Tropical ginsberg

and Grande Otelo, and Companhia Cinematográfica Vera Cruz, Brazil’s
Hollywood, co-founded by Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho, Mazzaropi
being their most famous star. Brazilian movie critics of that time
borrowed the Spanish word “chanchada,” which means rubbish, to
name a specific genre that was being produced in Brazil, overflowed
with certain “thought-to-be” Brazilian symbols such as: carnival, roundthe-clock
parties, and the mythical figure of the malandro and his
unique characteristic of singing everything he says. On the other
extreme was the Companhia Cinematográfica Vera Cruz, considered to
be the first professional movie studio of Brazil. Vera Cruz sailed
prominently through the seas of industrial and economical developments
that Brazil, in the early 1950s, was still only beginning to descry.
However, it was also during the early 1950s that a somewhat
small group of movie directors began to change Brazilian cinema for
ever: Ruy Guerra, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Carlos Diegues, Luis
Carlos Barreto, Alex Viany, and Glauber Rocha. The breakthrough
happened when Alex Viany began to disseminate Italian Neorealism
films and texts to his colleagues. The style quickly captivated all of
them with its anti-Hollywood film content, shot sometimes with nonprofessional
actors, in loco (not studio), and with stories about the
economic and political conditions of Italy after World War II, with
emphasis on the average Italian citizen. Directors like Vittorio de Sica,
Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, and Michelangelo Antonioni
became role models for this new cinema (Cinema Novo) that began in
Brazil. The film “Rio 40 Graus” (1955) is said to be the first film of the
Cinema Novo, as Carlos Roberto de Souza says in his book A
Fascinante Aventura do Cinema Brasileiro (1981):
61
Rio, 40 Graus, era um filme popular, mostrava o
povo ao povo, suas idéias eram claras e sua
linguagem simples dava uma visão do Distrito
Federal. Sentia-se pela primeira vez no cinema
brasileiro o desprezo pela retórica. O filme foi
realizado com um orçamento mínimo e
ambientado em cenários naturais: o Maracanã, o
Corcovado, as favelas, as praças da cidade,
povoada de malandros, soldadinhos, favelados,
pivetes e deputados. 130
130 Souza, Carlos Roberto de. A Fascinante Aventura do Cinema Brasileiro. São Paulo:
Fundação Cinemateca Brasileira, 1981. 65.