Cinema Novo Gives the Answer
By Olga Zhakova
[1] What is so special about the How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman? What is it about? Why was it made? What did director Nelson Pereira dos Santos want to reveal telling the story of cannibal society? And why was it even nominated for the Golden Bear (Berlin Film Festival award)? To get the answers for these questions one should turn to the time and circumstances in which the film was made. It is not a movie that can be fully appreciated completely out of the historical context of its production. To understand this remarkable work of Pereira dos Santos one has to know the situation in which the film was made. And it can all be narrowed down and explained by the fact that How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman belongs to the Cinema Novo film movement. Although for the majority of us the term “Cinema Novo†probably is totally unfamiliar, knowing about this phenomenon helps a lot in understanding the significance of the movie. Cinema Novo explains not only the style, but also the content and deep meaning of the film. In short, it makes sense out of this movie.
[2] So, Cinema Novo is a film movement that appeared in Brazil in the late 1950s and reached its peak in the 1960s and 1970s. It was Cinema Novo that initiated the beginning of modern cinema in Brazil and even now Brazilian films are judged according to the standards brought by the Cinema Novo filmmakers. Cinema Novo literally means New Cinema, and its founders had two main reasons to give such a loud name to their movement: political and economic.
[3] As for the first reason, Cinema Novo appeared as an answer to the chanchada films (very popular Brazilian light musical comedies) that had dominated Brazilian cinema since the 1930s. Cinema Novo founders were intellectual filmmakers who wanted to bring content to the Brazilian films and make a difference with their movies rather than just entertain the viewer. Thus, the purpose of the Cinema Novo directors was to create the cinema that would reflect Brazilian reality. Glauber Rocha and Nelson Pereira dos Santos were the first to define the Cinema Novo as a cinema that is “capable of expressing the transformation of the Brazilian society†(Shaw and Dennison 82). However, the purpose was not only to depict the transformation of Brazilian society, but also to promote it through the art of cinema. Thus, the distinguishing feature of the Cinema Novo films is its social content and meaning aimed at changing the foundations and principles of the Brazilian society.
[4] As for the second reason, it was rooted in the desire of Brazilian producers to imitate Hollywood and organize the national film industry within the framework of large studios with expensive sets and a star system. However, the financial situation in Brazil and absence of a proper infrastructure didn’t allow them to achieve this goal, and Hollywood films were on a much higher level of quality and popularity. Thus, economically speaking, the Brazilian film industry was facing a market taken over by foreign films. Brazil was experiencing underdevelopment at that time, so it was impossible for Brazilian filmmakers to compete with foreign films on a technical level -- that’s why the Cinema Novo directors decided to make scarcity their unique style. In dos Santos’ words, the Brazilian filmmakers at that time did not recognize the existence of underdevelopment. And here came the experience of Italian neorealism, in which small production teams, shooting on location instead of using large studios, and using nonprofessional actors made intellectual films with minimal cost.
[5] Cinema Novo filmmakers willingly adopted this experience in order to give freedom of expression to the artists, and thus a certain style of Cinema Novo films appeared. It wasn’t an artistic style, but a style of production characterized by low budgets, nonprofessional actors, independent production, and natural settings. As for the artistic style, it is interesting that Cinema Novo advocates didn’t share a common aesthetics. As dos Santos said: “Cinema Novo is a group of auteurs who share a collective practice in cultural politics. In relation to principles of filmmaking, each director has his own isolated dominion and there is thus no common esthetic position among us. Each one has total investigative and creative freedom (Johnson, Interview 229). So the total freedom of the artist was proclaimed.
[6] Thus, the goal of Cinema Novo filmmakers, led by economic and political reasons, was to create a new film industry (or to transform the existing one) that would promote the development of an independent national cinema. However, the directors of Cinema Novo were planning not just to change the film industry, but by transforming it they had a hope to transform the Brazilian society. The Cinema Novo slogan was “A camera in hand and an idea in mind†-- meaning two main aspects of the film movement: its innovative means of production (which was meant to lead to the transformation of the national cinema) and the deep social content of the films (which was meant to lead to the transformation of the Brazilian society).
[7] Nelson Pereira dos Santos is widely considered to be the “godfather,†“Pope,†or even “conscience†of the Cinema Novo. It was in the mid-1950s that he started criticizing the chanchada and the studio system in general, advocating the freedom of production and meaningful cinema.
