the semi-documentary feature film Iracema by Jorge Bodansky triggered a complex process of reflection on the relationship of modern Brazil to its indigenous peoples.

Finally, there is an unusually high number of films which have to do with cinema itself in Brazil.  This tendency will be evidenced by current film essays on Mario Peixoto, José Mojica Marins and Glauber Rocha which will be introduced during the Retrospective.