Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

Brazil
Brazilian audience through its flawless technical superiority
and the glamour of the star system. Cinearte, the
most influential film journal of the 1920s, celebrated the
US model. The technical expertise and slick production
values of Hollywood movies were regarded as the standard,
and it served to discourage indigenous filmmaking.
Although the Bela Época’s industrial experiment
faded, individual filmmakers continued making films in
Rio, Sâo Paulo, Recife, or Porto Alegre, such as Luiz de
Barros, who adapted José de Alencar’s Indianist romantic
novels, Iracema (1917) and Ubirajara (1919); Gilberto
Rossi and José Medina, who made Exemplo regenerador
(Redeeming Example, 1919), Perversidade (Perversity,
1921), Carlitinhos (1921), A culpa dos outros (The Fault
of Others, 1922), and Fragmentos da vida (Fragments of
Life, 1929); and Mario Peixoto, director of Limite (The
Boundary, 1930), the first Brazilian experimental film. In
1925 Humberto Mauro (1897–1983), the most recognized
auteur of this period, founded his own production
company, Phebo Films, and directed Valadião, o Cratera
(Valadião, or the Crater, 1925), Na primavera da vida (In
the Spring of Life, 1926), and Tesouro perdido (Lost
Treasure, 1927). With the advent of sound, Mauro
teamed up with Cinédia to produce Lábios sem beijos
(Lips without Kisses, 1930), Sangue mineiro (Minas
Blood, 1930), and Ganga bruta (Brutal Gang, 1933),
and with Brasil Vita Filmes to direct Favela dos meus
amores (Favela of My Loves, 1934).
CHANCHADAS: AFILMINDUSTRY
FOR A NATIONAL CINEMA
The introduction of sound in the 1930s was welcome in
Latin America as a possible path to the autonomous
development of a national film industry. Despite the
devastating effects of the Great Depression in the
United States, Hollywood had the upper hand, first by
its experiments with foreign-language versions of its own
films and later with its worldwide imposition of dubbing
and subtitling. By 1934, Hollywood had regained its
hegemony in the Latin American markets to the point
that it became a propaganda machine for Franklin D.
Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy.
Under Getúlio Vargas’s Estado Novo (1937–1945),
an authoritarian and populist regime that implemented a
vast plan of national modernization, the cinema industry
was funded by the state in order to help create hegemony
around nationally shared cultural symbols. Rio de Janeiro
became the center of film production during the 1930s
and 1940s, establishing the imprint of the most popular
Brazilian film genre, the chanchada, musical comedies
inspired by Hollywood musicals but rooted in the
Brazilian carnival and burlesque theater. The carioca
flavor, composed of music, dance, carnival, and even
Rio slang, constituted the ironic nucleus of the chanchada,
which parodied Hollywood’s ‘‘perfection.’’
As a budding though embryonic film production
center, Rio facilitated the emergence of several film companies
linked to specific directors and producers, such as
Adhemar Gonzaga’s Cinédia, Carmen Santos’s Brasil
Vita Filmes, and Alberto Byington Jr. and Wallace
Downey’s Sonofilmes. All of them sought to improve their
films’ quality, though they finally ended up exploiting the
popular chanchada in order to collect money to finance
other projects. As part of this strategy, Gonzaga’s Cinédia
Studios released Alô, AlôBrasil (Hello, Hello Brazil, 1935)
and Alô, AlôCarnaval (Hello, Hello Carnival, 1936),featuring
Carmen Miranda (1909–1955).
Although World War II slowed the production of
Brazilian films, a new film company, Atlântida, was
established in 1943. At the beginning, Atlântida tried to
produce socially committed films by promoting a realist
cinema dealing with popular themes. José Carlos Burle,
Alinor Azevedo, and Moacyr Fenelon directed Moleque
Tião (Boy Tião, 1943) and Burle and Ruy Costa directed
Tristezas não pagam dividas (Sadness Doesn’t Pay Off
Debts, 1944). Nevertheless, Atlântida too had to resort
to the chanchadas, this time teaming the two most popular
comedians of all time, Grande Otelo (1915–1993)
and Oscarito (1906–1970).
In 1949, the Vera Cruz Company was founded in
São Paulo, actually displacing Rio as the center of film
production. Alberto Cavalcânti (1897–1982), an Italo-
Brazilian émigré, was hired to run the company.
‘‘A Brazilian Hollywood,’’ as Maria Rita Galvão asserts,
the Vera Cruz experiment would realize the ‘‘film industry
myth’’ (‘‘Vera Cruz,’’ in Johnson and Stam, Brazilian
Cinema, p. 271), a truly national culture industry with
large amounts of capital invested in technology, in experienced
and skilled European technicians, and in the
construction of new studios, which were modeled on
the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, even when they were
already in decline. For the first time, Brazilian cinema
would be internationally distributed, with quality films
and a consolidated internal market. The Vera Cruz
Company produced eighteen feature films and many
documentaries. O cangaceiro (The Cangaceiro, Lima
Barreto, 1953) was the first Brazilian film to be successfully
distributed internationally. The Vera Cruz project
‘‘was doomed to failure since it was too costly and
ambitious’’ (King, Magical Reels, p. 59), but it was also
condemned because it committed a crucial mistake that
would haunt future filmmakers—leaving distribution in
the hands of Columbia Pictures. This experience, which
stimulated passionate reflection on the nature of producing,
distributing, and exhibiting Brazilian cinema, left
indelible though ambiguous lessons.
170 SCHIRMER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM