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The Nova Republica and the Crisis in Brazilian Cinema

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2022

Randal Johnson
Randal Johnson*
Affiliation:
University of Florida
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The beginning of the so-called Nova República was inauspicious for both Brazil and Brazilian cinema. The events surrounding the illness and death of President-elect Tancredo Neves and the subsequent inauguration of former government-party leader José Sarney are well-known. Perhaps less known is the fact that one of the first pieces of legislation Sarney signed into law while Acting President during Neves's illness sent shock waves through the national film industry, which was already suffering one of the worst economic crises of its recent history.

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , 1989 , pp. 124 - 139
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 by the University of Texas Press

References

Notes

1. For a detailed account of the events surrounding Neves's illness and death, see Antônio Brito, with Luis Cláudio Cunha, Assim Morreu Tancredo (Porto Alegre: L & PM, 1985). For an overview of the first year of the Nova República, see Nova República: Um Balanço, organized by Flávio Koutzii (Porto Alegre: L & PM, 1986); and also William C. Smith, “The ‘New Republic’ and Brazilian Politics: Democratization or Elite Conciliation from Above?,” paper presented at the meetings of the Latin American Studies Association, Boston, 23–25 Oct. 1986.

2. On Law 7300, see “A Nacionalização do Cinema,” Jornal do Brasil, 29 Mar. 1985; “Em Cartaz, o Nacional,” Isto É, 3 Apr. 1985, p. 55; and “Nas Malhas da Lei,” Isto É, 10 Apr. 1985, pp. 50–53.

3. See Sérgio Augusto, “Idéias e Intenções da Lei 7.300,” Folha da Tarde, 5 Apr. 1985.

4. Randal Johnson, State Policy toward the Film Industry in Brazil, Technical Papers Series, no. 36, Office for Public Sector Studies, Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 1982; and Alcino Teixeira de Mello, Legislação do Cinema Brasileiro, 2 vols. (Rio de Janeiro: Embrafilme, 1978), 1:53–58.

5. Local film laboratories claimed that American distributors in fact began a “lockout” shortly after the measure was approved, sending drastically fewer internegatives to copy in Brazil. See “Sem Trabalho, Líder Pode Fechar as Portas,” Jornal do Brasil, 12 May 1985. For a thorough discussion of retaliatory measures by the U.S. film industry in other contexts, see Thomas H. Guback, The International Film Industry: Western Europe and America since 1945 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969).

6. Much of the following discussion is taken from Randal Johnson, The Film Industry in Brazil: Culture and the State (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987), especially chapters 6 and 7.

7. “Lei Básica do Cinema Brasileiro,” Filme Cultura 33 (May 1979):114–16.

8. “Proposta para uma Política Nacional do Cinema,” Jornal da Tela, special edition (Mar. 1986).

9. Sérgio Matos, The Impact of the 1964 Revolution on Brazilian Television (San Antonio, Tex.: V. Klingensmith, 1982); Sérgio Caparelli, Televisão e Capitalismo no Brasil (Porto Alegre: L & PM, 1982).

10. “Distribuidora de Filmes e 100 Cinemas Fecham em MG,” O Estado de São Paulo, 10 Aug. 1984; and “Majors Closing Some Brazilian Offices: Input Volume Reduced,” Variety, 8 Aug. 1984, pp. 6, 24.

11. See Johnson, The Film Industry in Brazil, especially chapter 5.

12. The texts of the decree-laws that founded and subsequently reorganized Embrafilme and founded CONCINE are reproduced in Mello, Legislação, 1:11-29, 53–58.

13. “Em Pauta o Cinema Nacional,” O Estado de São Paulo, 28 Jan. 1972.

14. See Randal Johnson, “Toward a Popular Cinema: An Interview with Nelson Pereira dos Santos,” Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 1 (1982):226.

15. Jean-Claude Bernardet, “Cinema e Estado,” Folha de São Paulo (Folhetim), 4 Sept. 1983. See also José Mário Ortiz Ramos, Cinema, Estado, e Lutas Culturais (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1983), especially chapter 4.

16. Sílvio Tendler, “Cinema e Estado: Em Defesa do Miúra,” M.A. thesis, Pontifícia Universidade Católica, Rio de Janeiro, 1982.

17. Jean-Claude Bernardet, Cinema Brasileño: Propostas para urna História (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1979), 57.

18. See Johnson, The Film Industry in Brasil, 19–23, 33–34.

19. The internationally acclaimed Cinema Novo movement arose in the early 1960s with the expressed intention of contributing, through cinema, to the process of social transformation. The most important films of its initial phase are Nelson Pereira dos Santos's Vidas Secas (1963), Ruy Guerra's Os Fuzis (1964), and Glauber Rocha's Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1964). For a discussion of this movement, see Randal Johnson, Cinema Novo x 5: Masters of Contemporary Brazilian Film (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984).

20. In an extensive interview granted following the release of his internationally acclaimed Pixote, director Héctor Babenco described his production company in the following manner: “My office is disgraceful. I have a typewriter that I'm still paying for and two telephone lines. … I don't have anything, not even a lease … ‘HB Filmes!‘ In fact, it's just me, an office, and a secretary. When I'm sick, HB is sick; when I'm broke, HB is broke… .” See Cinema 5 (Spring 1980):15. This periodical has been published sporadically by the Fundação Cinemateca Brasileira. An English translation of this interview was published in Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 7 (1988):241–51.

