Frederick Schiff - Brazilian Film and Military Censorship Cinema Novo 1964 1974

Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television
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Brazilian Film and Military Censorship: Cinema Novo,

1964–1974
Frederick Schiff
To cite this article: Frederick Schiff (1993) Brazilian�Film�and�Military�Censorship:�Cinema

Novo,�1964–1974 , Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 13:4, 469-494, DOI:
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Hiswrical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 13, No. 4, 1993 469
Brazilian Film and Military Censorship:

Cinema Novo, 1964-1974
F R E D E R I C K S C H I F F , University of Houston
The Cinema Novo ("new cinema") was born in Brazil in the late 1950s in response to
underdevelopment, poverty, hunger, the imitative comedy revues, or "chanchadas", of
Hollywood-style local studios, and the domination of the national film industry by
American distributors. Drawing on regional folklore, indigenous music and imagery,
and national literary classics, Cinema Novo film-makers received major awards on the
international festival circuit in the early 1960s. Major international recognition came to
Brazilian auteurs with Anselmo Duarte's The Given Word ( 0 pagador de promessas,
1962); Nelson Pereira dos Santos' Barren Lives (Vidas s~cas, 1963); Glauber Rocha's
Black God, White Devil (Deus e diabo na terra do sol, 1964); and Ruy Guerra's The Guns
(Os Fuzis, 1964) [1]. Cinema Nova leaders came to dominate the Brazilian film
industry in the period of military dictatorship, which lasted from the 1964 coup until
1985. Their first films adopted the techniques of Italian neo-Realists in dealing with life
of the slums, or "favelas", that surround Brazilian cities (for example, in five vignettes
by separate directors in Five Times A Slum or Cinco Vezes Favela, 1962) and with the
rural poor (Glauber Rocha's The Turning Wind or Barraventos, 1962). Other so-called
"sertao" films focused on peasant life, mystics and rebel-bandits in the draught-ridden
northeast (an indigenous badlands). With the 1964 military repression, Cinema Novo
turned to the quandary of urban intellectuals after the overthrow of democratic
government--Cesar Saraceni's The Challenge ( 0 desafio, 1966) and Rocha's Land in
Anguish (Terra em transe, 1967). As the military regime became more repressive in
1969, the Cinema Novo directors entered a "tropicalist" period with films that took
more allegoric, metaphoric and satiric forms--Guerra's The Gods and the Dead (Os
deuses e os mottos, 1969); Joaquim Pedro de Andrade's Macundima, 1969; Carlos
Diegnes' The Heirs (Os herdeiros, 1969); and Nelson Pereira dos Santos' How Tasty Was
M y Little Frenchman (Como era gostoso meu frances, 1970).
My interest in Cinema Novo is in the work of middle phases (1964-1974) of this
socially conscious school of film directors when they adapted to the repression of the
military government while benefiting from its support for expanding Brazilian film
production. The question here is the relationship between social problem films and
political authoritarianism in recent Brazilian history: to what extent and in what ways
did the Cinema Novo, within the national film industry, embody or oppose the
ideological assumptions that the military used to gain and keep public support?
While the press in this period either was silenced or else supported the military [2],
Cinema Novo continued to exhibit an illusive oppositional character. The basic idea is
to study the relationship of art and censorship--in the context of state sponsorship and
multinational market penetration--of Cinema Novo as a possible outline of the limits
of legitimacy in an anti-democratic era. By examining the subtexts of what was cut out
470 F. S c h i f f
FIG. 1. International recognition came to Cinema Novo in the 1960s. Here~ we see the penance of
Geraldo del Rey as Manuel before Lidio Silva as the messianic Sebasti]o (black god) in Black God, I ~ i t e
Devil (dir. Glauber Rocha, Deus e o diabo na terra do sol, 1964). Photo: Museum of Modern Art/Film Stills
and what was left in the iconography, dialogue and plot of the films and b y reading the
published certificates and archival records o f the military censors, one can reconstruct
the ideological themes of the military regime.
T h e present study will first sketch the ideological n o r m s of the military regime; then
describe the censorship reports that the government used to control and modify film
representations. T h e examination is limited by the availability o f censorship reports of
C i n e m a N o v o films that were politically problematic for the censors before and during
the formative stages o f the military administration. Excellent commentaries in English
on the key C i n e m a N o v o films already exist [3]. T h e films themselves are now not
generally available, except in specialized c o l l e c t i o n s - - m a i n l y in the M u s e u de Arte
M o d e r n a , Instituto Brasileira de Arte e C u l t u r a and Banco d o Brasil's C e n t r o Cultural
(all in Rio de Janeiro) and the F u n d a c a o C i n e m a t a c a Brasileira (in Sao Paulo} [4]. N o
single archive even in Brazil has all 2 0 0 - o d d feature-length films (plus about 90 shorts),
o f which a b o u t 135 were m a d e in the study p e r i o d between 1960 and 1974. Only
Brazilian Film and Military Censorship 471
FIG. 2. Othon Bastos as the rebel-bandit Corisco (white Devil) holds Mauricio do Vale as the blind singer
Juli~o in Black God, White Devil. Other outlaw cangaceiros and Manuel stand, listening among the barren
shrubs of the sert~o. Photo: Museum of Modem Art/Film Stills
scattered films are available outside of the country [5]. A travel-to-collection grant from
the National E n d o w m e n t to the H u m a n i t i e s enabled me to see 35 films in the Rio
collections. N u m e r o u s films were not available in Rio. T h e censorship reports were
obtained from the National Archive in Brasilia [6]. T h e reports were released in 1988
by the D e p a r t m e n t of the Federal Police, three years after the country returned to
civilian rule. For the 1960-1974 period, the National Archive staff was able to find
reports on 58 C i n e m a Novo films in their files. T h e r e were no censorship files available
for 16 of the films I saw. T h e ideological profile is based, partly, on having lived and
interviewed extensively throughout Brazil during the military dictatorship as well as on
systematic survey research of "61ite" opinion and historical scholarship into the mili-
tary's role.
The S o c i o - E c o n o m i c Context o f Brazil's Film Industry

C i n e m a Novo films were originally shown in cinema clubs and art theatres to middle
class audiences, intellectuals and student groups. Subsequently, the films have received
additional attention through university film festivals, retrospectives and occasional
television specials. T h e copyrights for a few of the films have b e e n acquired by a couple
of the large television networks (TV Globo and T V Manchete), which have made video
472 F. Schiff
cassettes for home rental. In short, few Cinema Novo films received wide distribution
in commercial theaters oriented to the public at large.
Brazilian film-makers charge multinational distributors with "dumping" Hollywood
films onto the local market at prices below the cost of making national films. Successive
military governments increased to 144 the number of quota days that theaters had to
exhibit national films. Carlos Diegues, a Cinema Novo director, whose Xica da Silva
(1976) and Bye Bye Brasil (1980) reached large Brazilian audiences and successfully
crossed over to the American market, says that in the mid-1970s local exhibitors were
showing more days of national films than required by law. In a recent interview, he
recalls that 35 per cent of the days were reserved for nationally-produced films in 1976
but that national films occupied 50 per cent of the market. However, box office records
are generally unreliable and for the years in question were never tabulated nationally.
Nevertheless, he argues that the audience for national products exists whenever the
bottlenecks of financing and distribution are freed from transnational corporate control
through state-sponsored subsidies and a government-run promotion network. Diegues'
experience is instructive. At least 8 million Brazilians saw Xica da Silva (1976) and
more than I million saw Bye Bye Brasil (1980), according to Randall Johnson [7].
Despite the relative success of such films, Johnson points out that of 1329 films shown
on television in Rio de Janeiro in 1975, only six were Brazilian.
