Up from the Underworld 

A gentle melody from a solitary guitar...

EXPLODES into a cacophony of drums, tambourines, agogo bells and other percussion instruments beating out the infectious sound and rhythm of the samba, causing hearts to race in elation and limbs to move in dance.

The beginning moments of Orfeu Negro, known as Black Orpheus in the U.S, transports the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice from ancient Greece to the samba stirred frenzy of the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro.  Based upon Vinicius de Moraes play Orfeu da Conceiçao and the ancient myth of two lovers, Black Orpheus was the magnum opus of director Marcel Camus, and a brief moment in the sun for its cast of unknowns.  It was a winner at Cannes and the Oscars in 1959, and a winner at the box office. 

Whether it was the incessant samba beat that plays through nearly every minute of the film, the colorful vistas of Rio, or the drop dead gorgeous Marpessa Dawn as Eurydice, audiences then and now keep this film in their consciousness with fond memory.  On The Cosby Show, Cliff Huxtable explains to his daughter how the film inspired his desire to go to Rio, but not for the same reason that she wants to go Paris.  "I wanted to go to Rio," he explained, "And I didn't care about no culture.  I just wanted to par-tay... and find that woman."

The commercial success of Black Orpheus carried with it an impact on world culture and popular music that are present still today.  However, it did not escape the judgment of critics, not only in terms of story, but in its portrayal of Afro-Brazilians onscreen, and how the reality of Brazil's poor was whitewashed under its festive depiction of Carnival.

The Film

Orpheus (Bruno Mello) is the leader of a samba school and local hero of a favela (shanty town).  Like his Greek counterpart, he is a gifted musician, whom kids believe can make the sun rise with his guitar playing.  While on his day job as a street car driver, he meets Eurydice (Dawn), a bashful country girl who is on the run from a homicidal stalker.  They come believe that they are destined to be lovers, and begin a love affair.  Eurydice's stalker soon finds her, and during the madness of Carnival, pursues her until she meets her fated death.  Orpheus refuses to accept her death, and begins a journey through the ugly underbelly of Rio's festival to find his love.

Eurydice

Whatever the influence, French director Marcel Camus decided place the story of Orpheus against the backdrop of modern day Rio de Janeiro during Carnival.  Soccer star-turned-actor Mello and American dancer Dawn were cast as the destined lovers, and members of the Black Experimental Theatre in Rio played supporting roles.  Camus chose to work with a Brazilian crew, with the exception of key crew positions, and the dialogue is in native Portuguese instead of French.

Camus did not ride the French New Wave that his contemporaries François Truffaut and Jean Luc-Godard were stirring in France, but instead chose to stick to traditional camera and narrative style.  His choice enabled him to tell his story against sweeping views of the Brazilian hillsides that overlook Rio and the colorful scenes of Carnival.  Cinematographer Jean Bourgoin never fails to capture the surrounds of the locales, whether the lush hills of the favelas with its awesome, dizzying cliffs and breath taking view of the city, or the crowds on the streets of Rio and all the color and excitement therein.

The screenplay, written by Camus and Jacques Viot has a heady feel from the parallels to and visual symbols of the myth and its characters, which number too many to discuss here.  The story elements are simple and melodramatic, much like an opera libretto or a musical book.  The film achieves through the visual and narrative elements an almost visceral and intellectual appeal.

Brazil and Carnival

Black Orpheus is set the two major locales:  The favelas, in the hills where Brazil's poor live, and the streets of Rio de Janeiro far below, populated by the rich.  The favelas made up of shabby little shacks scattered about the hillside, not yet packed in as they are today.  The women climb dusty paths, toting cans of water and maneuvering around children and farm animals at play.  Older women sit and gossip and watch the world go by.  The men are mostly absent, presumably down in Rio at work.  In a later scene, the entire community is involved in the samba school's preparation for the Carnival parade.  Those who are not sewing costumes or lugging props are playing instruments or dancing in the parade routine.

Orpheus

Camus shows Carnival and Rio to their fullness, at times placing the story on pause to take a panoramic look at the Baia de Guanabara or to absorb the colors of the Carnival scene.  He doesn't stop at the pretty, though.  Late in the film, as Orpheus searches for his lost Eurydice, Camus reveals the ugly side of Carnival.  Drunk and exhausted partiers lay out in parks; police arrive by the truckload to round up prostitutes and johns; hospitals fill with trauma victims; the morgues pile up with unidentified bodies. 

Black Orpheus also gives a glimpse of the Macumba rite of the Afro-Brazilian Umbanda religion.  Orpheus' journey takes him to a ceremony, where worshippers dance in circles to drums and hand clapping hands, until someone is taken over by the spirit of the dead.  It is samba in its raw, primitive form, harking back to the African heritage of the Afro-Brazilians:  One dances to be possessed by the spirit of an ancestor, instead of a spirit of elation.

Black Orpheus was probably the first time that Rio de Janeiro or Brazil and its culture were seen on the big screen worldwide (films made in Brazil by Brazilians were not yet distributed worldwide).  About sixteen years before, Orson Welles was in Brazil to film It's All True, a semi-documentary that would have given American audiences a look into many aspects of Brazilian culture.  However, troubles between Welles and studio execs lead to the shut down of production, and the footage shot was eventually lost. (Some of the footage was discovered in the 90's and assembled into a film bearing Welles' original title).

The Samba: Music, Dance and Bossa Nova

There are few minutes when the samba beat is not heard in Black Orpheus, and few minutes when the drums are not driving the dance.  Just as he pauses to show a landscape, Camus takes breaks in the story to show characters dancing with abandon, their feet cutting moves that James Brown would envy.

The samba was not new to audiences.  The 1934 film Flying Down to Rio gave audiences a taste of samba and other Latin music styles that became a staple of night club bands.  The 1939 World Fair put samba in the global spotlight at the Brazilian pavilion.  The Brazilian Bombshell Carmen Miranda added her samba song stylings to the growing popularity of Latin music during the 1940's. 

The samba - music and presumably the dance as well - was fairly new to Carnival in Rio when Black Orpheus was filmed.  Banned because of its expression of black culture and ties to voodoo ceremonies, authorities had only begun to allow the samba as part of Carnival in the 1930s.  Escolas de samba - samba schools - began to appear in every favela in Brazil as a recreational activity.  What audiences were seeing in the film was an evolved and legitimized form of samba music and dance.

Black Orpheus' true impact on the music world was the introduction of a new, smooth, romantic style of samba:  The bossa nova.

Created by Antonio Carlos Jobim and others, the bossa nova incorporates jazz stylings and poetic lyrics into the samba.  Jobim had released an album featuring the new style a year before joining Luis Bonfa to write the Black Orpheus soundtrack.  The bossa nova tunes are gentle and romantic, accompanied only by Orpheus' guitar (and often punctuated by the ever present samba drums!).  "Manha de Carnival," Orpheus' aubade to Eurydice following a night of love making, is one of the popular bossa nova songs from the soundtrack.

The soundtrack was a big hit.  American jazz musicians like saxophonist Stan Getz began to cover the tunes, and Jobim and Bonfa became international superstars.  Jobim - until his death in 1996 - and Bonfa continued to compose and record release bossa nova numbers of their own, like "The Girl from Impanema.,"  the anthem of elevator music.  The bossa nova movement continued through the 60s, where orchestral arrangements brought it into association with lounge music, and into today, as techno musicians have created BossaElectrica and TechnoBossa.

Criticism

The classic status of Black Orpheus did not come without criticism.  The narrative treatment has been a target of critics, along with the film's depiction of characters (hence Afro-Brazilians) and selective depiction of Brazil's culture.

As stated above, Camus often steps away from the story to showcase landscapes, Carnival activities and the samba.  Even at the film's climactic scene, more time is spent on the Macumba rite than resolving the dramatic question.  Blogger Matthew Dessum, reviewing Black Orpheus as part of his blogs on the Criterion Collection DVDs, writes that "The whole film walks a fine line between focusing on its characters and being a combination travelogue and introduction to bossa nova."  The writer of moviediva.com understands some of the harsher critiques: "Black Orpheus is, in some ways, a French tourist's view of Brazil, and lacks a Brazilian native's discretion or understanding."

The screenplay, while rich in symbolism and abstracts, is shallow, expository in nature and never develops the characters.  Orpheus and Eurydice fall in love in a snap without any reason behind their attraction, except that they are gorgeous people.  Other characters are one dimensional, like Orpheus' fiancé Mira (Lourdes de Oliveira), who constantly rages with suspicion and jealousy.  The actions of the characters seem to serve as a means to move from one picturesque locale to the next. 

The greatest complaint regards how the poor of Brazil are represented onscreen.  Instead of desperately poor and miserable, the favelistas are simple yet happy folks, always filled with song and dance.  The writer for moviediva.com summarizes several views: "Poverty [is] romanticized, with the squalid favelas shown as picturesque neighborhoods, blessed with great views and colorful décor, filled with charming, carefree, sexually joyful people."  Dan Schneider of culturevulture.net decries the characters of Serafina and Chico - Eurydice's cousin and her lover respectively - as playing to the worst racial stereotypes:  Brazilian versions of Aunt Jemima and Stepin Fetchit.  He also notes that the "constant dancing and gaiety of the mainly black cast is also not conducive toward showing them in a positive light." Brazilian film scholar Fernao Pessoa Ramos, quoted in moviediva.com, calls this a "mythical perspective typical of foreigners."

Indeed, the film shows the lifestyle and culture of the favelistas without addressing the problems of poverty.  The homes, when they are seen, are not as squalid, the women wear neat, fashionable dresses and there are always smiles as bright as the sun.  Serafina and Chico do resemble the stereotypical Blacks in old Hollywood films, who appeared onscreen briefly to fuss and argue and give gut busting comic relief for White audiences.  Chico is a big lug who eats and sleeps constantly and cannot remember Eurydice three seconds after he meets her, and Serafina over-reacts to his idiocy with cries of incredulousness and hands placed on hips. 

Despite his "tourist view" of Brazil and especially the conditions of the favelas (far more desperate today that 50 years ago), Camus does have, whether on purpose or by coincidence, the poor's perspective on Carnival correct.  Carnival is four days once a year when Brazil's poor puts the stress and misery of their existence behind them, and descend upon the city to samba and make merry until it is over.  Samba school members spend mad money - more than they can afford - on elaborate costumes in order to participate in the Carnival parade.  A scene in Black Orpheus shows Serafina informing Eurydice that her food money was spent on her Carnival costume, and must bribe a grocer for credit with kisses.  Carnival is a time that the poor look forward to all year.  So it stands to reason that the anticipation of those days would induce smiles and laughter, drums and cowbells to warm up, party décor to grace houses and trees and feet to move in the two-step.  Black Orpheus takes place on the day before, of and after Carnival, not the days of the year that surround it.

The Brazilian Perspective

There is no question that Black Orpheus was written, produced and directed by French filmmakers (along with an Italian and Brazilian production companies).  But some French film historians as well as Brazilians call the film Brazilian, while Brazilians call it French.  The position of the latter group is reflected in Camus' application of his European sensitivities to Brazilian subject matter, resulting in an "imagined community constructed for foreign eyes," as film historian Ivana Bentes puts it. 

In the 1950's, Brazilian filmmakers were making films that challenged the Hollywood style films that dominated movie houses and dictated audiences' tastes.  Cinema novo, as this movement was called, put social issues like poverty, Brazil's growing multiculturalism and crime at the center of their films.  Essayist Glauco Ortolano describes the movement as "promoting cinema as a mirror in which society could view a truthful picture of itself, an offshoot of... cinema verite."  Black Orpheus has none of the characteristics of cinema novo, let alone the French New Wave of Camus' native country.  It was much like the Hollywood fare that was distributed in Brazil and that her audiences readily accepted. 

Those embraced the film see it differently.  Ortolano writes that it "captured the hearts of an entire generation," calling it history making and recommended viewing for anyone seeking to know Brazilian cinema.  The film has also been called "a celebration of Brazilian culture," as nearly every aspect of the production in front of and behind the camera is in some way Brazilian.  Black Orpheus was a celebration of "the blackness of Brazil," according to the writer of moviediva.com, "Something Brazilian films themselves had often avoided."  No doubt Afro-Brazilians' were happy to see their kind on the big screen, much like African-American's response to Hollywood's all Black productions or a Black actor on the screen.

*****

Black Orpheus left a lasting impression on audiences around the world.  It displayed the beauty and culture of Brazil and the splendor and spirit of Carnival of Rio in Technicolor brilliance; it showcased samba, both sacred and profane, with its soul moving rhythm and exciting dance moves; and introduced the new jazz style bossa nova.

Critics point out the story's shortcomings, Camus' anthropological treatment of Rio, his rose tinted look at life in the favelas, and black stereotypes among the characters.  Though valid issues, audiences embrace the film despite.  For Brazilians, it is their culture displayed on film for the world to see, and one of few films where Afro-Brazilians see themselves.  For others, it is a fascinating look at a culture during its most revered festival, set to one of the most vibrant music styles in the world.  A more modern remake, 1999's Orfeu, fails to stir the enthusiasm for myth and Carnival as did Black Orpheus.

Black Orpheus is, at its heart, a romance:  A tale of two people, destined to fall in love, and destined for their love and lives to end tragically.  Around them a city explodes in celebration as drums beat to drive away the sorrows of poverty and unrestrained dancing invites the possession of spirits past.  As they dance together, Orpheus and Eurydice welcome into themselves the spirits of their past selves and past love.  They both meet their tragic demise, and their bodies lay on a ledge below the favela, a boy with a guitar and a little girl dance to the bossa nova.  Their samba opens the way for Orpheus and Eurydice to live and love again.

Stephen Hart is a Clayton County Georgia librarian by day, and a screenwriter and filmmaker night and weekends. He is a staff writer for CinemATL.