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Rocha que Voa (2002)
"ST0NES IN THE SKY"
...during the 60's... in the cultural colonization, the cultural underdevelopment... But, in fact, Latin American intellectuals... are still colonized because they keep... obeying to the colonizing bourgeoisie... as their own action instrument. They weren't able to be revolutionary in face of the colonizing action... and that was clear through a colonizing language. Not because they learned to read French and English... they learned the European and American thinking... that they applied this thinking to study their own reality... they were in contradiction, paralyzed. Because there wasn't a political practice, because there wasn't... a social and political revolution, they couldn't envisin... a new language nor detach themselves... from all this rationality by the bourgeois culture. ...broadcast from America... HAVANA - CUBA from Havana, Cuba... the first free territory in America. ...of America... Let's raise our heads... because there is a lot we must fight for... a lot to do! S0ME DAY IN N0VEMBER 1971 ...free in America... Latin American cinema... reflects the Latin American political situation. The first two main Latin American movements were: Cuban cinema, which emerged with the revolution... and Brazilian Cinema Novo, which came after Cuban cinema... in 1962, 1963. Working under different conditions... because Cuba is a socialist country and Brazil is a capitalist country... but these two cinemas related in several aspects. They had cultural independency... from the imperialist system, dealing... directly with the social, political and cultural problems... in Latin America. Also because... they faced the same problems to gain the market controlled by imperialism... technical deficiency problems... caused by technical underdevelopment. Both have problems, but they are very organized. A spontaneous organization, because Latin American filmmakers... are very united, although with few differences... aesthetical and ideological ones... as to the situation of each country, but they are united... in the common ideal to conquer... Latin American market and free it from the American occupation. And this is related to the economical liberation of the peoples... and the substitution of the imperialist language... of the colonizer, for a new language... of Latin American cinema. In the early 70's... Cuba was diplomatically isolated as a country. But at the same time that Cuba suffered... these sanctions, the country started to receive... personalities from the Latin American culture. A Brazilian filmmaker, Glauber Rocha... To Latin Americans it means that... except for Cinema Novo, which is extinct... because it's filmmakers are either in Brazil... or out of Brazil, secretly trying... to keep fighting both politically and in films... and wanting this victory. So, Latin American cinema... will be in a few years, a new phenomenon... and a very important one, politically speaking... because it will be the first cultural movement... The first art movement to unify culture and politics... ...in Latin America. - Cinema? Cinema. As an artist, he was a revolutionary... CUBAN FILMMAKERS Because he innovated the cinema language. And he also was... an essential revolutionary. Glauber started his Cuban phase just like one of us. And his name was growing, and Cuban cinema was surfacing. "LATIN AMERICAN NEWSPAPER ICAIC" And we, from the start... set our destiny together with that of Latin America. That is, we set our destiny... more with Latin American cinema than with socialist cinema. Cuba, that is, Cuban cinema... was the foundation... of Latin American cinema, economically speaking. Latin American filmmakers didn't have any money or support. So, what they did was they brought the film... and edited it here, because we had a lab... a sound studio and so on. All the post-production was done here. NATl0NAL AND INTERNATl0NAL NEWS It was like... brothers helping each other. And some of our films... seem to have been influenced by Cinema Novo. They had a similar attitude... You're asking me why I make films? As a matter of fact, I make films because of imperialism. If there was no imperialism, I wouldn't make films. We weren't fighting just to conquer socialism... we were fighting to conquer a system... that was more independent from the interests of the United States... was it capitalist or socialist... but what we really wanted to achieve... was the true independency of our continent. Stories of the revolution... from which we have an epopee of a whole people... in the final days of the fight against the long nights of pain. Since the start we were conscious... that we couldn't compete with a cinema... that had all the resources in the worid. And we didn't have that. We just had a very rich reality. I have no problem with your business, but we're trying to work... We hoped we had enough creativity and essential elements... to make films that were interesting... and that were in a different level... ...of the American cinema. - It's hard to get him out of there! I don't want anything with you! So get lost! Get lost! Don't make me lose my temper! ...nor the buses parked here on the street. Nothing. In 1968, Cuban cinema was out in the worid. It was discovered in many places. There is a prestige, a history and a tradition... that I think we owe it basically to documentaries. IF THE BLACKS H0W? THE BLACKS? The disintegration of American imperialism. The vanguard rebellion, the total revolution. The political revolution, the human revolution. The Third Word revolution. We all, in a certain way, came from Italian neorealism... thanks to the strength that, in the 40's and 50's... neorealism had in cinema woridwide, specially... in Latin America. I think that, in that time... we were looking... our own authenticity, our own way... to express our feelings... our thoughts and our reality. Glauber filmed "Black God, White Devil" in 1964. That meant he was ahead of us... in regard to... to Italian neorealism. And I can remember... Glauber as one of the first to exteriorize... his disavowal and make a moral contribution. To meet Glauber was like... to see the light at the end of the tunnel. He was a pioneer. He was a storm, a cyclone. He theorized, because it was not just his films... it was also his sense of aesthetics. The "aesthetics of hunger" moved... many filmmakers and really contributed... so that we saw cinema in a more objective way... in face of the Latin American needs. And Glauber was the one who did that, in my opinion. He was very important. It was a wave of feelings... and affirmation... of the authenticity, of the authenticity of each country... of the authenticity of each country's culture. Each was looking for its own image. We didn't want to see a mirror that reflected... our most external side... we wanted to see ourselves in a poetic mirror... one that reflected the deepest side of ourselves. That was our thesis, mine and Glauber's. The vanguard intellectuals of today... they don't want to be called... intellectuals. Not that they feel guilt... for being intellectuals or for not deserving it... not because they think their function is useless... to engage in philosophical and artistic speculations... or in scientific research. No, on the contrary. It's, above all, because they value more... this capacity that man has to produce for the collectivity... which is what intellectuals don't want to be anymore... an elite character. And "elite" in quotes... because he was always submissive... economically or morally to the interests of aristocracy... or of bourgeoisie. So the intellectual... is no longer that and... became a man integrated to society... like a working man or any other man. And when he gives up this position... and identify socially with the other classes... of men who... work in the society, he identifies and penetrates... more deeply into these problems... and produce an art that, for example... does not talk about the people, but be the voice of people. That is, it's no longer the artist's work... where art is revolutionary... where social science is revolutionary... where philosophy is revolutionary. There's a ideological and professional community... that justifies my presence in Cuba... because I've come to Cuba to work for a while... with my friends here. I feel at home here... because I feel there's no difference... either ideologically nor technically... nor professionally or culturally in my work... or in the dialogue with Cuban filmmakers. The performing arts... like, for instance, cinema, theater... and music are kinds of art which can only develop... with the collective creation. That is, it's impossible... to make a theater about the people, for example... or for the people, without the people... having an effective participation in it. Because the artist always approach reality... without the scientific knowledge. And this lack of scientific knowledge prevent him from... it's true, it prevents him from having a rigorous knowledge of society... and because he lacks this knowledge... he can have a further intuition... and conscience about certain problems. Art today is backwards. Art must transform itself... into a simple synthetic and dialectic expressin... of all this knowledge. C0MMITTEE F0R THE DEFENSE 0F THE REV0LUTl0N Art is individual. If art is enlightened, it enlightens some people... or all the people. But I can't think of cinema or art... which I think is a sacred, divine activity... I think you cannot think about money with art. I would love if people saw my foreign work... which is a work of "cultural de-colonization"... HAVANA, 1971 a Brazilian moviemaker... filming abroad the great apocalypse of Cinema Novo... the fatal and final beheading of colonizing cinema... so, just for this mystic activity. Since my cinema is clearly a revolutionary cinema... which was tested in many screens... and by many audiences around the worid... I am an independent filmmaker. I am neither led nor patrolled... neither am I a patroller, I'm minding my own business, doing my job. I have accepted that the Brazilian audience... don't know my work, let alone the critics. I mean, just a few people... know my films here in Brazil... which are far more famous abroad... unfortunately for me and for Brazilians... but we are far more known... seriously known... He walked around talking with everyone in Havana. He saw the film with the audience, to feel their reaction. He'd be standing by the door. Everybody knew him. Then he stayed for two hours... discussing the film with many people. Glauber Rocha became a Havana character. He's very much admired here. At least by those who know a little about cinema, because... it was a cinema that was... First of all, it was new for us. Besides, this cinema portrayed... a very problematic character, one of difficult presentation... but who was very likable: the "cangaceiro" killer. And I say the character was complex because... "cangaceiros" were thieves, but they were also peasants... who fought against... the exploration of countrymen, in a way. And it was surprising how he... was able to make this character, who was a hit man... to be so likeable. Beyond the rebellions driven by religion... by the end of last century... the first groups of "cangaceiros" appeared on the countryside. They came to build the Northeast with heroism and kindness. But what was the origin of "cangaceiro"? Here in Cuba some Brazilian novels were published... like "Cangaceiro", which explained a little that character... very cruel and wild... who was typical in Brazil at a certain time. A CRITIC REVIEW 0F BRAZILIAN CINEMA So, "Cangaceiro" was known here. Not only because of cinema, but also thanks to literature. In my case, in film critic reviews... and in cultural magazines I have access to... every time they talk about our cinema... or mention our history or make some reference to Titn... or any other Argentine filmmaker, I notice... Glauber Rocha's omnipresence. He set a new path for Latin American cinema. With the strength of his characters... with the combination, with the music... the way he presented that film that was so violent. I saw him some 20 years ago, I think. Then I never saw him again. I remember it because of the name and the