Ironically, under the political "opening" (or "apertura") permitted by President
Ernesto Geisel (between 1974 and 1979) and under subsequent military planners, the
Brazilian film industry enjoyed more protection and success than it does today. The
industry also has suffered from state-subsidized growth of television and the prolonged
economic stagnation since the early 1980s. Theater admissions fell from around 260
million per year in the 1970s to about 80 million in 1990, according to Diegues. In the
early 1970s, Brazil had 3500 theatres; by 1992, 1200 remained. Most of the theatres
that closed were in poor urban neighbourhoods and interior regions. In 1989, civilian
former-President Fernando Collor de Mello eliminated all market reserves for national
films; production has fallen to less than a dozen films a year from a high of around 100
pictures in the late 1970s. Throughout, Brazil's craft-style film-makers have had to
compete with Hollywood's industrial-style studios. Exhibitors and TV networks rent
American movies at a fraction of the price of the national product. Both Diegues and
another film-maker, David Neves [8], named a half dozen companies that monopolize
ownership of the theatres and film distribution. Television network ownership is even
more concentrated.
The Ideology of the National Security State

The military regime created a political and ideological context that must be seen
historically. In his classic case study of military politics in Brazil, Alfred Stepan [9]
compares its extra-constitutional "moderating" role in four coups between 1945 and
1961 (when the military intervened and then returned the country to civilian control)
and the new ideology of the 1964 takeover. The military developed a belief in its own
legitimacy and capacity to rule in the late 1950s through the creation of the Superior
War College (Escola Superior de Guerra). The military sought to respond partly to
Brazil's continuing underdevelopment and partly to emerging revolutionary move-
ments. According to ESG doctrine, Communism was defined as the enemy, the USA
was viewed as a natural ally, and internal subversion was considered the principal
danger. Basic change was seen as necessary to avoid revolution. Stepan [10] describes
E S G ideology as a total managerial view that justified the progressive militarization of

all phases of society and centralization of power to impose policies impossible to
implement democratically. The new national security ideology offered a coherent set of
policies. It would reject "emotional" nationalism based on inefficient state corporatism;
rely on unfettered private enterprise; liberalize trade, tariff and capital exchanges; and
favor alliances abroad with the USA. It legitimated direct administrative control by the
military and gave officers a sense of detailed technical competence in the problems of
governance.
T h o u g h the majority of army officers did not share this view of internal war, Gen.
H u m b e r t o de Alencar Castello Branco, who embodied E S G ideas, was n a m e d presi-
dent soon after the military mobilized on 31 March 1964. T h e "castelistas" wanted to
clean out subversive and corrupt politicians (especially the populist president, Jo~o
Goulart) and return the country to a more ideal democracy. Castello Branco pursued
an orthodox "liberal" but gradualist approach to opening the e c o n o m y for foreign
imports and investments and to foreign exchange reforms and fiscal austerity [11]. For
21 years, the military would rule directly but would refuse to create a personalist
dictatorship nor would it create a one-party state. In O'Donnell's terms [12], Brazil was
a "bureaucratic-authoritarian" regime with succession based on officer consensus.
T h e military establishment, however, always had a hardline tendency that had at its
core the military intelligence apparatus [13]. President Arthur da Costa e Silva assumed
power in March 1967 as a hardliner, or "durista". The preference for anti-political,
centralized, technocratic planning intensified. A new constitution and a series of
executive decrees, known as "institutional acts", established a legal structure for
unimpeded central planning. Primarily, the objective was to demobilize the populace,
which was done legally. After a renewal of worker and mass protests in 1968 and
isolated guerrilla actions, the Fifth Institutional Act was issued in December and the
crackdown began [14]. T h e censorship norms were codified under the Fifth Institu-
tional Act, especially after 1972,
[t]he topics most often forbidden were student political activities, workers'
movements, individuals deprived of their political rights and bad news about
the economy. Most sensitive of all was news about the military--anything that
might cause dissention [sic] among the military or tension between the military
and the public . . . Highest on the list were the activities of the security
apparatus and the struggle for the presidential succession. [15]
T h e Policia Militar become a federal police force under army command, used instead
of regular troops for routine political control. T h e censorship office (or Divis~o de
Censura de Divers6es Pfiblicas) operated under federal police authority. Federal
censorship actually began in 1906, edited out morally offensive materials during the
dictatorship of Getulio Vargas, 1937-1946, and operated under diverse restrictive
philosophies from 1964 to 1988 [16].
In early 1969, Gen. Emilio Garrastazu M~dici became president. During the so-
called "economic miracle" from 1968 to 1973 Brazil's gross domestic product grew by
10.8 per cent per year, underwritten by geometric growth in the accumulated foreign
debt [17]. T h e state now supported a more nationalist, corporatist development
agenda. T h e military bureaucracy needed other 61ites. Outspoken dissidents were
purged, public discussion was stifled, but private opinion remained a source of opposi-
tion.
M c D o n o u g h [18] shows that by the early 1970s the regime was in the midst of a
474 F. Schiff
prolonged crisis of legitimacy. His analysis is based on opinion surveys he conducted in

1972 and 1973 of 269 members of the "tlites". He characterizes Brazil as a country of
traditionally "limited pluralism", meaning the upper class and a small middle class were
enfranchised while the mass of the public never participated in civil or political society.
Each 61ite traditionally had influence in a separate institutional or patrimonial area.
McDonough finds three ideological cleavages that underpin the legitimacy of the
regime. (1) His informants did share a negative consensus on the rules of the game but
not a hegemonic program nor a dominant ideology. After 1964, the military rulers
displaced them. All 61ire sectors favored some reduction in the power of the military,
the technocrats and the multinationals. (2) The most forceful cleavage was a progres-
sive-conservative dimension containing policy issues, most prominently, the question of
the trade-off between capital accumulation and income redistribution, implicit in
agrarian reform and issues of political participation of peasants, students and the
church. (3) A third dimension relating to moral issues (such as legalizing divorce and
abortion and offering birth control) did not directly affect the legitimacy of the regime.
McDonough categorizes 61ites into three major camps based on the priorities they
assign to economic development, social well-being and political liberalization. He finds
the basis for the authoritarian compromise was a coalition of (1) development-at-any-
cost "economists", and (2) some-growth-some-equality "social reformers"; (3) the
"politicians" had been disaccredited. The economists (state managers and the business
community) and the politicians (both loyalists and the opposition) were opposed on
fundamental values and developmental priorities. McDonough says the crisis of legiti-
macy occurred with the desertion of the social reformers (concentrated among the
bishops and labour leaders as well as scattered across the other 61ite sectors) when they
felt themselves not safe from the terror. The social reformers and politicians were the
loyal opposition who had their rights as 61ites to bargain and compete for power and
who agreed on restricting the political participation of the military [19]. All 61ites saw
the two-party system (loyalist and opposition parties created by the military in 1965) as
illegitimate. The military's sustained intrusion on the bases of power and patronage of
their estates was unacceptable. In the developmental agendas of different 61ires, Mc-
Donough [20] sees the basis for opposition to sustained military rule to the extent it
violated the norm of restricted, inter-61ite pluralism. In short, non-military 61ires and
successive military administrations failed to accept the national security ideology as a
legitimate basis for continued rule.
