Nelson Pereira Dos Santos • Senses of Cinema

8/28/2015 Nelson Pereira dos Santos • Senses of Cinema

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Nelson Pereira dos Santos

Hudson Moura October 2011 Great Directors Issue 60

b. October, 22, 1928 — São Paulo, Brazil

Nelson Pereira dos Santos, considered theinitiator of modern Brazilian cinema in the1950s, is also its most literary filmmaker. Infact, of his 25 features, 15 were based onliterary work from Brazilian writers. This hasassured him a privileged place as a memberof the prestigious Brazilian Academy ofLetters; never before has a Brazilianfilmmaker been immortalized in this way. (1)

Santos is the most important living Brazilianfilmmaker. In his quintessential career, his films have influenced directors and cinephiles for over 50years. Of the most influential Brazilian films of the past five decades, at least one was directed bySantos in each decade. These influential films include Rio, 40 Graus (Rio, 100 Degrees F.,1955), Vidas Secas (Barren Lives, 1963), Como Era Gostoso o MeuFrancês (How Tasty Was MyLittle Frenchman, 1971), Memórias do Cárcere (1984), and Casa-Grande e Senzala (2000). Santos’impact on Latin American cinema cannot be overstated. For critics and cinephiles all over the world,Santos’ early films are milestones in the emergence of modern post-war cinema. Inspired byneorealism, his films from the 1950s and 1960s depict the brutal reality of life inthe favelados (slums)found in cities such as Rio de Janeiro, or of retirantes (migrants) fleeing thefamine in the drought-stricken northeastern region of Brazil.

Throughout the last five decades, Santos produced and directed films of differing genres and themes.From documentaries to fiction films, he always keeps a distinguished sense of cinema’s role insociety, maintains an independent authorship, and achieves an innovative and creative approach toexploring Brazilian culture.

Since 1965, Santos has transmitted his knowledge and experience as a filmmaker through his role asa professor of cinema in universities and institutions in Brazil—University of Brasilia and FederalFluminense University—and the United States—Columbia University, UCLA, and Sundance Institute.He has won prestigious honours in Brazil, Cuba and Portugal, as well as many international awards infilm festivals such as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Edinburgh, Genoa, Valladolid, Havana, London, LosAngeles, New York, Milan, among others. Also, he has been honoured by retrospectives of his workall over the world. In France, he received the distinguished titles of Commander of l’Ordre des Arts etdes Lettres and Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.

In the 1960s, Glauber Rocha, the most famous member of Cinema Novo generation, claimed Santosas the mentor for the movement. More recently, Walter Salles, referring to Santos’ humanisticapproach in the depiction of people’s struggles, stated that through his films Santos has taught himthe concept of “human geography” in cinema.

From Chanchada to the emergence of Cinema Novo

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The cinema is a cultural expression, therefore, no better and no worse than any other, it existswithin its context, expressing the life of that society where it was born. It is a modern world, thatis, I think, the backbone of the culture. -Santos

Santos’ early years as a cinephile were during the years of World War II, when mostly American filmsdominated Brazilian screens. He first encountered European films after the war—such as thedocumentaries by Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens. At the time, though, he was mostly struck by Italianneorealism, which ultimately became the most important influence on his films. While he was still astudent, he started his filmmaking career with a documentary entitled Juventude in 1949. In the early1950s, he worked as an assistant director in the popular Brazilian comedy genre called chanchada.Those films include O Saci(Rodolfo Nanni, 1951), Agulha no Palheiro (Alex Vianny, 1953),andBalança Mas Não Cai (Paulo Wanderley, 1953). For many years he served as a reporter-cinematographer for cine-journals and the newspaper “Jornal do Brasil”, which offered him thepossibility to travel. This experience, while allowing him to improve his documentary skills, alsoenabled him to get to know the different social classes from distant regions of Brazil previouslyunfamiliar to him.

In interviews, Santos has stated that neorealism was more a lesson in how to produce films in acountry without financial resources rather than a lesson in aesthetic style. Filmmakers need notbecome dependent on complicated productions and large studios, or big budgets and theemployment of famous or internationally known actors. For Santos, filmmaking was revealed as justthe camera and the people in front of it. Hence, Glauber Rocha’s famous phrase: “a camera in thehand and an idea in the head.”

Santos’ directorial feature debut came in 1955 with the internationally well-acclaimed Rio chronicleentitled Rio, 40 Graus. The film depicts stories of quotidian life in Rio, such as the boys fromthe favela who sell peanuts at Copacabana beach. Santos is considered the filmmaker who broughtto light the favela that Brazil and the world had never seen on screen before. Today, the favela is oneof the landmark locations of Brazilian cinema.

Santos is concerned with portraying a time and a place in a freeand independent way that interacts with the world, an approachthat he admits derives from his journalistic career. Thus, thedocumentary style is central to Rio, 40 Graus and Rio, ZonaNorte (1957) in the way they depict the daily reality of Rio. (2) Inan attempt to capture this reality, Santos doesn’t maskincoherence or paradoxes by fictional effects. The role of thedocumentary in his films is just the opposite—to show thisinability and to reaffirm its commitment to reality.

In 1963 Glauber Rocha proclaimed that if the camera in Rio, 40Grausnarrates earnestly and explains the tragedies, themiseries and the contradictions of the great city, the camerain Rio, Zona Nortedocuments, questions, exposes,accumulates data and studies the environment. (3) Rochaconsidered these two films the predecessors of Cinema Novo.They show the people for the first time on Brazilian screensrather than the conventional representation of characters depicted in commercial cinema, such as inthe popular comedies ofchanchada or in the pseudo-classical Hollywood films produced at the Vera


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Cruz studio. (4) As Gilles Deleuze observed in Cinema 2: The Time-Image, one of the principle aimsof Cinema Novo was, precisely, to denounce the absence of the people in cinema. (5)

Cinema Novo is considered the most important and influential film movement of Brazil. It started in theearly 1960s influenced by Italian post-war neorealism and the French New Wave, and was concurrentwith the rise of “new” cinema movements internationally. The principles informing the Cinema Novomovement are now well known; film historian Ismail Xavier summarizes them as follows: a modernstyle offilm d’auteur, handheld camera work, simplicity of production, raw “Brazilian” light withoutstaged effects in revealing reality, a low budget compatible with national resources, and commitmentto social transformation. (6)

Cinema Novo was also influenced by the short documentary film,Aruanda, made by a group of youngjournalists and students, including Linduarte Noronha, in 1959 in the state of Paraíba in northeasternBrazil. Aruanda provoked an enthusiastic reaction from critics and Brazilian intellectuals. The Frenchcritic Sylvie Pierre stated that it was one of the first films to be launched around the question of theinterrelation between the poverty of production and the poverty of the people. (7) Brazilian cinemaexists in a sub-national economy, and allowing this to show through as a quality and a truth is not afailure of national cinema as it permits accuracy and originality of the gaze. The characteristictechniques—photography, framing, and editing—conflict with the arid conditions and poverty ofthe sertão (backlands), exaggerating the features of this region, while the inexperience of its directorshas influenced subsequent young Brazilian filmmakers.

Aruanda shows the formation of Talhado, the first village ever founded by ex-slaves in the sertão. Inthe movie there are two historic moments: the establishment of the village at the beginning of thecentury, and its current organization, where people work at manufacturing ceramic vases. The firstpart of the film is fictional and the second part is documentary. The political and social discourse ofthe film is present in the narrator’s final words: “The life in Talhado is primitive. It exists physically andgeographically but not within the institutions.”

From the years 1963-64, three films that tell stories from the sertãoregion are considered theconsecration of Cinema Novo: Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (Black God, White Devil) by GlauberRocha, Os Fuzis (The Guns) by Ruy Guerra, and Vidas Secas (Barren Lives) by Nelson Pereira dosSantos. Thus, the sertão was enshrined as an ideal space for the social and aesthetic discourse ofthe Cinema Novo. Key features of the movement combine the aesthetics of poverty (aesthetics ofhunger) with folk stories, the poetic with the political. According to Paulo Emilio Salles Gomes, one ofthe most influential critics of the time, the most important meaning of the Cinema Novo to Braziliancinema is that it reflects and creates a visual image and sound coherent to the absolute majority ofthe Brazilian people.

Cinema Novo broke with the aesthetics of classical American cinema from the fifties. Cinema Novoopted for a new design aesthetic in a process they called the “decolonization of the image andcontent” of films. This involved the handheld camera, narrative text, purposefully contrastedphotography, rough editing, diegetic music, direct sound, improvisation, and free dialogue. Forfilmmaker Carlos Diegues, the project of Cinema Novo is very simple, it can be summarized in theproposition: transforming film techniques of the Brazilian cinema, and changing the world.

According to Glauber Rocha, the most renowned filmmaker of the movement, the author is mostresponsible for the truth: the aesthetic is an ethic and its mise en scene is political. In 1965, on theoccasion of a retrospective of Latin American cinema in Italy, Rocha wrote the manifesto “Aesthetics







of Hunger.” According to this text, Cinema Novo is not only an artistic manifesto but also a politicaland social statement:

“The European observer is only interested in artistic creation from the underdeveloped world to theextent that it satisfies his nostalgia for primitivism. (…) Cinema Novo: more than primitive andrevolutionary, it is an aesthetic of violence. Here lies the starting point for the colonizer to understandthe existence of the colonized. (…) There had to be a first dead policeman for the French to see anAlgerian. (…) Latin hunger is not, then, just an alarming symptom: it is the very nerve of its ownsociety. Here lies the tragic originality of Cinema Novo for the world cinema: our originality is ourhunger, and our greatest woe is that, because it is felt, this hunger is not understood.” (8)

Glauber Rocha believes that violence is the ideal way to make the world realize the existence of anunderdeveloped culture, such as Brazilian culture. Cinema Novo is the result of a politics ofcolonization that may trigger an independent movement toward a unique and new approach. AsRocha declared, “Our originality is our hunger.”

The movement toward a Brazilian culture independent from the culture of the colonizers is an oldconcern for Brazilian artists. The best-known attempt at this is the modernist movement of 1922. Thewriter Oswald de Andrade published a text entitled “Manifesto Antropófogo”, where he urgedoverthrowing the rule of civilized society with a form of “cultural cannibalism”. As he says: “Onlyanthropophagism unites us. Socially. Economically. Philosophically. (…) Tupi or not tupi, that is thequestion (…) I asked a man what Law was. He told me it was the guarantee of the practice of thepossible. This man was called Galli Matias. I ate him.” (9)Cannibalism is the weapon of the colonized.The violence of the colonizer against the colonized is now reversed. Brazilian culture will be born fromthese movements. It will emerge from its own revolutionary violence.

One of Santos most internationally famous films, How TastyWas My Little Frenchman, was based on this manifesto, whichat that time was retaken by a new cultural movement called“Tropicalism”. American critics considered the film a blackcomedy about European colonialism as well as a bitterhistorical commentary. However, the film reveals much moreabout Brazilian culture and political values than these foreigncritics had the ability to perceive. For instance, the film providesa strong political reaction against the military dictatorship inLatin America financed by the United States. From the 1964-1984, the dictatorship had urged national filmmakers tosuppress any kind of socio-political manifestations. While thefilm was set in the 16 century, when the Europeans weredisputing the colonization of Brazil, it is also drawing parallelswith what the Americans were doing in South America in the1960s.

Set in the year 1594, the film opens with the reading of a letter by French conqueror Nicholas Durandde Villegaignon, who was sent for the purpose of founding on Brazilian shores an empire that wouldbe called “Antarctic France”. A French adventurer with knowledge of artillery is taken prisoner by theindigenous Tupinambás tribe. According to their culture, it should eat the enemy to acquire all of itspowers, such as the knowledge on how to use gunpowder and cannons. With the exception of theletter reading, the film is all spoken in the Tupi language. Humberto Mauro, the great filmmaker of

th


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early Brazilian cinema, was responsible for translating the script’s dialogue into the indigenous Tupilanguage spoken by the actors.

Writing with the camera

When I film, I mean the physical act of writing, shooting and editing (when we touch the filmitself), in this moment, I think I am able to change something in the world around me.

-Santos

For a great part of his career, Santos has dedicated his time to writing. He has written practically allthe screenplays to his films, the large majority of which were drawn from literary works by Brazilianauthors. Santos’ adaptations of famous novels became essential for realizing the worlds in thesebooks. This is the case with Barren Lives, written by the acclaimed and successful writer GracilianoRamos. Critics claimed that Santos’ version improved on the qualities of the novel becausecinematically he was able to bring to life the particular atmosphere of the sertão region with greaterimmediacy and poignancy than was possible in literary form.

Shot in natural settings in quasi documentary mode, the open space inBarren Lives, its slow time, thesilences, the monotonous sound of vibrating oxcarts, and human drama in and at the center ofeverything, is all narrated in a simple and bare way. What impresses most in Barren Lives is theinnovative narrative use of ambient sounds and noises working musically to punctuate the unfoldingof the sequences. All these features are accentuated by Luis Carlos Barreto“participative” (10)photography without filters, while getting the most from the interior drama of lightand shade. This is reminiscent of the high contrast of northeast Brazilian woodcuts, photographicelements already accentuated in Aruanda. With Barren Lives, Brazilian cinema demonstrates thatfiction and reality overlap, intertwine and become the raw material of a fundamental aspect ofBrazilian authenticity.