impressin he caused me. It was very good cinema. Unfortunately... he disappeared. We never heard or saw anything by him again. In fact, I haven't filmed in Brazil for ten years. Eleven years, because the last film I made in Brazil... was "Antonio das Mortes" in 1968... which was awarded Best Direction at Cannes Festival in 69. Then I went to Africa... where I filmed "The Lion Has Seven Heads"... and then on to Spain, where I filmed "Cutting Heads". I came back to Brazil, "Cutting Heads" was prohibited... and I realized that it was not possible... to keep on working here. 0r else my head would be cut. Then I went abroad and filmed partly in Havana, Cuba, partly in Italy. I filmed "Claro", in Italy... and completed the edition of "Cncer". The negatives of "Black God, White Devil", "Anguished Land"... "Antonio das Mortes"... and "Claro"... all my work is abroad! I had to take them away from Brazil... because they were threatening to destroy it, burn it! It was in Rio de Janeiro, August 1968. There was a commotion, students and workingmen on the streets... There were workers occupying factories in Minas Gerais... workers occupying factories in So Paulo and students... It was Costa e Silva's dictatorship, he was the second dictator... after Castelo Branco, he had put president Jango down... he who was doing the revolution in 64. I mean, president Jango was doing the revolution in 64... it wasn't Marechal Castelo Branco... who was a reactionary marshal. So it was a big mess, the students on the streets. The leader was Vladimir Palmeira. There was Marcos Medeiros... Elinor Brito, psychoanalyst Hlio Pellegrino... Franklin Martins, all the heavyweight guys. But it wasn't a revolution, it was just a commotion... there was this French too, it was a big mess. People used to say that it was a revolution... but of the radical middle class, the liberal, reformist bourgeoisie. And the workers, there were peasants starving in the Northeast... and they're still starving today. They've been starving for 400 years. And the intellectuals were there at Museu de Arte Moderna... that night, discussing art... revolutionary art... because it was the start of Tropicalism, that big wave. Then I got to Havana, at ICAIC... the synchronization was done by Raul Garcia... and I edited it with Tineca and Mireta. It took me four days to shoot and four hours to edit... and synchronize. The title I chose was "Cncer". I would love to see that film... after so many years. I've never seen it edited. I remember parts of it. In 1971, the director at ICAIC, Alfredo... asked me to help him with a film... that had sound problems. He had the film rolls... and the original recordings. He had been in Italy and England... trying to synchronize the sound... but he wasn't able to do it in those studios. I got a take from a person talking in the foreground. I rolled the tape in a different speed... like that... and I told him, "It's a different speed. It's too slow. It's in sync, but it's too slow". And Glauber did like this. He loved it that it was in sync but with a different speed. The quality of Glauber and the work... we were working on had some kind of magic... nobody would let go of. The work was feasible, it was within the idea. What happens in cinema is this: making a movie is a process both theoretical and practical. It's an intellectual and technical production process... because the technique is also a form of intellectual production. Electricity was discovered by Edison... cinema was invented by a working man. So, Lumire is as important to cinema... for having developed its technique as Eisenstein... for having created its aesthetics. So technique and aesthetics... for instance, they go hand in hand. So, when you make a film, they talk a lot about the director... but they practically forget... all the other people who participated in it. That in a film where 200 or 300 people participated... people who will keep anonymous. You need cameramen, set designers, editors... grips, gaffers... In this process where intellectuals are servile to the powerful... the issue of reason... was also put as something created by the bourgeoisie society... to justify its own class ideology. For this reason, which is determined... by a political, a aesthetic or a philosophical behavior... the same thing happened in the cinema. The cameras were created and then... a whole production structure was created... a film dramaturgy and a distribution system was created... according to this reason. The whole cinema dramaturgy was created by imperialism... it was conventional, according to the interests of the bourgeoisie. With a whole psychological, dramatic scheme... a behavior... The film directors were like... matres d'htel. They just said, "You sit on the right... You sit on the left". So cinema became something mechanic, boring, useless... with dramatic conversions, "I love you" in close-ups... and something completely absurd that does not reflect... the true behavior of men. People always say that I film irrational scenes. And I say they are irrational in relation... to the rationalism of bourgeoisie culture. For me, the bourgeoisie reason is what's irrational. If you give a camera to a peasant... or to a worker and tell him to film his life... he'll make something different than an imperialist film. He'll make a different kind of film. Specially if he doesn't have... the education of bourgeoisie cinema in his head. I am doing this as an intermediary... because the moment hasn't come yet... people haven't had the opportunity to make cinema. So, the strange form of the film... is due to a closer interpretation... of what normal people would really do. I think Cuban audiences can understand the film very well... because the Cuban people is connected to the African traditions... and to the simplicity of things as well. Maybe something that might be strange to a civilized white person... to a civilized intellectual... may not seem strange to a sensitive person... who is more used to it. Your film "The Lion Has Seven Heads" is being shown. Could you tell us... what kind of film it is? It's my first film in Africa... where you really see the African