Images of Opposition [21]

A few film-makers (Nelson Pereira dos Santos' Rio, 40 Graus, 1955 and Rio, Zona
Notre, 1957; Alex Viany's Agulha no Paleiro, 1953 and Rua Sere Sol, 1954) associated
with Cinema Novo were directing in the 1950s. The original group of eight or nine
young directors was reacting to the Vera Cruz studio which had imitated Hollywood's
illusionism and methods. They were influenced by post-war Italian neo-Realism and
the French nouvelle vague, which encouraged them to make films about everyday
Brazilian life. In the late 1950s under democratically-elected President Juscelino Ku-
bitschek, Brazil was animated by its own industrializing potential, a fresh-built capital
in Brasilia, its world champion soccer teams, "bossa nova" music and a developmental-
ist desire to create an authentic national culture. Television had arrived in the 1950s,
incorporating whatever B-rated film industry Brazil had. Young film-makers could not
compete with the studio system of professional actors, a full-time technical staff and
expensive sets. The newcomers made films cheaply in the streets, using local non-pro-
fessional actors, lighter hand-held Arriflex cameras and natural lighting with Dupont's
new sensitive 3 • film. The nucleus formed around Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Carlos
Diegues, Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, Leon I-Iirszman, Ruy Guerra, Paulo C+sar
Saraceni, Glauber Rocha and Amaldo Jabor. They met at the Museum of Modern Art
in Rio and founded the first cinematheque in the city. Some were students at the
Catholic university like Diegues and Jabot; Hirszman studied at the national university;
Rocha came from Bahia. Rocha, Guerra and Diegues wrote about films before they
produced their own. Above all, they considered themselves enlightened intellectuals
who opposed those "colonized" Brazilians trying to reproduce the cultural style of
industrialized countries, who sought to teach the "povo" (the illiterate, poor masses)
about the country's underdevelopment and who wanted to create in film an authentic
expression of the nation [22]. In an interview, dos Santos [23] recollects,
Cinema Novo is a group of auteurs whose cultural politics involve a collective
practice . . . We do not subscribe to a common aesthetic. Each of us enjoys
freedom of subject matter and means of expression.
Johnson [24], Stam [25], Hollyman [26] and Burton [27] describe four thematic
genre of Cinema Novo films, which they variously periodize: 1960-1962, the "favelas"
and rural poor; 1963-1964, the "sertSo"; 1965-1968, urban intellectuals; 1969-1974,
tropicalism. Burton [28] distinguishes the initial phase (1960-1964) from later periods
of self-criticism (1964-1968) and tropicalism (1968-1972). Cinema Novo directors
made fewer films in 1973-1974 as a number of directors, artists and intellectuals went
into voluntary exile and the censors became tougher. This article stops with 1974.
Complicating the overall picture were a series of industry-level, state-sponsored
organizations created to promote national films. The Executive Group of the Film
Industry (Grupo Executivo da Indflstria Cinematogrfifica, or GEICINE) came into
being in 1961, and then the Instituto Nacional do Cinema (INC) was created by
executive decree by Castello Branco in 1966. In 1969, state-sponsored Embrafilme (the
Empresa Brasileira de Filmes) was created initially to promote national films overseas,
later to co-finance film production, and eventually to distribute in the national market.
In 1974 with the Cinema Novo support, Roberto Farias became director of the
Embrafilme. In each instance, Cinema Novo directors opposed these organizations as
right-wing, centralized attempts to control the film industry even though they ulti-
mately benefited from Embrafilme's largesse in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Censorship Records

The records were moved from the Federal Police in 1988 when film censorship was
replaced by a parental-advisory rating system. Under military supervision, live theatre
was subject to strict pre-production censorship, and the broadcast of some recorded
popular songs were even prohibited, whereas films were usually reviewed only after they
were complete. Each film was reviewed by at least three censors, who were police
officers often given additional education in university-level communication programs.
Each censor wrote an opinion, or "parecer", consisting of a technical form and
commentary. Censors were expected to write separate technical, artistic and moral
(often meaning, political) judgments. Each censor could recommend: unrestricted
distribution; restricted exhibition to audiences of 10-, 14- or 18-year-olds (with or
without cuts); or prohibiting the film in its entirety. Separate approval was required for
476 F. Schiff
trailers and for televised exhibition. Licenses h a d to be reviewed and renewed periodi-
cally. T h e censors also d e c i d e d whether to allow the film to be exported. T h e final
decision filtered through several layers of police officials, who sometimes revised
recommendations.
Producers occasionally appealed rulings in "recursos" to higher authorities or asked
for reconsideration. T h e p r o d u c e r s frequently claimed p o s t - p r o d u c t i o n cuts would
d a m a g e the box office value of the film, a persuasive a r g u m e n t for authorities interested
in p r o m o t i n g a national film industry. Diegues [29] says that restricting showings to
those over 18 years old usually m e a n t commercial failure. Producers t u r n e d to film
lobbyists and expediters. Avellar [30] speaks o f at least one company, Paulinho Sergie's
C i n e m a N o v o Promo~6es: " T h e r e existed a team, a m e t h o d to get t h r o u g h the censors.
T h e y could be corrupted with dinners or w o m e n " .
In general, one speaks of three censorship periods: civilian control up to 1963;
m o d e r a t e military control 1964-1968; and hardline military control, 1969-1974. T h e
58 censorship reports collected represent all those files available in the N a t i o n a l Archive
o f directors on a comprehensive list o f C i n e m a N o v o directors by H o l l y m a n [31],
revised and u p d a t e d to the mid-1970s. A search was m a d e for all 135 feature films in
the period 1960-1974 [32]. T h e archive director was n o t able to explain why m o r e than
half the reports were missing. T h e federal police required censorship reports for all
films exhibited in the country, which suggests the p r o b l e m is in a h a p h a z a r d earlier file
system or in the partial transfer of files. In the 1961-1963 period, there are 12 reports;
from 1964 to 1968, 23 reports; from 1969 to 1974, another 23 reports.
C e n s o r s h i p in the Civilian P e r i o d
U n d e r the civilian regime prior to 1964, censors gave C i n e m a N o v o films an 18-year-
old rating most of the time. O f the 12 censorship reports on file for 1961-1963, m a n y
discuss films which favourably p o r t r a y criminals or include sex scenes that violated
public decorum.
In Assault on the Pay Train (Assalto ~o trem pagador, 1962), Roberto Farias portrays
a b a n d of black slum dwellers as tragic heroes who rob a payroll train b u t turn on each
other in a failed a t t e m p t to keep their secret. O n e censor notes the favorable treatment
o f the b a n d ' s leader, Ti~o M e d o n h o , as a caring provider a n d m a n o f honor, who dies
after a police a m b u s h b u t still tries to pass the m o n e y to his impoverished and
persecuted children and lovers. T h e narrative structure invites identification. Even
t h o u g h in the end crime does n o t pay, the censors initially referred to the double
message and worried that i m m a t u r e audiences might sympathize with the robbers and
so restricted the film to those over 18 years old. In 1965, arguing that the actual events
h a d received detailed press coverage, censors approved the film for 10-year-olds.
A n early C i n e m a N o v o award-winner, Barren Lives (Vidas s~cas, 1963) by N e l s o n
Pereira dos Santos was minimally restricted to those over 10. Based on a novel by
Graciliano R a m o s set in the barren interior of the northeast, a region subject to
recurrent periods o f drought, the film's oppositional stance completely escapes the
censors. A peasant family, F a b i a n o , Vit6ria, their two boys and a dog, are forced
through the dry land looking for food, shelter and employment. F a b i a n o is cheated by
his landed employer, forced into a card game he does n o t u n d e r s t a n d and beaten in jail
b y soldiers to enforce his ritual subjugation. Subjective camera-angle shots and the
inarticulate protagonists allow for little critical reflection. Yet at crucial junctures the
possibility of resistance is presented. A former fellow prisoner offers the cowherd a
chance to join an undefined armed band, and before Fabiano is forced off the land
again by advancing drought, he finds his police tormentor in the shrub. Fabiano raises
a machete above the man's head. The lighting of the sertSo sun and the use of harsh
sounds without any musical score (the g a t i n g creak of an oxcart moving down a
parched hillside opens the film credits) capture a stark naturalism. It's as if the facts of
climatic and class deprivation are common knowledge, too well known to censor.
On the other hand, another early classic, Glauber Rocha's The Turning Wind
(Barravento, 1962), was prohibited by censors because of its message of black revolt.