Santos took different cinematic approaches to the many stories adapted from literature. His firstencounter with adaptation was Boca de Ouro(1962) based on a theatrical text from the enigmatic andmiddle class chronicle writer, Nelson Rodrigues. The light comedy El Justicero (1967), based on awork by João Bethencourt, about a playboy and surfer from the southern zone of Rio de Janeiro, wasunderstood by public and critics alike as a stab at a more mainstream cinema product. He followed itwith Fome de Amor: Você Nunca Tomou Sol Inteiramente Nua? (1968), based on a work byGuilherme de Figueiredo, it is one of Santos’ strangest and most radical films. The film depicts agroup of youths under the influence of disparate ideologies. It was nearly all improvised and thedirector would write the dialogue and the scenes as filming progressed. In accordance with AlexandreAstruc’s concept of “la caméra stylo”, Santos considers the camerawork in this film acts as a pen.




In Azyllo Muito Louco (1970), set in anasylum, Santo’s used Machado de Assis’1898 novelThe Alienist as the basis to createan allegorical commentary on Brazilianpolitical history. Given that Cinema Novo’spolitical orientation was libertarian andsocialist, their films were becoming increasingmetaphorical and allegorical in an attempt tocircumvent censorship. However, as happenswith any metaphorical discourse pushed tothe edge, the analogies in some films ofCinema Novo had become so obtuse and fragmented that the public could no longer comprehendtheir allusions. As perhaps happened in the case of Azyllo Muito Louco.

O Amuleto de Ogum (1974), based on Francisco Santos, was memorable for Santos because themain character, a mystic bandit, was played by his son, Ney Sant’Anna. In this film, Santossubmerged himself in the rich and intense world of Brazilian mysticism and the popular religions of thelower classes. In 1984, with his second experience of adapting a Graciliano Ramos’ novel, Memóriasdo Cárcere, Santos approached Ramos’ work in a completely different way than he had in BarrenLives. InMemoirs he transposes the novel to the screen almost in a literal sense, not deviating muchfrom the original story.As his last feature length adaptations, Santos adapted the work of two majorauthors, Jubiabá(1987) based on Jorge Amado and A Terceira Margem do Rio (1994) based onGuimarães Rosa. Neither film was well received by the critics or the public on their respectivereleases, however, they were produced in a period when Brazilian cinema was experiencing a majorcrisis.

Documentaries and Brazilian cinema revival – the 90s and 2000s

The only commitment of documentary is with the reality that a filmmaker wants to show, orrather, to interpret. Today, I can tell you that documentary is much more fun than fiction. Santos

The modern history of Brazilian cinema has been strongly influenced by the rise of democracy afterthe disintegration of the hegemony of the military dictatorship that ruled for twenty years. The newdemocratic government elected in the early 1990s suspended all financial funding that supported filmproduction in Brazil. The result was catastrophic, the average number of productions dropping to onefilm per year, occupying 0.05% of the domestic market. Many established and emerging Brazilianfilmmakers migrated to television where they directed telenovelas, TV commercials, anddocumentaries.

In 1995, after the popular impeachment of the government, special laws were created that gave taxcredits to private companies to invest in local audiovisual productions. Since then, Brazilian cinemahas experienced one of the most remarkable revivals within Latin American countries.

The Brazilian cinema of the period between 1995-2002 is often recognized as the “Cinema daRetomada” (“Revival Cinema”). (11) This designation is controversial because researchers andfilmmakers cannot come to a consensus on what the word “revival” actually means. It could simplymean the revival of film production; or it could indicate a “revival” as in a social-aesthetic movement—as with the Cinema Novo in the 1960s—or it could imply the revival of Cinema Novo itself. Somefilmmakers refuse to talk about a recent cinematic movement in Brazil—whether this be a “revival” or


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any other movement—because there was no particular group aesthetic or shared ideas. Manyfilmmakers were isolated and produced their films independently.

Despite arguments to the contrary, the use of this term “revival” has been generalized and freelyadopted. Fifteen years or so after the extraordinary recovery of Brazilian cinema, we should insteadrethink the term “revival” and wonder what this period was able to revive, and we should also askwhat remains of this trajectory.