21. See, for example, comments by Luiz Carlos Barreto and others in “Para os Cineastas, a Solução É Privatizar,” Folha de São Paulo, 12 Sept. 1984.

22. Social scientists like Fernando Henrique Cardoso have argued that “corporate regime types” have coexisted with Brazil's dependent capitalist state at least since the 1930s. Within this framework, the state and its regimes structure society and social organizations along corporative lines. Individuals participate in the political and social process through state-approved and state-regulated organizations that have varying degrees of autonomy from the central government. With these organizations, as with the rest of civil society, the state maintains patron-client relationships. Hence comes the term clientelistic. See Fernando Henrique Cardoso, “On the Characterization of Authoritarian Regimes in Latin America,” in The New Authoritarianism in Latin America, edited by David Collier (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979), 33–57. In the same volume see Julio Cotler, “State and Regime: Comparative Notes on the Southern Cone and ‘Enclave’ Societies,” 255–82. See also Riordan Roett, Brazil: Politics in a Patrimonial Society (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1972); Howard J. Wiarda, Corporatism and National Development in Latin America (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1981); and Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin America, edited by James M. Malloy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977).

23. Between 1974 and 1985, Embrafilme coproduced 194 feature films. For a complete listing, see Johnson, The Film Industry in Brazil, Appendix E, 213–20.

24. “O Grande Duelo do Cinema Nacional,” O Estado de São Paulo, 13 Jan. 1974.

25. “A Guerra do Cinema,” Jornal da Tarde, 26 June 1980.

26. See “Decreto de Sarney Determina o Que É o Filme Brasileiro,” Folha de São Paulo, 25 Mar. 1986. This definition specifies that a Brazilian film must meet the following requirements: be produced by a company in which Brazilians or foreigners who have resided in Brazil for more than three years control a majority of capital; be in Portuguese unless another language is essential to its plot; be directed by a Brazilian or a foreigner who has resided in the country for at least three years; have a technical crew that is at least two-thirds Brazilian; and be developed, mixed, and reproduced in Brazilian laboratories. Also qualifying as Brazilian are films made under existing international coproduction agreements.

27. Jorge Schnitman, Film Industries in Latin America: Dependency and Development (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1984), p. 67, n. 1.

28. “Exibidores contra Baixo Nível de Filmes” and “Exibidores Fundam Produtora,” Projeção 30, no. 136 (Sept. 1971):3, 8; also “A Vida do Duque de Caxias Interpretada por Charlton Heston: O Que Você Acha da Idéia?,” Jornal da Tarde, 15 July 1971.

29. Brazilian cinematic legislation has been compiled by Mello in Legislação.

30. See, for example, Susana Schild, “Embrafilme, Um Modelo Falido,” Jornal do Brasil, 23 Mar. 1986.

31. “Embrafilme Shifts to Prebuy Policy,” Variety, 21 Mar. 1984, p. 49.

32. See the following articles in the Folha de São Paulo: “L. C. Barreto Diz Que É Credor da Embrafilme,” 17 Mar. 1986; Renata Rangel, “Co-Produção Aumenta Déficit da Embrafilme,” 18 Mar. 1986; “Nova Declaração de Massaini,” 18 Mar. 1986; “Cineastas Pediram o Fim da Correção,” 19 Mar. 1986; Carlos Diegues, “De Quem E Mesmo o Dinheiro da Embra,” 20 Mar. 1986; “Calil Investe no Cultural e Comercial,” 21 Mar. 1986; Sérgio Santeiro, “O Modelo Cinematográfico Opressor,” 21 Mar. 1986; “Furtado Quer Mudar Embrafilme,” 22 Mar. 1986; “Embrafilme Responde à Reportagem da Folha,” 23 Mar. 1986; Luiz Gonzaga Assis de Luca, “Embrafilme, O Consumidor E Quem Paga,” 23 Mar. 1986; “Decreto de Sarney Determina o que É o Filme Brasileiro,” 25 Mar. 1986; and Sérgio Toledo and Roberto Gervitz, “Embrafilme É um Antídoto,” 30 Mar. 1986.

33. Diegues's remark was made in an interview with the Jornal do Brasil, 23 Feb. 1985, and Calil's in an interview with that same paper, 23 Mar. 1985.

34. Members of the commission were Roberto D'Ustra Vaz of the Grupo Valladares, distributor Alvaro Pacheco, Hermanno Penna of the Associação Paulista de Cineastas, Leon Hirszman of the Associação Brasileira de Cineastas, producer Luiz Carlos Barreto, Antônio Francisco Campos of the Federação Nacional dos Exibidores, Ana Thereza Meireles and Edson de Oliveira Nunes of the presidential Secretaria de Planejamento (SEPLAN), CONCINE president Gustavo Dahl, and Embrafilme head Carlos Augusto Calil.

35. See note 8.

36. See Johnson, The Film Industry in Brazil, 173–76.

37. This information was summarized from the Embrafilme report entitled “Cinema Brasileiro: Diagnóstico e Política para o Setor,” Rio de Janeiro, 1986.

38. For an overview of Furtado's agenda for the Ministério da Cultura, see Joan Dassin, “Cultural Policy and Practice in Nova República,” LARR 24, no. 1 (1988):115–23.

39. Telephone interview with Eduardo Escorel, 7 Feb. 1987.

40. “Ghignone Assume a Embrafilme,” Folha de São Paulo, 24 Dec. 1986.

41. Ibid.