Firmino, a black city pimp in an ill-fitting white suit, returns to his native fishing village
in the northeastern state of Bahia. Firrnino harangues the fishermen to rebel against a
white absentee proprietor, who lends them a communal net in return for a large part
of the catch. He struggles with Aruan, esteemed by the villagers and protected by the
goddess of the sea, Iemanjfi. Firmino conspires with his prostitute lover to seduce and
demystify the virgin Arnan. Firmino secretly cuts the net, forcing the fishermen to
return to their traditional lashed-together log rafts, or '~iangadas", freeing them from
economic dependency. The men, exposed, go out to the high seas. Like a violent sea
tempest, or "barravento", Firmino arrives suddenly, leaving death and causing transfor-
mation, and then disappears. Afro-Christian rituals and music of candombl6, samba de
roda and capoeira symbolically bind the villagers to their passivity and enslavement.
Aruan, now marginalized, leaves for the city. In 1963, a censor, who proscribed the
film, complained about its subversive message, repeated in a subliminal manner: "I
don't understand the creole urging the coloreds [os negros] to revolt, claiming that
blacks [os pr~tos] are considered a sub-race living exploited by whites, who don't give
them a minimal opportunity to survive, living totally at their cost." In Brazil, racism
supposedly does not exist.
Perhaps the most radically-oppositional vision is represented by filmmaker Ruy
Guerra. The Hustlers (Os cafajestes, 1962), about the urban underworld and the
marginalized lives of the upper middle class, was banned for 10 days by Rio's police
chief, who saw it as an apology for crimes against Christian morality. Vavfi, the playboy
son of a bankrupt banker, tries unsuccessfully to blackmail his wealthy uncle with the
help of a hustler, Jandir. They take nude photographs of the uncle's lover and later of
his daughter on a deserted beach. Relationships, driven by materialism and exploitive
exchanges, lead nowhere. In Guerra's dialectic style, documentary hand-held camera
shots often displace and interpose fictional sequences, and characters exchange places
on scene while maintaining the continuity of the dialogue. The police ban was lifted
and the federal censors allowed the film's showing after protests by artists and
intellectuals. The film included the first frontal nudity scene, which later censors
ordered cut in 1967. The film's structural attack on capitalist values went uncensored.
The censors gave Guerra's highly political The Guns (Os fuzis, 1963) the same
18-year-old rating although they complained about "insinuations of a socialist charac-
ter". A police detachment marches into a small interior town in the northeast to protect
a grain warehouse from starving peasants. But the dramatic tension is not between the
wealthy landlord and the impassive, fatalistic peasants. The villagers, played by local
Brazilians, worship a "sacred" ox and pray for rain. The conflict, meanwhile, is between
Gaficho, an itinerant driver from southern Brazil whose truck has broken down and
who soon runs out of money, and the forces of order (not law), who for the thrill of
sport and martial technology shoot a villager. Gaficho, an enlightened outsider angered
by the starvation death of a child, is the only one who takes up a rifle to stop the grain
shipment from leaving in trucks for the capital. He is hunted and killed. Z6 is the soldier
478 F. Schiff
killer. M a r i o is the soldier hero who falls in love with a local w o m a n Luzia and who
slowly realizes his contradictory role. As he leaves with the detachment, the townspeo-
ple tear the ox apart piece b y b l o o d y piece. Schwartz [33] points to the discontinuity
and separation of a d o c u m e n t a r y film o f d r o u g h t and unchanging poverty played by
local inhabitants as extras and the fictional film played by professional actors, who are
capable of transformation and with w h o m the audience identifies. H e calls it a
decentered dialectic based on fear, shame, fury and moral crisis--focused on the
soldiers. T h e violence of h u n g e r remains. In addition, an internal contradiction goes
unresolved as urban, salaried, lower class p o l i c e m e n oppress p o o r (lower class) peasants
in the n a m e of (upper class) private property. T h e film was allowed to be shown u n d e r
civilian controls and, later, u n d e r the military censors who m a y have b e e n seen it as
about a safely long-standing, regional "social p r o b l e m " . Still, a police censor in 1965
perceived the film in the political terms, saying, "Police soldiers in a town in the interior
bring disorder in the n a m e of the law". In a 1977 re-examination, however, a censor
r e c o m m e n d e d the film be denied an export license because it was "typically subversive
in only showing scenes detrimental to our country . . . [concentrating on] just the
negative aspects with p r e m e d i t a t e d exaggeration". H e objected to scenes o f "fathers
selling their daughters for the sexual pleasure of truck drivers in order to get enough
m o n e y to buy food; a father begging for a [cardboard] box to bury his child, who died
of hunger; police violence against the unfortunate; the p r o m o t i o n of p o p u l a r revolt; the
a p p a r e n t use of police weapons against the people; inciting to class conflict; and the
pathetic meal at the e n d when an ox dies in the r o a d and the hungry m o b swarms over
the cadaver, fighting for small pieces of b l o o d y meat to assuage their hunger". T h e
same military censor says the call for class struggle is against the national interest. H e
quotes one villager who says, "It's necessary to have a uniform to have a right to eat".
Censorship Under the Moderate Military, 1964-1968

A m o n g the 23 reports in censorship files, only two films were b a n n e d .
Racial Integration (Integraf~o racial, 1964) by Paulo C6sar Saraceni d o c u m e n t s
discrimination in a series o f 12 interviews in Rio de Janeiro and S~o Paulo. In sequence
No. 2, a w o m a n from the northeast confesses she wants to m a r r y a Spaniard or
Portuguese, adding, "Indians are a b a c k w a r d race . . . and blacks for m e aren't
agreeable". I n N o . 6, a b r o w n - s k i n n e d w o m a n recounts how one early relationship
e n d e d when the m o t h e r o f a boyfriend d i d n ' t like her because she was a w o m a n of
colour. In No. 7, a married w o m a n recalls her doubts, the n e i g h b o u r h o o d scandal and
her black h u s b a n d ' s rejection of a white baby who she said m u s t have been exchanged
in error in the hospital:
W h e n [the baby] was with me, I adored h i m as if he were mine. But then it
came out in the newspaper when the other m o t h e r said he was m i s t r e a t e d . . .
M y h u s b a n d d i d n ' t want m e to create a s c a n d a l . . . I d i d n ' t want to keep this
little b o y anymore because he w a s n ' t m i n e and he ate too m u c h . . . Everybody
c o m m e n t e d that the boy was clear-skinned and the other was b l a c k . . . I said
to m y husband: " T h e boy can't be ours".
In a final sequence in a union hall meeting, a m a n agitates a m o n g working-class p o o r
Black people whose a d v a n c e m e n t is blocked. T h e initial censor reports are missing.
Censors in 1970 said the film was against national security; d a m a g e d the image of the
country; distorted reality; was unconvincing because it was contradictory, superficial
and lacked in scientific rigour; and made racial integration appear accidental and
insubstantial. They voted for prohibition: "Consider that racial integration in Brazil is
not a problem and the film presents it as problematic, consider that the primary and
contradictory exposition might create racial prejudices that never existed before, and
finally consider that the last controversial segment incites class conflict". The worker's
remarks were cut from a later version of the film.
In 1967, Glauber Rocha made Land in Anguish (Terra em transe), which was banned
until 1972. The story is a flashback during the death agony of Paulo Martins, a young
poet and would-be revolutionary in a generic Latin American country, Eldorado. The
narrator-protrgr, Paulo, initially idealizes a Right-wing leader, Porfirio Diaz. Seeking
political expression, Paulo turns to Felipe Vieira, a liberal populist provincial governor,
whose false promises are soon unmasked when a peasant leader, Felicio, begs for his
help to recover his land, is restrained by a priest and is killed by Vieira's bodyguard.