This period of Brazilian film production has not proposed any kind of social or aesthetic break with thehistory of Brazilian cinema. In fact, since 1940s there has been a continuation of the tradition offocusing on both Brazil’s mythical places and spaces, such as the sertão and thefavelas of the cities.In 1941, with the founding of the Atlântida studio, a manifesto was produced stating the need to shootBrazilian subjects in order to create the existence of a national reality on screen. Those ideas wererepeated in Glauber Rocha’s manifesto “Aesthetic of Hunger” in the 1960s and restated in WalterSalles’ interviews at the time of the launch of Central do Brasil (1998). This implies a continuation of atradition rather than a break.

However, linked to this national commitment, Glauber Rocha advocated the complete independenceover the film budget. Only then, he argued, can filmmaker auteurs have complete control over theirwork. This independence of filmmakers is only possible if the film is not tied to its commercialsuccess. Only in this case can their authorship be authentic and reflect the historical moment of asociety. This position of the author in Cinema Novo is the complete opposite of that taken byRetomada’s filmmakers. For the latter, the commercial success of a film means regaining the public’sattention and trust, and the box-office becomes their main objective.

Brazilian filmmakers today are less convinced about their socio-political position on national issuesthan the filmmakers of Cinema Novo were at the time. This is possibly due to the replacement of thatideological discourse about national identity by what was termed the “rhetoric of the winner” in theaudiovisual battle led by the Brazilian TV network Globo. (12)This television channel now shows itsversion of the hegemonic national question in its industrialized popular telenovelas. Many movies nowtend to reutilize the same actors, authors, producers to reproduce the ideas and style of telenovelasfor commercial reasons in order to attract larger audiences while incorporating their ideology.

In the early 1990s, Santos directed two less-inspired films, A Terceira Margem do Rio,based on threeshort stories by Guimarães Rosa, andCinema de Lágrimas (1995), based on Sylvia Oroz’s book. Inthe latter film, he revisited Latin American film production of the last century. This project wascommissioned by the French-German television channel Arte.

After these two not-well-received feature films, Santos also participated in the rebirth of Braziliancinema in its more enthusiastic and innovative sector—the documentary, which became his maininterest. At the time, the documentary had a stellar rise in Brazil as a result of the low cost of digitalaudiovisual production, and its audience increased considerably. The current production ofdocumentaries has created powerful images,unexpected approaches and unique shooting strategies.These characteristics have managed to maintain experimental qualities and to reestablish authorshipin Brazilian cinema. Also, documentary filmmakers have exerted a strong influence on fiction filmswhich result in revealing the Brazilian socio-economic situation.

During the so-called “revival years”, Santos directed several documentaries for television,including Meu Compadre, Zè Ketti (2001),Raizes do Brazil– Uma Cinebiografia de Sérgio Buarque deHolanda (2003), and Casa-Grande e Senzala; and in 2005, his one feature film entitledBrasília




18% (a reference to the humidity of the capital city of Brazil).

Casa-Grande e Senzala is a series of four episodes, based on and about the book of the same namewritten by Gilberto Freyre, published in 1933. The first episode (“Gilberto Freyre, O Cabral Moderno”)recounts the life of the author and reenacts the origins of the book. In the second episode (“A Cunhã,Mãe da Família Brasileira”), the narrator recalls the participation of indigenous women in theformation of the Brazilian family, and refers to the peculiarities that distinguish the indigenousencounters with the Portuguese, the Spaniards or the English in America. In the third episode (“OPortuguês, O Colonizador dos Trópicos”), the narrator notes that the Portuguese treated slavesbadly, however, of the European colonizers, the Portuguese fraternized more fully with indigenousand black population. And in the last episode (“O Escravo Negro na Vida Sexual e de Família doBrasileiro”), the narrator examines the different African cultures transplanted to Brazil. Whatfascinated Santos in this project was how Freyre worked with facts. In his book, Freyre mentioned allthe writers and travelers who had written about Brazilian culture and society till that point.

The documentary Português: a língua do Brasil (“Portuguese: the language of Brazil”, literaltranslation) is a homage to the ABL (Brazilian Academy of Letters). Santos staged meetings withcolleagues in different precincts of the modern (Palace Austregésilo de Athayde) and traditional (PetitTrianon) settings of the building. They speak of the need to “keep the youth” of language and itsnature as a “living organism.” The interviewees discuss the importance of the “cultured norm” and therelationship between regional colloquialisms and the official language.

Many years earlier in 1966, Santos directed, together with the first students of UNB (University ofBrasilia), the short film Fala Brasília(“Speak Brasília”), an experimental documentary about thevarious dialects assembled in the new capital. According to the critic Carlos AlbertoMattos, Português: a língua do Brasil is a counterpoint to that vibrant film made in Brasilia. Thefilmmaker Santos, who brought popular expressions into Brazilian cinema, paradoxically, nowencourages reasons for upholding the cultured norms of official language.