political struggle... from the point of view of a Latin American man... coming from the Third Worid, like me, with African blood. "The Lion Has Seven Heads" is a film about... colonialism in Africa and the African revolution. Anyone who has a notion... about Marxism and the dialectical method... will see that the film is a dialectical discussin... on the African reality, based on solid facts... which provokes new qualities. And new qualities are a new kind of language. So in this film I placed a camera and a white canvas... so the people could express themselves. So it's a kind of film where people really... mark their own scene, do their dialogues... which is different than imperialist cinema, bourgeoisie cinema... where the director determines, in his mind... how people should behave. The film was improvised. All the scenes where the Africans participate... were created by them. I explained to them... the themes, we also worked with actors... of different political inclinations... and they improvised the political discussin. There's no difference between theater and cinema. In theater, the representation happens onstage... in cinema, it's onscreen. People judge if it's cinema or not... because imperialist cinema created a kind of narrative... and said that that was cinema. But I think you can switch the camera on... facing a stage a let people act. I was accused of making an intellectual film... but who accused me of being "intellectual"... were the intellectuals connected to the bourgeoisie art. The film is a complete liberation... of a dramatic system, and I think... that, in this film, I broke away with the language... of European cinema and imperialist cinema. - No to colonialism! - No to colonialism! - No to colonialism! - No to colonialism! - No to colonialism! - No to colonialism! I thought it was the best way... to propose the revolutionary cinema to the Third Worid. IS A BLACK REV0LUTl0NARY MYTH IN BRAZIL I PUT THE NAME 0N THE AFRICAN LEADER T0 MAKE A CULTURAL RELATl0N Because Guinea-Bissau is a new state... Mozambique is a new state, Angola, all Africa is new. I filmed in Africa because of the African problem... but I could have filmed in Bolivia, about the Bolivian problems... or in Brazil. The Afro-Latin problems interest me a lot... and I thought I had to go to Africa... also as a political and cultural act of collaboration... to the notion of intercontinental fight. History is implacable. When the intellectuals themselves revealed... all the political contradictions in Latin America... the solutions to the problems in Latin America... could not be limited to criticism... they needed a historical transformation. So... the first thing the Latin American intellectual... has to do is demystify himself in his role... of interpreter and critic of History... without actually participating in the politics of this History. This contradiction was solved... in its most significant level, not only to Latin America... but to the whole worid in the figure of Che... who was, at the same time, a political thinker... and a political activist. So Che became... this extremely important myth... for the whole worid and the whole youth in the worid... from East to West... exactly because he embodied... this... this... he embody this contradiction in himself. He was a synthesis and a new proposal for men. And therefore he irradiated a mythical force. In fact... in any social process... the doctor, the engineer... the aviator... the sailor, the telephone operator... SALARY D0ESN'T W0RTH A THING the mechanic are as important as the philosopher, the poet... because society is made up of all this, isn't it? 0ne of the biggest tragedies of capitalist society... is exactly this criminal specialization of men. You specialize in just one thing. So you find, for example... musicians who can't drive a car. Athletes who are not sensitive enough... to appreciate music. We find painters who can't play music... mechanics completely concentrated in their machines. This is an anomaly, a complete disaster... in the formation of men in Brazilian society. WAS IT AN ACCIDENT? In all the capitalist worid... specially in the underdeveloped countries... there is an economic class with well-defined characteristics. So, what happens is that any man... is capable of making music. He's capable of making sounds. Just like any man is capable to paint... any man is capable to build a machine. Any non-educated brain still in its childhood... has the integral capability of developing in every sense. So this is a deformation in the education of men... provoked by bourgeoisie society, because men... cannot develop himself fully... in bourgeoisie society. He can't have an education because of the economical oppressin. - So, since he's a child... - In Latin America, four children die... every minute because of illnesses caused by malnutrition. In 10 years, 20 million children died for that reason. It's the same number of people who died in Worid War II. Go on, go on, go on! Come on! Proving that an educated man... in a liberating system, can really... be, at the same time, an engineer and a painter. This would give man the plenitude... over his own existence. That is, science does not exclude poetry. CAY0 HUES0 QUARTER- HAVANA Sara of Cabo Hueso... Sara of Brazil, Sara of America... Sara of Africa. Sara gives us do much vitality that she didn't die. She is here. 0ne of the first Cuban... women... to have the privilege... to know... what women liberation was. Because it was very difficult... not to mention her skin color, a woman becoming a filmmaker. And she did it. IN A WAY I don't know how she got into cinema, because cinema... is a media that demands... a great technical complexity and a series of mediations... so you can get any idea across. Sara would have loved to make cinema without cameras... without microphones, without anything. She would have loved to make direct cinema. She wasn't searching for our identity, she was our identity... on her skin. 0f course, it's ours roots. Without them there's nothing, only fiction. And anyone can come up with fiction. I never saw them together, but... I learned later on, Sara