Disillusioned, Paulo escapes into decadent orgies and existential self-doubt. In the
campaign for the presidency, Diaz allies with Explint, a shadowy foreign corporation,
while Vieira revels in carnivalesque politics with Communist support. Paulo makes a
film documenting the political betrayals of his father-double, Diaz. Rejecting Paulo's
offer of a gun to fight an electoral day coup, Vieira issues platitudes to the media
instead. Paulo, faced with the twin impasse of status quo politics, flees from the palace
with the guerrilla activist Sara. Final shots of Diaz's coronation alternate with the
suicidal silhouette of Paulo with a uplifted machine gun. The intellectual left after 1964
faced similar choices among empty populist promises, dictatorial pretensions, sexual
escapism and dead-end armed extremism. The ruling political and military 61ires
camouflaged or denied the existence of problems. The land is in a trance; the individual
suffers anguished defeat; the poet (artist and filmmaker) confronts the reality of coup
and class conflict and finds his purity and romanticism naive, limited, dependent; the
anti-hero is as much a passive spectator as the "people", only more critical and
self-critical. Several censors recognized in their comments the film's "great significance
for the current situation" in its "call for armed revolt of the masses and condemnation
of repressive demagogues and oppressive poverty". They considered it a Leftist
"apology for the conflict between the rich and poor" and contrary to the interests of
national security. They objected to the presentation of populism, false preachings
("pregag~es"), administrative corruption, and the interference of the Roman Catholic
Church in political affairs. Although the majority voted for interdiction, one censor
defended and listed the military's rational solutions to the "real" problems presented in
the film. Another dismissed the film as philosophical about a non-existent country and,
moreover, as a film so abstract, symbolic and surrealistic that the public would have
difficulty interpreting it. Finally, the chief of the censorial service personally previewed
the film, ruling to proscribe it for being "leftist and contrary to national interests". He
objected to the "ideological message against accepted cultural values" and cited the
irreverence in the impersonation of a Catholic priest who restrains the peasant leader
before he was killed and to libertine practices and lesbian scenes. The director agreed
to give the priest a name so as not to defame priests in general or the Catholic Church
as an institution. After protests by the producer, the director-general of the federal
police, Col. Florimar Campello, agreed to its being shown to audiences over 18 years
old. In 1974, censors prohibited its television exhibition.
Most censored films were restricted to the 18-year-old category because of sex
scenes, excessive violence, or representations that disparaged institutions, such as
marriage, religion or the national parliament. However, a number of reports refer to
480 t v. Schiff
changes in the censorship criteria at the time. As in other forms of governmental

regulation, the operation of the censorship office produced quotidian problems.
When censors denied The Departed One (.4 falecida, 1965) an export license, the
producers appealed because "the income from domestic showings has not so far
covered the costs" and because serious Brazilian cinema "needs to recover the cost of
production". Leon Hirszman's version of a story by Nelson Rodrigues is about a
depressive married woman, Zulmira, who in a pique of middle class moral revenge
prepares her own suicide and luxurious burial once an affair is discovered by a
suburban neighbour. The husband is forced to learn the humiliating details when, as
promised, he seeks the money for burial from her lover, who pays a pittance. Zulmira
is buried almost as an indigent. The film's 18-year-old designation in the domestic
market would not yield a profit. Sometimes a producer's practical considerations could
outweigh moral-political restraints.
In Bebel, A Would-Be Star (Bebel, a garrta propaganda, 1967), a federal deputy who
runs down a little girl is beaten and killed by a crowd. The president of the Chamber
of Deputies protested to the censorship division. Fourteen minutes were cut, censors
said the scene "moved part of the audience to clap after marginal types acted against
the police and a federal deputy". The director, Maurice Capoville, citing The Land in
Anguish as precedent, offered to give the deputy a name to remove parliamentary
objections.
Sometimes the social pretensions defended by those who worked in the censorship
office can be detected from seemingly tangential comments in the reports. The censors'
position as film critics and official apologists seems to influence how they interpret their
ideological role. For instance, in July 1964 after the coup, one censor, Jos6 Vieira
Madeira, first provides a film critique, tracing Eisenstein's influence in Rocha's Black
God, White Devil (Deus e o diabo na terra do sol), and then objects to the "fiagant
disrespect for authorities" in the director's 1963 book-length critical review, Revisao
Crltica do Cinema Brasileiro, which labels the censors "ignorant policemen" [34].
Various censors classify the film as "realistic", "ridiculous" and "monotonous", faulting
it for "showing too much poverty in Brazil without reason" and presenting a negative
image of rural strongmen and fanatic believers. The story follows a dispossessed couple
through the sertao in an epic journey from impoverished servitude to millenial salvation
and social banditry. Another censor, Manoel Felipe de Souza Le~o Nero, minimizes the
film, calling it an "ordinary" Brazilian western, aimed at attracting a large box office
crowd. He advises the director that the dialogues are counter to his interest because
they "offer the main-floor audience minimal details of disputes between discontented
groups and those who believe in foreign ideas".
The same censor recommended against giving The Real Brazil (Brasil verdade, 1967)
an export license because it presented "negative aspects of Brazilian life". Paulo Gil
Soares' film, actually shot in 1964 and 1965, deals with four short subjects, among
them the exploitive production and destruction of soccer heroes, and the unemployed
migrates from the northeastern sertao looking for work in S~o Paulo. Le~o Neto, the
censor, says, "The film's monotony, created merely to attract an a u d i e n c e . . , comes
from shots of daily life exploring facts generally pleasing to an underdeveloped public".
Despite being rated for 14-year-olds in Brazil, the image of the country's continuing
underdevelopment had to be suppressed from the outside world.
Toward the end of the Costa e Silva presidency, the standards of evaluation were in
flux, as comments in the records indicate. In late 1967, another film by Paulo Git
Soares was released, Satan in a Small Town (Proezas de Satan& na Vila de Leva e Traz),
creating problems for the censors, even though it was eventually only restricted to those
under 10 years old. The devil arrives in a tradition-bound town in Minas Gerais state
and easily dominates its inhabitants after the local priest carries off the altar icon of the
Virgin Mary to a more promising parish. The devil proposes a deal with God to become
a candidate for the president of the republic as the only one capable of resolving the
country's problems. Speaking for the other members of the review team and recogniz-
ing the film's "total irreverence toward the (Roman Catholic) Church a n d . . , toward
the constituted (governmental) powers", a censor says, "Since I don't know the orienta-
tion of the chief of this service... I submit the question to you for your final decision" (my
italics).
A few films generated a fascinating internal controversy among censors with different
frames of reference. Hunger for Love (Fome de amor, 1968, directed by Nelson Pereira
dos Santos) is perhaps the most pessimistic and reactionary film produced by any of
Cinema Novo directors. Of two former revolutionary leaders, one is deaf, dumb and
blind and the other is manipulative, selfish and murderous. They retreat to an island
where they have affairs with each other's wives and live in psychologically cruel, petty
bourgeois comfort. Initially, Felipe, a radical with pretensions of being a painter,
seduces Mariana, a wealthy young American, in order to gain access to her money,
supposedly, for the proletarian struggle. He soon gives up painting and returns to
Brazil, where in fact the intellectual Left in 1968 had been largely immobilized. Alfredo,
an international activist and revolutionary botanist, can no longer articulate nor act on
his ideas. His wife, Ula, entangles Felipe in existential diversions. Mariana reads
revolutionary classics but remains weak, hesitant, confused and dependent. They are all
isolated from "the people". In the film, Leftist theory and rhetoric are empty. In a
dream sequence, Mariana and Alfredo are drowned and abandoned by their spouses.
