A response to Logan and Jon A.
Our book includes the essay "When Women Film" in which authors Elice Munerato and Darcy de Oliveira inevitably discuss the roles of Brazilian women in front of the camera as well as behind it. The essay observes, as Logan has, that there exists a curious absence of substantive, ambitious and active women voices in Brazilian film in the 1960's. The selection of films presented in class backs up the claim. In an interview, two women filmmakers told authors Munerato and Oliveira: "...it is difficult to bring [feminist] issues -- issues of which these filmmakers are highly aware -- to the screen, partially because of a lack of cinematic models."
Surveying all of the female characters in the films we've watched, from GANGA BRUTA to THE RED LIGHT BANDIT, we may conclude that Brazilian women of the '30s, '40s, '50s, and '60s are indeed fulfilling the traditional roles that society had forced upon them, with few great "leaps" that would lead to a deconstruction of these roles.
Some complexities/ambiguities can be seen in LIMITE, BARREN LIVES, BLACK GOD, WHITE DEVIL, and LAND IN ANGUISH. The women in these films are present psychologically and fulfill various individual ambitions. In a larger sense, they seem just as much a part of their oppressed setting as the men, without any apparent gender separation.
MACAUNAÍMA, AWAKENING OF THE BEAST, and THE RED LIGHT BANDIT are more problematic, though I would like to make a case for all three.
The traditional female characters in Brazilian cinema, as Munerato and Oliveira point out, are concerned with domestic affairs, or are in "nurturing" service professions: they may be nurses, seamstresses, madames, secretaries, and prostitutes. Seen through the prism of feminism, the prominent female character in MACUNAÍMA, who is a guerilla terrorist, is atypical. Her reaction to being raped is anything but sensical. Rationalizing her actions -- though the distance of black humor makes it concretely difficult -- one could reasonably conclude that she sees in Macunaíma's initial actions a weakness, one that she exploits for her own pleasure in sex.
The pattern in AWAKENING OF THE BEAST, to take a very different example, is not to hide sexism, or to present (or reaffirm) a normative social reality, but to offer a critique of sexism through a series of unfavorable portraits of men caught in degenerate acts.
Lastly, there is today's film, THE RED LIGHT BANDIT, in which director Sganzerla pays homage to the femme fatale of the American cinema of the '30s, '40s, and '50s in the character of Janete Jane (played by the amazing Helena Ignez). Jane may not take any great "non-traditional" leaps – she is presented as highly individualistic, even if she works into the nurturing cliché and eventually caves by turning in the Bandit to J.B. – though she is a woman capable of making decisions and of having her own highly personal ambitions (superficial and material, but with their own idealism). She eventually suffers for her choices, in the brutal scene where she is killed by the Bandit and is circled by her friend in ceremonial fashion as African drumbeats are heard in the background (one of the film's many tributes to LAND IN ANGUISH). Here, Sganzerla ultimately dignifies Jane, in my opinion one of the great characters in '60s Brazilian cinema.
Helena Ignez is the main performer of next week's film, FAMILIA DU BARULHO (ONE OF A KIND FAMILY). As the non-verbal, animal-like dominatrix in a perverse family dynamic, her performance has no antecedents or followers. She is, quite simply, striking.
(Above pic: The Red Light Bandit [1968])
Ignez in Júlio Bressane's A Família du Barulho (1970)
Ignez in present times posing next to a poster of The Red Light Bandit
posted by Gabe Klinger at 6:00 PM
4 Comments:
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This is an interesting topic. Reading Logan's and Gabe's post, I instantly thought about 70s American Cinema that was dominated by Men. In these films, which are radical departures from the studio system, women's roles are not expanded beyond the sexual realm. In blaxploitation films like Coffee, Pam Grier creates a tough and sexy persona, but, at the same time, creates a whole new set of stereotypes for woman. Although she takes vengeance out on men, she is successful because of her sexuality. This issue is something that has plagued cinema in the past as well as the present.
(The best antitote for this in 70s American Cinema is Cassavetes' A Woman Under the Influence. Completely worth everyone's time)
You're totally right about that issue and blaxploitation is a terrific example. Just as the African Americans finally had their own cinema, their own hero, he was also usually a pimp or hustler, an anti hero.
And black actors and crew were finally getting highered, albeit in seemingly compromising roles. But once in a while, great subverts like Stepin Fetchit'll shine through.
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