told me. We respected and admired Glauber... for his cinema, which we had seen... the Cinema Novo movement and what he meant in it. Meeting him was very important to Sara. As a filmmaker, as a director. It was important... more than seeing his films, to know the man who made them... to see how he was, how he faced life and interacted... with people. For her and for us all... it was very moving to meet him, to see him... and specially to hear him in that constant poetic delirium... that was typical of him. Besides, there's something my friend hasn't said yet: the Cuban audience... even the less educated... is the Latin American audience who best know... Latin American cinema. Not only Glauber Rocha... but all the great Latin American directors and artists. - As friend, man and revolutionary! - My directing style... is deeply connected to Brazilian popular culture... and to the symbols. Everything I consider symbol and allegory are not abstractions... but direct expressions of popular culture. It's cinema about the people... with the cultural collaboration of this people. I, because of a professional deficiency... don't have the ability to make documentaries... so I make fictional films... connected to the Latin American reality... with a language that expresses the deepest myths... of Latin American people... inherited of the black culture and the Indian culture... of the images... the visual imagination of... Here in Cabo Hueso you'll find people who can talk about him. People who knew him and had contact with him in the manors... in the parks and corners where people met. 0n that day I heard many verses that he was improvising. Everything he thought and did was in terms of images and poetry. All the time. I think his work was one big poem. He was a writer besides being a filmmaker and a man of images... who was searching for a relation with the words... and a worid beyond the visible one. I thought he was from Brazil, but he said he was from Baha. I didn't get that. But then I found out... that when you're from Baha you're something else. There's nothing to do with Rio or... He insisted on that. He would say... "I am not from Brazil; I am from Baha!" It's just like I said I'm from Cabo Hueso, you know. I never got that. That was a long time ago. Y0U CAN'T REC0RD MEM0RY LIKE IN A FILM ...in the role of Jesus Christ... reincarnated in the body of Che Guevara. You see? It's a kind of surrealist "cangaceiro". He was always talking about "cangaceiros", always. And I'd say to him, "But we have 'cangaceiros' here, too!" It was a Sunday, we were all sitting here. All of a sudden, everyone was silent. It's the oneiric journey to the mythic center of Pan-American unconscious. "Cutting Heads" is a film about madness... madness, my friends! The madness of violence. Art is, by the way, a symbol... So much violence... committed in the name of peace, of humanism, of love... of hope. "Cutting Heads" is that. Do you understand? It's about my paranoia, my madness... my fantasies. It's a game against death. Francisco Rabal in the role of dictator Porfrio Diaz... from exile to Eldorado. No, Cuban cinema for me is an opportunist cinema. Some moments they made good films... in other moments they could only keep... Cuban cinema as such. Cuba cannot be seen outside the international economic context... because Cuban people is very into politics... and depends on the worid economy. We are not like the people of other countries who depend... on their own economy. There's no such thing as beautiful art and ugly art. The concept of beauty is connected to the concept... of "political truth". The revolutionary truth... is beautiful, and the real theoretical assumption... of a problem results in a style, a beautiful style. So, for example, the current art crisis... when you say that "theater is in a crisis" or "cinema is in a crisis"... "literature is in a crisis", "poetry is in a crisis"... what happens is... A character. Glauber Rocha was a character. And Brazil has many millions of people more than Cuba. And in Brazil he was a very important director. In Brazil, with that many millions of people! lmagine it here! Nobody paid much attention to him, because... he was a normal guy who was making his films. We are Cubans and Brazilians. I fell in love with his honesty... ...and his simplicity... - His simplicity. He was a simple human being. He said he made movies without petulance. And the Cuban filmmakers are like that. Here we don't have this... movie star thing. We're lucky to be directors. Revolution ended that... -0f curse, cinema is of the people! - ...and proved that... first, we must be humans. First, we are humans... then we are directors. If we are human... we can be good directors, good photographers, good lathe workers... good drivers, good carpenters, good physicians... So, I think today intellectuals must... leave their privileged position... and join the political process. While they are... entering the political process and becoming... combatants, revolutionaries, political activists... they will be... entering collectivity. They'll become a class of men who work... within a revolutionary process. It's obvious they'll be studying... contributing to the study... and the elucidation of problems, but without... being on a privileged position. Why? Because we're in the middle of a process... which doesn't end. A process that put us nearer... an ideal society where... everyone can express himself freely... without coercin, where people are... more carefree and live life more fully... in its most important aspects. That is, a society we dream about... but a society we don't have yet. There's a moment in the film is think is great: it's the moment where Sergio's reflections... lead him to believe... to think that... in an underdeveloped society... like the one we keep on living in... among other things, people... need someone to think for them. And that, for me, is a problem... that we need to solve. Every citizen need... to think by himself. When that happens, the film will be very old... and I will be very happy for it... getting old and becoming... just a testimony of a time of fight... of a