Trying to Understand Cinema Novo
Recently, I have been reading a dissertation about Cinema Novo and Glauber Rocha. As all of you know, it's difficult finding anything written on Brazilian cinema in English or that we have access to. I'm using this is a way to understand the films that were made after the 1964 coup. It has been so difficult for me to understand why some of the films that rely so heavily on allegory became popular.
After watching Cool Ass Family, I began to feel that maybe I have been too close minded. I have always thought of myself as a person who doesn't fall for the typical Hollywood formula. In many ways, I do. I want to be entertained. At the same time, I really search for meaning, being a documentary student. Seeing these films, being denied entrainment, led me to question the roll of cinema. Like Gabe said, there is an intellectual side to filmmaking that is rewarding. Watching Cool Ass Family, I realized that although I really didn't enjoy anything about it, I understand that it is making fun of the whole concept of cinema. I read that Cinema Novo filmmakers believed that cinema is dead unless it changes the world. Reading, listening to Gabe talk about censorship, and participating in the whole group exercise made me realize that they essentially had to make films this way to both, denounce the films that glossed over social issues and also to take political jabs any way that they could. Nelson Pereira Dos Santos once said that he would plan on making a few more films as he addressed the issue of censorship. "If they don't let me make those films, I'll make whatever is possible." It seems almost like filmmakers like Rocha had to make these very abstract films. After all, it wasn't as if he was incapable or disinterested in making films in the neorealist style of Santos' Vidas Secas. Rocha's first film, Barravento, apparently was in that same vein.
In many ways, I'm just beginning to understand and appreciate these films. Unfortunately, it's the end of the semester and it's too late to play catch-up. Regardless, I am beginning to see the importance of these films. Everything that we watched in class dealt with some kind of social issue. What better use of cinema, than to expose injustices and cause change while entertaining us?
After watching Cool Ass Family, I began to feel that maybe I have been too close minded. I have always thought of myself as a person who doesn't fall for the typical Hollywood formula. In many ways, I do. I want to be entertained. At the same time, I really search for meaning, being a documentary student. Seeing these films, being denied entrainment, led me to question the roll of cinema. Like Gabe said, there is an intellectual side to filmmaking that is rewarding. Watching Cool Ass Family, I realized that although I really didn't enjoy anything about it, I understand that it is making fun of the whole concept of cinema. I read that Cinema Novo filmmakers believed that cinema is dead unless it changes the world. Reading, listening to Gabe talk about censorship, and participating in the whole group exercise made me realize that they essentially had to make films this way to both, denounce the films that glossed over social issues and also to take political jabs any way that they could. Nelson Pereira Dos Santos once said that he would plan on making a few more films as he addressed the issue of censorship. "If they don't let me make those films, I'll make whatever is possible." It seems almost like filmmakers like Rocha had to make these very abstract films. After all, it wasn't as if he was incapable or disinterested in making films in the neorealist style of Santos' Vidas Secas. Rocha's first film, Barravento, apparently was in that same vein.
In many ways, I'm just beginning to understand and appreciate these films. Unfortunately, it's the end of the semester and it's too late to play catch-up. Regardless, I am beginning to see the importance of these films. Everything that we watched in class dealt with some kind of social issue. What better use of cinema, than to expose injustices and cause change while entertaining us?
posted by Adam Blaszkiewicz at 9:03 PM
1 Comments:
I've also had some of the same feelings. However its not so much that I dont understand why films based on allegory would be popular its that a lot of times the points being made in these films are not easy for me to see or seem far stretched. I feel distant from them after having viewed them and unfortunately I havent really had the time to do the appropriate research on the films that we have watched. I feel like to benefit from these films one must do some background research and a second viewing would also be benefitial as majority of times these films are richly loaded with ideas and themes that are missed (or maybe misunderstood) during the first viewing. I also feel like with most of the films that I have seen (I've missed a couple - red light bandit, sao paulo) thus far that there is a real human element missing because they are so self aware. I feel removed from the characters which makes it difficult for me to invest myself in the films.
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