Following his passion for documentingBrazilian culture, Santos’ subsequent projectwas a documentary depicting the intimate lifeof his late friend, the singer-composer AntonioCarlos Jobim. Entitled Tom Jobim: umhomem iluminado (2010), this was his seconddocumentary on Jobim; the first, A MúsicaSegundo Tom Jobim, was made for televisionin 1984. In this film, he intended to reutilizeparts of the previous material, but with thefocus mainly on Jobim’s family. Jobim’s life is

recounted by his three ex-wives: Helena narrates his childhood, Tereza describes the beginning of hisprofessional life, and Ana covers the late years when he dedicated himself to the preservation of theMata Atlântica coastal forest of Brazil.

Santos’ remarkable five-decades career has had its high and low points. In the early part of hiscareer, which was influenced by the neorealism and, at the same time, censured by the government,he was, arguably at his most creative, innovative, and courageous in the way he presented andtreated his subjects and depicted his characters. However, his stylistic and technical approach didchange over the years, and not always for the better. Nevertheless, even while his latter films seem to

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have lost those strong qualities of filming daily life that distinguished his earlier films, he still continuesto follow his passion for realism and his quest for new ways to tell a Brazilian story.

Endnotes

1. Nelson Pereira dos Santos was elected to the Brazilian Academy of Letters on March 9,2006 and sworn in on July 17, 2006. 2. To complete the Rio trilogy, Nelson Pereira dos Santos producedO Grande Momento (“TheGrand Moment”) directed by Roberto Santos in São Paulo in 1958. 3. The studio Vera Cruz (1949-1954) was founded in São Paulo to compete with the hightechnical quality Hollywood films. Several directors and technicians came from Italy andEngland, such as Adolfo Celi, Alberto Cavalcanti, Tom Payne, and Luciano Salce. Their mostfamous production was O Cangaceiro (The Bandit of Brazil),directed by Lima Barreto,released in 1953. 4. http://www.tempoglauber.com.br/english/t_estetica.html 5. Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Haberjam (Trs).Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986. 6. Ismail Xavier, Allegories of Underdevelopment: Aesthetics and Politics in Modern BrazilianCinema. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. 7. Pierre, Sylvie, Glauber Rocha. Paris: Cahiers du Cinéma, 1987. 8. http://www.tempoglauber.com.br/english/t_estetica.html 9. Oswald de Andrade, Obras completas VI. Do Pau-Brasil à antropofagia e às utopias.Manifestos, teses de concursos e ensaios.Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1970, p. 11. 10. V. Lima, “Em busca de uma fotografia participante”, in Deus e o diabo na terra do sol. Ed.Glauber Rocha. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1965. 11. It seems safe to say—based on economic, aesthetic and production performance criteria—that Cidade de Deus (City of God, 2002), directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund andproduced by Walter Salles, started a new era in Brazilian cinema. 12. Ismail Xavier, “Brazilian Cinema in the 1990s: The Unexpected Encounter and theResentful Character”, in L. Nagib (Ed.) The New Brazilian Cinema, London: I.B. Tauris, 2003,p. 41.

Filmography

Director and Screenwriter

1949 – Juventude (documentary)

1955 – Rio, 40 Graus (Rio, 100 Degrees F.)

1957 – Rio, Zona Norte

1961 – Mandacaru Vermelho

1962 – Boca de Ouro

1963 – Vidas Secas (Barren Lives)

1967 – El Justicero

1968 – Fome de Amor: Você Nunca Tomou Sol Inteiramente Nua?

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1970 – Azyllo Muito Louco

1971 – Como Era Gostoso o Meu Francês (1971, How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman)

1972 – Quem é Beta? (Pas de violence entre nous)

1974 – O Amuleto de Ogum

1977 – Tenda dos Milagres

1980 – “O Ladrão” (segment in Insônia)

1980 – Na Estrada da Vida

1982 – A Missa do Galo

1984 – Memórias do Cárcere

1987 – Jubiabá

1994 – A Terceira Margem do Rio

1995 – Cinema de Lágrimas

2001 – Meu Compadre, Zé Ketti (documentary)

2003 – Raízes do Brasil – Uma Cinebiografia de Sérgio Buarque de Holanda(documentary)

2005 – Brasília 18%

2007 – Português: a Línguado Brasil (documentary)