difficult time. 0UR PR0BLEMS ARE THE PR0BLEMS 0F UNDERDEVEL0PMEN When intellectuals revolutionize... demystify and become... messengers... a more profound and coherent intermediary... of the people's needs... the activities of creation and of spirit... gain a much higher value. It's clear the example... of the non-intellectual, the intellectual at the people's service. In Cuba's history is obvious... the figure of Jos Mart, who is the best example... of what a Latin American intellectual would be. But he can't be considered... an "intellectual" under a bourgeoisie perspective. Mart is a poet and a politician of the people. For us, Glauber represented, at that time... a window to the worid, a door out into the worid... because we were living in bad times... with very little information. The American embargo had just begun... and the cultural information arriving was very little. So, Glauber represented... the main door to Latin America... in Cuba, and the approach to us, Cubans. That was some 30 years ago. Me met him 30 years ago in Havana. That's when he came to Cuba... to show his films for the first time, and to live here. We would often meet at Nancy Gonzlez's house... which was a meeting point for us. We would meet playwrights, filmmakers... writers, poets... Everyone came by here. And a person who... used to go to Nancy's was Titn, Toms Gutirrez Alea... who became a good friend of Glauber's. I was very nervous when they told me... that I was going to meet a famous filmmaker, Glauber Rocha. I was kind of shy... because they said he was a big cinema name... a very important person with many awards. I was a little nervous. But when I met Glauber... he seemed like a big boy... someone who needed protection and love. I think he really needed love. And, above all... he was thankful for the affection. And he also thought the house was agreeable... and big, he enjoyed walking... down the corridor and observe... because he really loved the rooms of the house. Sometimes he would go up on the flagging... Iook upon Havana and start to tell stories. He would tell stories on the flagging... thinking that, one day, he could make a film with them... or write a story. I'll tell you this: in Brazil, intellectuals have never... had a very important role in politics. - Like now? - No, like those days. Like those days. Also because the students movement was created, above all... inspired by the intellectual movements. The spontaneous resistance... was in the newspapers, then in the cinema... and in the theater, with works... of revolutionary cinema and theater... of a left-wing press that grew a lot. Theses groups of intellectual labor... met with the student masses... and also with sectors of the working mass. The irritation in the country was in a point... that Costa e Silva, pressed by the fascist sectors... was forced to approve the Institutional Act number 5. This act closed Congress... and granted dictatorial rights to the President of the Republic... made political crimes distinct of civil crimes... nullified habeas-corpus... solidified dictatorship and completely revoked... the republican Constitution. The Argentine newspapers said today... ...and some would even show cover stories... that the big ones would... the big ones are Brazil... Living in the wild, using guerrilla tactics... facing the most famous agrarian organizations... like Cabeleira, Antonio Silvino... Captain Lamarca leaves Vanguarda Popular Revolucionria... joins Movimento Revolucionrio 8 de 0utubro... tries to install a peasant resistance... History moved on, and it has to have a meeting point. And with a critical position. Because whoever made self-criticism during militarism... gained the right to maintain his criticism. - And to maintain his positions. - And to maintain his positions. Because repressin was brutal, and in fact constituted... the first figures... the first movements of a revolution. I mean, in fact, repressin acted to destroy... repressin, getting to the foundation of the vanguards. Because I was born... I was born more than 60 years ago... IF Y0U WANT, C0ME N0W and since I was born... THR0UGH THE PATH 0F ILLUSl0N I've heard about the agrarian reform... drought and hunger in the Northeast. So they had, at least, 60 years to solve it... and so far they haven't done it. So that's what we want. They call us communists... but we are not communists, we are workers... we are Brazilian workers. Glauber immediately wanted to prepare... a film for which he had... great passin: It was his visin of Brazil and its history... but in a way to focus on the contemporary period... and the possible solutions. I started to work with him in When I got to the editing room... I noticed there was a huge amount... of material, of archives... photo-animations, montages... all kinds of film. Because he really had very little material about Brazil. He had to reconstruct a lot from photos, papers and documents. I was rounded by boxes of films. So I asked him how we would start. Glauber got a small matchbox... and sat right behind me, doing like this... He was playing samba behind me. And he also sang. I believe they were songs... Well, since I didn't know any of them... I imagined they were songs... that had something to do with the film and inspired him. But I thought that was very funny, because... I was waiting for him to tell me what to do. At a certain point... I had edited an animation which already had... some coherence, I was able to do that... but when I was about to start something else... I asked, "And now, what should we do?" He said, "Whatever you want". And I said, "No... what do you mean, whatever I want? We're working on the history of Brazil, but I don't know it. You have to help me". He said, "No, the history of Brazil... does not exist. We're gonna write it now, you and me". What happens is that the country is split in two. There is a part that, without obstacles... in social conflicts... promotes the economical development of the country... a superficial development, but a growing one. And there's Nazism, the nazi repressin. Because it was very hard for Brazilians... during the dictatorship and everybody was