In the final denouement, a seeing-eye dog leads the blind revolutionary Alfredo who
leads the terminally naive Mariana across a hill on the island to nowhere. One censor
shrewdly observes, "The film is so difficult to understand because of its excessive
symbolism, complicated editing and foreign-language dialogues that it will be poorly
received by the general public. Since it doesn't communicate, there's no political
danger. Besides, the central figure (a young painter) is shown in the end to be
unscrupulous, maladjusted and incompetent. He ruthlessly exploits a young woman to
maintain his own 'bourgeois' level of living". In a joint report, four censors complain,
"The personages in the film created some doubts about the censorial norms (then.) currently
in force. These doubts and problems could disappear because the film has great
difficulty communicating" (my italics). Dos Santos says the film was improvised
without a script. Time sequences are inverted or mixed. Despite the film's revolutionary
soul searching, the censors release it for anyone over 18 years old. They reason, "The
plot is poorly prepared to the extent that it interferes with comprehension and makes
understanding difficult". In a separate opinion, Wilson Gomes says, "Considering what
the message could be, the film does not transmit it, or better, establishes such a
confusion that the general public, the masses, will not have the capacity to assimilate
it or, even if they wanted, to understand". A different report is clear on the film's
meaning but unsure of its political correctness: "[Given its] themes of social injustice,
capitalist oppression and agitation to revolutionary armed struggle, I request the film be
examined by this office or by other(s) censor(s)". A sense of the career risks in the
censorship office's internal politics comes from still another censor, Carlos Lficio
Menezes, who comments, "The film's subliminal symbolism will be difficult for the
common spectator to u n d e r s t a n d . . . Many of us remember the negative publicity the
482 F. Schiff
censorship office received when it liberated Glauber Rocha's Land in Anguish. T h e press
already anticipates a prohibition on this film. Remembering the meeting the censors had
about the film's political problem with Gen. Juvenio Faganha, the alert chief of the Federal
Police Censorship Service, I r e c o m m e n d liberating it for 18-year-olds, cutting the sex
and adultery scenes, and leaving the chief to decide the political question" (my italics).
An additional opinion written in 1969 concludes, " T h o u g h the final political message
in Spanish is objective enough, diverse dialogues in English and Italian prejudice
understanding in many s c e n e s . . . Considering the new censorship norms and recalling the
fact that the film was released in 35 ram, I leave to the head of the censorship office the
criterion of whether or not to liberate the film" (my italics). Apparently, the combina-
tion of the negative portrayal of dead-end revolutionaries, the film's intentionally deep
coding of its political message and new censorship norms made the censors reluctant to
suppress a national product. In the end, its release with the 18-year-old designation
without cuts suggests that, from the point of view of the censors, the attentive public
for such a film would not be politically dangerous or that the underclass ("o povo")
would not be mobilized by such an esoteric film.
Censorship Under the Hardline Military, 1969--1974

Of the 23 reports surviving from this period, only one film was prohibited, but split
decisions to suppress often led to repeated appeals. For the first time censors relied
heavily on cuts to alter 11 films restricted to adult audiences (over 18 years old). One
film was prohibited outright--Glauber Rocha's Severed Heads (Cabezas Cortadas,
1970~. Amaldo Jabor's Nudity Will Be Punished ( Tdda a nudez serd castigada, 1972) and
The Impossible Happens ( 0 impossivel acontece, 1969) faced possible or partial suppres-
sion.
Faced with increased repression, many Brazilian film-makers, artists and intellectuals
went into voluntary exile; others remained but were intimidated. Cosme Alves Netto
[35], the curator of Rio's pivotal film archive, was arrested. Diegues [36] left after he
was arrested and witnessed torture. He observes, " T h e military made it impossible to
continue the same level of discourse . . . Cinema Novo tried to artfully articulate and
oppose the romanticism of American films. Cinema N o v o was interrupted by the
military". Although he now says all his ideas eventuaUy were made into films, Silvia
Oroz wrote a book based on interviews with him, titled Carlos Diegues: Films He Didn't
Make [37]. Diegues believes, "A film is a force to change reality, at least consciousness
of reality, not one film, but maybe jointly".
In 1970, Rocha went abroad where he made two films that were banned until 1977,
The Lion Has Seven Heads (Der Leone have sept cabe~as, 1970, filmed in Brazzaville,
Congo) and Severed Heads, which was co-produced and filmed in Spain. Severed Heads
reflects on Latin American experience as a dying and exiled dictator Emanuel Diaz
recalls (in Spanish, subtitled in Portuguese) through a long flashback his rise as
liberator in mythic Eldorado, his criminal retention of power and his demise at the
hands of a bastard son and revolutionary shepherd, through w h o m power returns to the
people. Censors can be divided into those who understood the message and recom-
mended the film's interdiction and those who did not think it was understandable and
voted for its restricted exhibition. One censor's comments are typical: " T h e film
criticizes political regimes in small nations, perhaps even in Brazil. It also presents the
bestial instincts of man, his political aspirations and his religious credulity. In a veiled
way, it urges the masses to revolt because of social inequality. Considering it prejudi-
cial, we ask for its prohibition". A n o t h e r censor sees in the film the "moral deterioration
of tyrants" and agrees, " T h e intention of the director is to criticize our country and
symbolically to renovate social structures". F o u r other censors, pointing out that Rocha
h a d n o t won wide reception at the box office, write, "Since the film will be specifically
shown to a (social) class that systematically discusses such problems, we believe the film
would f o m e n t political action". M o s t v e h e m e n t o f all is an inter-ministerial m e m o in
1971 to the censorship office from A r m a n d o Troia, the president of the Instituto
N a c i o n a l do Cinema, the state-run film p r o m o t i o n agency. T r o i a calls the film c o m m u -
nist p r o p a g a n d a aimed at u n g u a r d e d Brazilian youth, plainly subversive, i n t e n d e d to
denigrate the country and constituted authorities, o p p o s e d to the present democratic
government, and m e a n t to propagate false ideas. Meanwhile, in a split 6-3 decision
(with one censor favouring further consultations), a minority o f censors who voted for
the 18-year-old restriction saw the film as an historical analysis that would be i n c o m p r e -
hensible to m o s t people or considered its implications without consequence. T h e idea
o f an oppressed people and an oppressive government with corrupt and hypocritical
leaders could be dangerous, b u t as three female censors said, " I n our view, only the
spectator who is familiar with symbolic language, specifically the cinematically e d u -
cated, could figure out . . . the intended theme".
Nudity Will Be Punished is a tragicomedy about the hypocrisy o f middle-class family
values. Despite his p r o m i s e to his dying wife that he would be faithful, H e r c u l a n o falls
passionately in love with a cabaret singer-prostitute, Geni. U r g e d on by the hero's
exploitive brother, G e n i holds out on h i m and d e m a n d s that he m a r r y her. His spinster
sisters and his son, Serginho, are against the new woman. T h e son surprises the couple
in the m i d s t of love making. Serginho turns to liquor, gets arrested and is r a p e d in jail
by a thief. G e n i asks the b o y ' s forgiveness and, on the wedding night, he and G e n i have
sex. Still vengeful, the son leaves on a plane with a gay boyfriend. G e n i leaves a
tape-recorded message of her suicide for Herculano. T h e film was initially distributed
for m a t u r e audiences b u t with cuts that the p r o d u c e r appealed. I n the jail sequence,
H e r c u l a n o asks the p o l i c e m a n ' s rank as he talks on the p h o n e to his girlfriend. T h e
p r o d u c e r argued the censors h a d m i s u n d e r s t o o d the scene, which was s u p p o s e d to
show the foibles of m i n o r bureaucrats, n o t the irresponsibility o f the police as an
institution. In N o v e m b e r 1972, a second group of censors omitted the scene in the
authorized screen version of N e l s o n Rodrigues's play. In July 1973, another t e a m of five
censors reviewed the film and u n a n i m o u s l y r e c o m m e n d e d the film be suppressed.