2010 – Tom Jobim: um homem iluminado (documentary)

Director For Television Series

1980 – Cinema Rio (Episode: Cinelândia)

1983 – Mundo Mágico

1984 – A Música Segundo Tom Jobim

1984 – Capiba

1985 – Bahia de Todos os Santos

1985 – Eu sou o samba

1987 – Super Gregório

2000 – Casa-Grande e Senzala

Shorts

1950 – Atividades Políticas em São Paulo



1958 – Soldados do Fogo

1962 – Ballet do Brasil

1965 – O Rio de Machado de Assis

1965 – Um Moço de 74 anos

1966 – Cruzada ABC

1966 – Fala Brasília

1970 – Alfabetização

1971 – O Clube do Risca-Faca

1972 – Jornalismo e Independência

1973 – Cidade Laboratório de Humboldt 73

1978 – Nosso Mundo (“Repórteres de TV”)

1982 – A Arte Fantástica de Mario Gruber

1986 – La Drôle de Guerre

Actor or Interviewee

1961 – Mandacaru Vermelho (dir. Nelson Pereira dos Santos)

1968 – Jardim de Guerra (dir. Neville d’Almeida)

1971 – Matei Por Amor (dir. Miguel Faria Jr.)

1971 – Nelson Filma: O Trajeto do Cinema Independente noBrasil (dir. Luiz Carlos Lacerda)

1978 – Nelson Pereira dos Santos Saúda o Povo e Pede Passagem (dir. Ana Carolina)

1981 – Um Filme para Cinema (dir. Luelane Corrêa)

1991 – Que Filme Tu Vai Fazer? (dir. Denoy de Oliveira)

1991 – Que Viva Glauber! (dir. Aurélio Mechiles)

1997 – For All, O Trampolim da Vitória (dir. Buza Ferraz and Luiz Carlos Lacerda)

1998 – A Mãe (dir. Fernando Belens and Umbelino Brasil)

1998-2000 – O Maior (dir. Luiz Fernando Petzhold)

1999 – Encontro Marcado com a Arte: Nelson Pereira dos Santos (dir. Jorge Brennand Jr.)

2000 – O Dia da Caça (dir. Alberto Graça)

2001 – Onde a Terra Acaba (dir. Sérgio Machado)



2003 – Viva Sapato! (Luiz Carlos Lacerda)

2004 – Glauber o Filme, Labirinto do Brasil (dir. Silvio Tendler)

2005 – Christo Redemptor (dir. Bel Noronha)

2007 – Oscar Niemeyer: A vida é um sopro (dir. Fabiano Maciel)

2007 – Um cineasta a procura de seu filme (dir. Umberto Martins and Caio Martins)

2008 – Sambando nas Brasas, Morô? (dir. Elizeu Ewald)

2008 – Retratos Brasileiros: Nelson Pereira dos Santos (dir. Sérgio Rossini)

Producer

1958 – O Grande Momento (dir. Roberto Santos)

1965 – A Hora e a Vez de Augusto Matrag (dir. Roberto Santos)

1971 – Mãos Vazias (dir. Luiz Carlos Lacerda)

1974 – Biblioteca Nacional (dir. José Alberto Nobreporto)

1975 – Aventuras Amorosas de um Padeiro (dir. Waldyr Onofre)

1978 – A Dama do Lotação (dir. Neville d’Almeida)

1979 – Dr. Heráclito Sobral Pinto, Profissão Advogado (dir. Tuna Espinheira)

1981 –Cinema Rio (Documentary TV Series) Episodes: “A Batalha dos Guararapes” (dir. ZelitoViana); “Botequim” (dir. David Neves); “Caso de Polícia” (dir. Maurice Capovilla); “Mangueira” (dir.Neville d’Almeida); Boates (dir. Tereza Trautman), among others.

1983 – Suíte Bahia (dir. Agnaldo Siri Azevedo)

1990 – Sonhei com você (dir. Ney Sant’Anna)

Editor

1961 – Barravento (dir. Glauber Rocha)

1962 – O Menino de Calça Branca (dir. Sérgio Ricardo)

1964 – Maioria Absoluta (dir. Leon Hirszman)

1964 – Pedreira de São Diogo (Cinco Vezes Favela) (dir. Leon Hirszman)

1968 – Cantores e Trovadores (dir. Evandro de Almeida Mauro)

1972 – A Fazenda (dir. Jean-Louis Lacerda Soares)

1985 – A Nova Era (dir. Nilo Sérgio)

Assistant Director



1951 – O Saci (dir. Rodolfo Nanni)

1952 – Aglaia (dir. Ruy Santos) (incomplete)

1953 – Agulha no Palheiro (dir. Alex Vianny)

1953 – Balança Mas Não Cai (dir. Paulo Wanderley)

1955 – Sonho de Outono (dir. José Carlos Burle)

Selected Bibliography

Andrade, Oswald de. Obras completas VI. Do Pau-Brasil à antropofagia e às utopias. Manifestos,teses de concursos e ensaios. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1970.