running away from that. And when I think that he would have... other engagements, political engagements, maybe. Because in those days... I remember Brazilians who passed by here... at ICAIC, and were never seen again. That is... I guess some of them must have been killed... when trying to go back to Brazil. Glauber, one last question... about... your opinion about the revolutionary fight in Brazil. Well, I know Brazil... and today I am, definitely... with all my time and my life... devoted to the revolutionary fight in Brazil. He used to sit for hours at this typewriter. It was a very difficult moment for Cuba. There were no shops, not even ink for the typewriter. When he ran out of it, he had to ask one at ICAIC. I mean, the embargo is real, imperialism is real. It does exist. No human being, no Cuban... the ones who are there or the ones who are here... nobody can deny that this country is under an embargo. It's a problematic country for anyone who wants to accomplish... any project or idea. And Glauber lived among us, he lived like us... WITH0UT END EVERY 100,000 N0RTHEASTERNERS he ate what we ate. 9,000 PER M0NTH AND A FEW HUNDRED PER DAY 70 PERCENT 0F THEM G0 T0 THE C0UNTRYSIDE Glauber always had a story to tell. And usually it had nothing to do with cinema. Almost always... it had to do with Brazilian culture. I remember one day... he stepped inside the house and said, "I'm going to tell the history of Brazil. How Brazil came to be. Give me paper and pencil". It was Nancy, me and I don't remember who else. We gave him paper and pencil... and he started to draw the map of Brazil and tell us... how Brazil was formed. How the country developed... with the immigrants... with all the ethnical variety... all the ethnical groups, and went back even further in the history of Brazil. There's the clergy, the communist party... the workers associations, you got it? There's umbanda, there's quimbanda... there's the organizations, the rest of the peasants organizations... got it? There's the progressive sectors of the Army... there's a radical, liberal middle class... which is still positivist, or romantic, or lyric. There are several tendencies. There are the several political organizations... which claim to be Marxist-Leninist. Glauber saw it as a big folly. The history of Brazil... was a history of folly, which had a lot to do... with the folly of our Latin American countries. - Popular unity! - The revolutions... in Latin America, like in Uruguay... in Chile and in Peru, all the Latin America processes... claiming to be left-wing... the revolutionary unity of the continent... are very important today for our fight, because the liberation... of Brazil will be essential for the destiny of Latin America. The Air Force bombarded the towers... Latin America hasn't yet solved a good part... of its institutional problems, the ones of political formation. I think it's important, I honestly do... the validity... of a thinking that is slightly mad... very passionate... of a thinking and a feeling with which I believed... piously in Brazil, above all things. I piously believed in Latin America and in the Third Worid... committing themselves with attitudes and not only with words: the liberation fights and the guerrilla movements... existing in Latin America. We felt like we were... the audiovisual branch of these movements. With the commitment of a cinema... artistically and politically liberating... renewing its structure and of national liberation... we started, some sooner than others... to realize we needed to adjust our illusions. The 1960's... which started its martyrdom precisely... by late 1968, when there was Golgotha... which means "the right-wing triumph" in an updated definition... and, by all means, the oppositions... the fascist and neo-fascist oppositions in the planet. - The worid is no longer... - No more... the spirit of experimentation, the patrons... Iose room talking about those who had the money... and honoring them with works of cultural reach. The worid is not so... With the dictatorships in Latin America, it vanishes... Hitkin, who ends up in exile, Glauber Rocha... exiled... Everyone... The most lucid people ended up being expatriated. The fact is that we thought... it was possible... That a film could change the worid. That is, we knew it was a lie. We weren't fooling ourselves. No film can change the worid or anything... but you have to make a film like if it was possible. The passage from the capitalist barbarism to a socialist society... depends on this mass practice... this ideological "feijoada" will produce the banquet of Quarup. People sublime their rebellion in the mystic manifestations. You are for democracy, so what can you tell me about it? I think it's a nice thing... I think Brazilians must rediscover... and make again a national project... they must rediscover their strength, their particularity... rediscover the myth of their culture, their social, political project... their anthropological project. As poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade wrote... he who is an oracle, he who wrote "Claro Enigma"... "We must forget Brazil and rediscover Brazil". I need to tell you a story. Do you know who discovered Brazil? Do you know who discovered Brazil? Do you know who discovered Brazil? Do you know who discovered Brazil? Who discovered Brazil? I want to work! I want work! I CLEARED SEVERAL TH0USAND ENIGMAS IN A TH0USAND DAYS I FALL ASLEEP SL0WLY REFLECTING PATHS 0PENCL0SE H0NEY R00T BURN 0N THE F0REHEAD I was thinking, before you asked me... about visions. 