However, higher officials rejected the censors's r e c o m m e n d a t i o n s . T h e director-general
of the F e d e r a l Police D e p a r t m e n t , Brig. Gen. Ant6nio Bandeira, approved the film for
18-year-old viewers and restored the jail sequence.
T h a t which was cut m o s t frequently in this m o r e conservative period was, perhaps
not surprisingly, the scenes of sex or nudity as well as a few scenes showing disrespect
for religious practices or personnel. Whereas previously, it was sufficient to restrict the
audience to adults over 18 years old, u n d e r the hardliners even the adults n e e d e d to be
shielded from such scenes. T h e enabling law, passed in N o v e m b e r 1968, says, "Films
cannot be contrary to national security and the representative and democratic regime,
or against order and public decorum, or against good manners ("bons costumes") or
religion, or capable o f inciting racial prejudice or class conflict".
F o r example, in a ruling on The Impossible Happens (0 impossivel acontece, 1969,
directed by A n s e l m o Duarte, Carlos A d o l p h o C h a d l e r and Daniel Filho), the censors
take up the new justification, saying, " T h e story is an affront to morality and g o o d
manners, offending public d e c o r u m " . T h e last of three segments, The Re-implant ( 0
484 F. Schiff
reimplante), is about a m o d e r n - d a y D o n Juan who dreams his jealous wife castrates him
b u t refuses a transplant, insisting instead that he wants his own organ re-implanted.
Various censors found the segments malicious, vulgar, gross, in b a d taste, irreverent
and/or obscene. M o s t of the censors r e c o m m e n d e d that the last segment be cut
completely since its message could not b e partially eliminated.
U n d e r the hardliners, censorship criteria seemed to r e m a i n ambiguous, suggesting
that the preferred military view was n o t isolated from b r o a d e r c o m m u n i t y standards.
A n example o f the seeming uncertainty can be seen in another thick censorship file.
House of Assignations (A casa assassinada, 1970) by Paulo C r s a r Saraceni was reviewed
b y three different censorship teams which split 4 - 6 over whether to b a n the film or
restrict it to 18-year-olds with cuts. T h e film is based on a r o m a n t i c novel by Lucio
C a r d o s o about the social conceits and o u t m o d e d taboos o f a drclass6 family in the state
o f M i n a s Gerais. Censors criticized the film for portraying marital infidelities, hypocrit-
ical puritanism, non-conformity, exhibitionism and homosexuality. T h e censors who
agreed to allow the film to be shown still insisted in cutting a sex sequence of incest
between the rebellious N i n a and A n d r r , who the c o m m u n i t y believes is her son. In his
appeal, the p r o d u c e r argued that cutting that scene would irreparably d a m a g e the film.
F o r the censors, financial survival is one thing; filmic motivation is another. Senior
censors allowed it to be shown only after removing the incest scene.
S o m e C i n e m a N o v o directors c o n f o r m e d to the d o m i n a n t morality o f u r b a n 61ites,
who were m o r e tolerant than the military b u t who still believed in sublimating the
pleasure principle. F o r instance, in a 1970 film, A Man Without Importance (Urn homem
sere import~ncia), director Alberto Salvfi Contel sought to restore a scene involving
marijuana. In a signed appeal, Contel says, " T h e scene does n o t m e a n the director
tolerates the practice, b u t on the contrary, the effects of the toxin are shown in the
actors' state of hilarious stupidity, which we view painfully and which we are against".
C i n e m a N o v o directors of the so-called tropicalist period inhibited their outspoken
political concerns and instead focused on social problems. M a j o r C i n e m a N o v o films
were seen as p e r i o d pieces that the censors (mis)read as critiques of antiquated rural
social structures. Ruy G u e r r a ' s The Gods and the Dead (Os deuses e os mottos, 1970);
L e o n H i r s z m a n ' s Sfzo Bernardo, 1971; and Carlos Diegues' Joanna, the Frenchwoman
(Joanna Francesa, 1973) are devastating indictments o f " coronelismo" and Brazil's
planter class. T h e military saw themselves as industrializing modernists and the rural
61ites as the historical residue to be overcome despite the fact that the regime drew
s u p p o r t from these sectors. Embrafilme, a state-run enterprise, was supporting the
p r o d u c t i o n of films on historical topics. All three films were shown to restricted
audiences. G u e r r a ' s abstracted requiem for the butchery of the cocoa plantation barons
was not cut. H i r s z m a n ' s film portrays a calculating, brutish, callous man, Paulo
Hon6rio, who becomes a powerful plantation owner through usury and by exploiting
his farmhands. His merciless distrust o f his wife stems from her sympathy toward his
workers and leads to her loveless death. S o m e censors wanted to b a n completely the
film for its "suspicious ideology" or "its offensive insinuation that some m e n of the
government have loose screws". Others wanted to cut "the h u s b a n d ' s accusation that
his wife is a socialist". Lessening the film's rating to 14-year-olds, the chief o f censorsip
office discounted any socialist proselytizing and minimized the fact that the film is
based on a widely circulated novel by Graciliano Ramos, who was considered to have
h a d socialist tendencies 40 years earlier. T h e most serious deletion from Diegues' film
is a sequence in which a family priest gives a gun to the son o f a plantation owner to
kill a rival in revenge for being humiliated. Except for a half dozen scenes of sex and
nudity, the depth and thrust of the story of rural aristocratic decadence remains intact.
Indeed, if the censors rarely note the political implications of the films, perhaps it is
because the directors ceased to be threaten the legitimacy of the regime. T h e censorship
files are incomplete, of course. Missing is the detailed record of how censors treated
tropicalist films like Joaquim Pedro de Andrade's The Conspirators (Os inconfidentes). In
1971, the story of the revolt of Brazil's pre-independence patriot Tiradentes, a some-
time dentist named J'oaquim Jos6 da Silva Xavier, had direct parallels with opposition
of intellectuals to military authoritarianism. Johnson [38] observes that the script, from
colonial court records, the uncensorable words of national heroes, and the respected
m o d e m poet Cecilia Meireles, challenges the official version of Brazilian history.
Conclusion
Cinema Novo directors constituted a socially critical school of national film production,
which rejected Hollywood commercial values and which took its themes and texts from
Brazilian culture. T h e young auteurs worked in the street with natural light and
non-professional actors, influenced by Italian neo-Realism and inspired by the under-
development, poverty and hunger that they sought to change. T h e directors sought to
establish control over a significant share of the national market. By the late 1970s with
military-sponsored regulations and support, they achieved limited market penetration.
With international recognition and national acceptance, they adapted to the ideological
aims of the military government. Between 1964 and 1974, military censors moved in an
increasingly authoritarian direction. However, even under the hardline regime from
1969 to 1974 the filmmakers maintained their opposition. I was able to gather all the
extant censorship reports from the National Archives for the Cinema Novo filmmakers
for the period. Only 58 film files were found out of 135 feature films for the 1960-1974
period.
The censor's reaction to the film-makers' opposition focused on a moral dimension
that was somewhat tangential to the legitimacy of the military regime. In the early
1960s under civilian rule as well as after the 1964 coup, censors seemed to give Cinema
N o v o films an 18-year-old rating most of the time. Most of the film restrictions and cuts
in all three censorship periods were based on moral objections to sexually oriented
scenes or to improprieties regarding family, criminality or religion. Early on, Farias's
Assault on the Payroll Train ( 0 assalto ~o trem pagador, 1962) favourably portrayed
criminals and Guerra's The Hustlers (Os cafajestas, 1962) exposed the pretenses of
middle-class family values. By the 1969-1974 period, however, censors didn't just
restrict exhibition; they prohibited films like Amaldo Jabor's Nudity Will Be Punished
( T t d a a nudez ser~i castigada, 1972) and edited out the entire third segment of The
Impossible Happens ( 0 impossivel acontece, 1969). Whereas previously, it was sufficient to
restrict the audience to adults over 18 years old, under the hardliners even the adults
needed to be shielded from scenes in restricted films.