Bernadet, J-C. O autor no cinema. São Paulo: Edusp/Brasiliense, 1994.

Deleuze, G. Cinema 2. L’Image-Temps. Paris: Seuil, 1985.

Fabris, M. Nelson Pereira dos Santos: Um olhar neo-realista? São Paulo: Edusp, 1994.

Johnson, R. and Stam, R. (Eds.) Brazilian cinema. NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1995.

Maier-Schoen, P., “Das filmische Gewissen”, in Film-Dienst (Cologne), 12 March 1996.

Monteiro, R. F. “Nelson Pereira dos Santos”, in P.A. Paranagua, Le cinéma brésilien. Paris: CentreGeorges Pompidou, 1987.

Mraz, J. “What’s Popular in the New Latin American Cinema?”, in Studies in Latin American PopularCulture, no. 7, 1988.

Oroz, S. Melodrama: o Cinema de Lágrimas da América Latina. RJ, Rio Fundo Editora, 1992.

Papa, D. (Org.) Nelson Pereira dos Santos: Uma Cinebiografia do Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Onze doSete, 2005.

Paranagua, P. A., “Nelson Pereira dos Santos: Trajectoire d’un dépouillement,” in Positif (Paris),December 1985.

Peña, R., “After Barren Lives: The Legacy of Cinema Novo,” in Reviewing Histories, edited by CocoFusco. Buffalo/New York, 1987.

Pierre, Sylvie. Glauber Rocha. Paris: Cahiers du Cinéma, 1987.

Ramos, P.R. “Nelson Pereira dos Santos”, Estudos Avançados 21 (59), 2007, 323-352. AccessedJuly 25, 2010. http://www.scielo.br/pdf/ea/v21n59/a25v2159.pdf

Rocha, G. Revolução do cinema novo. São Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2004.

Rocha, G. Revisão Crítica do Cinema Brasileiro. São Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2003.

Sadlier, D. J. Nelson Pereira dos Santos. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003.

Salem, H. Nelson Pereira dos Santos: o sonho possível do cinema brasileiro. Rio de Janeiro: Record,1996.



Salles-Gomes , P. E. “Cinema: A Trajectory within Underdevelopment”, in R. Johnson and R. Stam(Eds.) Brazilian cinema. NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1995, 244-255.

Santos, N. P. dos. Três vezes Rio: Rio 40 graus, Rio Zona Norte e O amuleto de Ogum.Rio deJaneiro: Rocco, 1999.

Stam, R. Tropical Multiculturalism: A Comparative History of Race in Brazilian Cinema and Culture.Durham: DukeUniversity Press, 1997.

Xavier, I. Allegories of Underdevelopment: Aesthetics and Politics in Modern Brazilian Cinema.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.

Interviews

“La comète Grierson en Amérique latine,” in Positif, June 1994.

“Cinéma de larmes,” an interview with Sylvie Pierre, in Cahiers du Cinéma, June 1995.

Roda Viva. TV Cultura. São Paulo, February 21, 1994 [Portuguese]

http://www.rodaviva.fapesp.br/materia/552/entrevistados/nelson_pereira_dos_santos_1994.htm

Roda Viva. TV Cultura. São Paulo, March 2, 1999 [Portuguese]


Selected Web Resources

Encontro Marcado [English]

http://www.encontromarcado.net/sec_perfil.php?id=70&type=4

Official Site [Portuguese]

http://www.nelsonpereiradossantos.com.br

Brazilian Academy of Letters [Portuguese]

http://www.academia.org.br/abl/cgi/cgilua.exe/sys/start.htm?sid=133

Brazilian Cinemathèque [Portuguese]

http://cinemateca.gov.br/


http://cinemateca.gov.br/

http://www.academia.org.br/abl/cgi/cgilua.exe/sys/start.htm?sid=133


http://www.encontromarcado.net/sec_perfil.php?id=70&type=4

http://www.nelsonpereiradossantos.com.br/

Documents

Nelson Pereira Dos Santos • Senses of Cinema