[8] Dos Santos’ work is often roughly divided into phases: 1955-1967, the sociological phase; 1963-1973, the ideological phase; 1974-1981, the popular phase. The film How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman was created during the second, “ideological†phase, when dos Santos was concerned more with the way in which society is interpreted, rather than with social structures itself. The core question raised in the film that refers it to the second phase is the question of the official (ideological) interpretation of history.
[9] According to dos Santos, the official social history of Brazil starts in 1500 with Portuguese, followed by the black slaves, and then European immigrants. But no one talked about the Indians. The history starts with Brazil as a European colony, not an Indian land. As Richard Pena puts it, “In the documents and 'official histories' of the colonial past, the focus is always clearly on the acts and deeds of the white, European colonizers, presumed to be the ancestors of present-day Brazil. It is this easy assumption that the film wishes to challenge†(Pena 193).
[10] However, to appreciate the dos Santos work one should know under which circumstances the film was made (the same circumstances under which many other Cinema Novo films were produced). As the director explains, in the period of history when the film How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman was made, the Cinema Novo filmmakers were isolated from production (Johnson, Interview 227). At that time cinema in Brazil entirely depended on the state, and all the Cinema Novo directors were on the black list. Moreover, the film was made in 1971 in the time of a severe military rule which lasted from 1968 till 1972. It was the time when “habeas corpus was suspended for Brazilian citizens, censorship was tightened, and torture became institutionalized†(Johnson, Masters 3).
[11] Therefore, How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman was made by dos Santos with a foreign group bypassing the governmental control. Dos Santos wanted to talk about Brazilian history, but he didn’t want to talk about it within the official framework. He says: “The government broadly financed historical films, but it wanted the history to be within official parameters -- the hero, the father of the country, all those things we have been told since elementary school. I made How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman, which does not correspond in any way to the official vision of history, under these circumstances. The film was not even considered to be historical, but rather purely fictional, as if official history were not fiction†(Johnson, Interview 227). As a true artist dos Santos rejected any financial help that could cause ideological restrictions on the film content, thus struggling against the system and changing it. That is why his film is innovative and very important. It gives the viewer a different perspective, it opens something new, it emphasizes the things that were never discussed before -- it transforms the perception of the history and society itself.
[12] Using a hand-held camera and a documentary style characteristic of Cinema Novo, Dos Santos overcame all the obstacles in order to make a film that would be helpful to the transformation of the Brazilian society. Perfectly implementing motto “Camera in hand, idea in mind,†the film How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman is an amazing example of the powerful and unique Brazilian phenomenon called Cinema Novo.
[13] Thus, knowing about Cinema Novo can help us to understand the significance and unique nature of How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman. It helps to realize that it is not merely a film about cannibals, but about Brazilian history, about ancestors of the modern Brazilian society, about interpretation of history and its consequences. Knowing the framework within which the film was made (the ideology of Cinema Novo) helps the viewer to understand the director’s intentions and the concept that leads to a new perception of the movie. It encourages us to overcome the lack of understanding of the film’s humor or style and to perceive it as a whole with its important message and daring nature.
[14] And most importantly it allows us to understand that cinema is a powerful mechanism that can change things and makes a difference. As dos Santos says, “Cinema must be seen as one more instrument of struggle, just as necessary as any other, in the sense of understanding and attempting to transform Brazilian society†(Johnson, Masters 162).
[15] As an encouragement, I find it important to mention that dos Santos himself had two other jobs while making his films (he was a journalist and professor) as it was impossible to make living on cinema. Probably this fact reflects the spirit of Cinema Novo -- when the filmmakers wanted to make a difference with their movies, when they wanted to make changes, they were ready to do a lot in order to achieve this goal. Maybe that is why their films are still considered to be the standard of the Brazilian cinema.
Johnson, Randal. Cinema Novo x 5: Masters of Contemporary Brazilian Film. Austin: U of Texas P, 1984.
Johnson, Randal. "Toward a Popular Cinema: An Interview with Nelson Pereira dos Santos." Studies in Latin American Popular Culture s.n. (1982): 225-38.
King, John. Magical Reels: A History of Cinema in Latin America. London, New York: Verso, 2000.
Nagib, Lucia. Brazil on Screen: Cinema Novo, New Cinema, Utopia. New York: Tauris, 2007.
Shaw, Lisa, and Stephanie Dennison. "Cinema Novo." Brazilian National Cinema. London: Routledge, 2007.
Vieira, Joao Luis, ed. Cinema Novo and Beyond. New York: Herlin Press Inc., 1998.