0ur mind is... involuntarily, a workshop for many things, isn't it? What's a visin? People who didn't have visions, I thought... they saw them as something very distant, maybe... because they had a very rough image... on what a visin is. As if a visin was... a ghost that materialized... or something of the sort. But visions are not quite like that. Maybe visions are simply... cinematographic impressions we have... when we are thinking about something... while we're looking at reality. So, if this is visin... I think there are many more people than we suppose... including ourselves, who have visions. Because they are projections of thoughts... which don't have this ectoplasm condition materializing themselves. They're like thoughts, like printed dreams. And if that's true, then I had... two similar visions with Glauber. The first was soon after his death. I was in Cuba, in a hotel facing the Caribbean... and there was this typical sunset, it was very impressive. The sunset there is wonderful... because it's a sky that cannot be reproduced... by any great name of classic painting. It was blinding. Blinding. I was facing one of these skies... when, all of a sudden, Glauber came up to me... like in a kind of manifestation... I don't exactly know what. But we were for the new Latin American cinema... with big posters, like that. Then Espinoza passed by with a pster that read "Viva Sanjins". Then it was, I don't know... Sanjins passed by with a pster that read... "Viva somebody else"... and it read "Viva Solanas", and Solanas's read "Viva Gutirrez Sarra". Each was carrying a pster celebrating the other. And Glauber passed by above us... but he was an ngel. He was all rolled up... in films and film rolls went down his tunic. He had a megaphone and he screamed: "Dream with your eyes open! Dream with your eyes open. Dream with your eyes open". And that happened twice. Twice... and I'm still waiting for him to come and tell me that again... because I'm sure he's out there screaming that away. "Tereza Teza Teca I love you Tereza Vanera Teca Cubanera Cubana Cuca de Buru Buru in Teca's mind." "A Xang for Teca". "Tere que teca Tere que teque teca Tereza teca Tecalaquela Telemateca Tere I want you, Tere I do." He was always leaving me notes. I knew, with Glauber, the authenticity of people... the truth of people. To be what you say you are. You can be wrong, but, at least... be coherent with yourself. Sometimes he was wrong, and he was something... then he was something else... and people didn't understand him. But even in his contradiction he was true to himself. What I liked best in Glauber was this primitivism... this non-planned thing... this spontaneity to express... the things he felt the way he felt them. This freedom... this I have never found in anyone else. And, undoubtedly... for someone like me... who... was born and lived her life... in one single way... who lived in a society just to survive... I had to create some models... and to have met someone who followed no models... and who was, I don't know... spontaneous and rich in his manifestation... it was definitely something that made me grow a lot. I remember they invited him to the parade on May the 1 st... and I was marching there. I remember that when we met at the hotel... he was very moved. Marcos told me that Glauber cried on the stands. I remember that later he hugged me and said: "Teca, this is the first time I see a Latin America people... strong and happy". And don't forget that he gave a mystical touch to everything he saw. It could be very real, but he always gave this... this touch... I don't know, it was his own origin. He really needed to be in contact with Brazil... in regard to the political decisions. As an intellectual, he thought he had a role to fulfill... in regard to what was happening. He didn't want to be left out... he wanted to participate. I was a witness of that. Many nights... when I woke up, I saw Glauber walking around the bedroom... very afflicted. And he said he was thinking about Brazil. He was a very demanding person... punctual, and I remember Glauber... It was impossible to open his bedroom door... or walk around it, because it was all on the floor. There were so many things! And Glauber knew exactly where everything was. He was very organized in his mind. I have never met anyone as connected... to his roots, to his land, to Vitria da Conquista... as Glauber was. That's why he was so authentic for me: because even being a famous, traveled man... and cultured, he was, at the same time, a simple man... who never forgot his Brazilian roots... in regard to his land, to the arid interior... wherever he was living in. His political bonds... were beyond any organization, any declaration. It was essential because, for him, it was his own life. He always told me Cuba was on his way. Whenever he parted, whenever he arrived... he said Cuba was always on his way. He really felt at home here. When we were walking down the street... he would tell me, "Smell it, Teca, smell it... the smell of black beans. Just like in Baha. I feel so good here! It's the only place... where I walk by and feel just like any other person". "Beautiful Tereza Girl with a ribbon The guru love Ugly cangaceiro of her heart Tereza, cubaiana brunette princess In the terreiro of my heart My blood in your veins My soul in your hands." "Teca brunette with rounded eyes Misty moon with rounded breasts My heart beats for her I feel passin, a rare bird Cuba, February 14 Baha, March 14 Two fishes, one fishbowl Glauguru and Tereza." The influence in the pleasure I feel in life... and the... contradictions that surround me... about what's authentic and what's not... undoubtedly... it all starts... it all starts the moment that I met Glauber. Because Glauber touched me. There's no destiny without blood. There's no destiny without blood! Cinema Novo exists as long as... I think I am Cinema Novo. I am alive and making new films. What exists around me is an intellectual piracy... because the aesthetics here in Brazil is the hunger one, right? The cinema they are making in Brazil is reactionary... the cinema environment of Cinema Novo... that was a vanguard in the 60's... is now completely conventional. The cinema criticism in Brazil can no longer... be practiced democratically. So, you just can't say that a film is bad, you can't open a discussin. I broke up with Brazilian cinema, Brazilian cinema broke up with me... so that's "Cutting Heads"... all the cutting heads are my past. I am here playing with a child... and I am interested in the present and the future. IN HAVANA WALKING D0WN THE STREE Y0U ALWAYS GET T0 THE SEA T0 STAY 0R T0 CR0SS Subs. ripeados por bluciano para |
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