Censors also objected to film presentations that disparaged institutions, such as
marriage, religion, the police, the censors or the national parliament. T h e film-makers
attacked policies and practices that separate 61ites supported as part of their own
privileges. In rating Rocha's Black God, White Devil (Deus e o diabo na terra do sol,
1964), one censor in 1964 complained that the the censors are defamed in the
director's book-length critical review of Brazilian cinema. By 1967 in Capoville's Bebel,
A Would-Be Star (Bebel, a gartta propaganda), a 14-minute sequence was cut that shows
486 F. Schiff
the corruption of a federal deputy. Rocha's 1967 Land in Anguish (Terra em transe) was
banned, and when it was finally released in 1972, a politically meddlesome priest was
given a name to satisfy concerns that the film did defamed the Church in general. The
censors defended social position and acted as official apologists for institutional
privileges.
Civilian censors apparently lacked the mandate to prohibit direct political attacks on
the highest inter-61ite consensus in favour of maintaining sectoral privileges. For
example, peasant deprivation in the northeastern sertgw seemed an, enduring fact of
national life, not amenable to political remedy and so not a matter of elite culpability.
Dos Santos' Barren Lives (Vidas s~cas, 1962) and Guerra's The Guns (Os fuzis, 1963)
both portray deprivation and, presumably, both implicitly support agrarian reform to
redress the situation. Rural 61ires opposed agrarian reform as an attack on their
privileges. Neither film was banned. The protagonists in Barren Lives are inarticulate
and only seek escape from deprivation. In The Guns, the protagonist makes an
individual gesture of rebellion. Both The Guns and Rocha's The Turning Wind (Bar-
ravento, 1962) show the social injustice of starvation and scarcity in the midst of
capitalist plenty. The heroes in both films actively revolt; neither is successful largely
because the rest of the villagers are passive and absorbed by religious mysticism. Of the
three films which explicitly criticise capitalism as exploitative, only The Turning Wind
was prohibited because the censors said its explicitly advocated black revolt. Civilian
censors allowed the advocacy of Leftist policies, but not populist activism.
With considerably expanded authority under both the moderates and hardliners in
the military dictatorship after 1964, the censors banned surprisingly few films in my
sample. The image of armed struggle, even if suicidal, was forbidden in Rocha's Land
in Anguish (Terra em transe), prohibited from 1967 until 1972. The intellectual protag-
onist rejects the empty promises and pretensions of archetypal Latin American leaders
and urges a populist demagogue to resist a dictatorial takeover. Direct political critiques
of oppressive governments in Rocha's foreign-made films Severed Heads (Cabezas
Cortadas, 1970, co-produced and filmed in Spain) and The Lion Has Seven Heads (Der
leone have sept cabe;as, 1970, filmed in Brazzaville, Congo) were not shown until 1977
in Brazil.
By the end of the Costa e Silva presidency, the censorship standards of evaluation
were uncertain. Censors deferred decisions to more senior officials (e.g. Soares' 1967
Satan in a Small Town or Proezas de Satands na Vila de Leva e Traz), or they suggested
that other teams of censors review the decision. Split decisions among censors to
suppress or cut films and multiple censorship review teams became common. Through
legal appeals and favours by lobbyists, producers often sought to get films released to
younger audiences. When censors denied Hirszman's The Departed One (A falecida,
1965) an export license, the producer persuaded higher authorities that the practical
considerations of allowing a national film company to make a profit on its investment
outweighed moral restraints. Partially, even under Mrdici, the hardliners could not
establish technocratic/moralistic norms that civilian elites could accept, especially when
the norms competed with profit expectations. Partially, even under the hardliners,
censorship criteria remained ambiguous. For instance, a brigadier-general in charge of
the federal police agreed to release Jabor's 1972 Nudity Will Be Punished (T6do a nudez
serfi castigada) to audiences over 18 years old after censors recommended it be
suppressed, and he restored a sequence potentially critical of the police. The film is a
tragicomedy about the hypocrisy of middle-class family values. An idealized portrayal
of life, the preferred military view, could not be insulated from broader community
expectations. After three different censorship teams split over Saraceni's House of
Assignations (A casa assassinada, 1970), senior officials allowed its restricted screening
but insisted u p o n cutting a supposed incest scene.
All the surviving reports are thorough and detailed, so it is hard to characterize the
censors as lax or inefficient. One possible explanation for the multiple disagreements is
that as the standards changed, not all censors accepted them completely. T h e censors
were inconsistent.
Internal controversy among censors also derived from the fact that some censors
recognized the segmented structure of the film audience. In Hunger for Love (Fome de
amor, 1968), director dos Santos presents a reactionary tale in a non-narrative structure
about false leaders of revolutionary activism. T h e film's eventual restricted release
without cuts suggests that, from the point of view of the censors, (1) the middle-class
public might understand the film, would probably be demobilized by it and so would
not be politically dangerous; and (2) the broader working underclass probably would
not understand the film's abstract message. T h e commercial theatres that attracted a
wider and younger audience showed Brazilian comedy-reviews called chanchadas, or
sometimes softcore pornochanchadas. The chanchas had a domestic market. Cinema
Novo remained in the cinema clubs and art theatres for university students, intellectuals
and middle class. Censors were police personnel who received university training in
departments of communication but who were otherwise poorly educated.
Some directors internalized the military restrictions. Perhaps the best example is
Hunger for Love. Dos Santos, the same director who made Barren Lives arguably
intemalizes the military's point of view by accepting the futility of political action. Other
Cinema Novo directors conformed to the dominant morality of urban 61ites, who were
more tolerant than the military but who still wanted to control social excess.
T h e military succeeded in intimidating Cinema N o v o directors. Rocha, Diegues and
Guerra went into voluntary exile circa 1970. Cinema Novo directors of the so-called
tropicalist period now emphasized social problems. Andrade's 1969 film, Macundima
about a Rabelaisian character, produced and consumed by Brazil, is not as explicitly
oppositional as his The Conspirators (Os inconfidentes, 1971) about a failed revolt in
pre-independence Brazil. Major Cinema Novo films were seen as period pieces that the
censors (mis)read as critiques of antiquated rural social structures. Guerra's The Gods
and the Dead (Os deuses e os mortos, 1970); Hirszman's S8o Bernardo, 1971; and
Diegnes' Joanna, the Frenchwoman (Joanna Francesa, 1973) are devastating indictments
of "coronelismo" and Brazil's planter class. And yet, the military saw themselves as
industrializing modernists and the rural 61ites as the historical residue of backwardness
to be overcome. F r o m the point of view of the censorship office, the tropicalist films
were not direct political attacks on an inter-61ite consensus about sectoral privilege that
the military wanted to maintain. If the censors rarely take issue with the political
implications of such films, perhaps it is because the later works by these directors
ceased to threaten the legitimacy of the regime.
Cinema N o v o directors consciously sought to alter the popular consciousness of
Brazilian reality. T h e y rejected as anti-nationalist those domestic 61ites who benefitted
from liberal internationalist penetration of the Brazilian e c o n o m y and those moderniz-
ing 61ites who imitated the cultural fashions in industrialized countries. T h e moderate
military were classic liberals; the hardliners, triumphal modernizers. Cinema Novo
directors identified with the religious practices and social concerns of the working poor
even though as 61ites themselves they were paternalistic when they tried to arouse the
masses from their mysticism and passivity. T h e directors may have d o o m e d their films
488 F. S c h i f f
to distribution limited to intellectuals and the middle class because of their u n c o n v e n -

tional style and a deep symbolism rooted in their own elitism. Yet clearly m a n y C i n e m a
Novo films were accessible to mass audiences. Basically, the fact that the military rated
the films for mature audiences explains why they did n o t play in commercial theaters.
T h e military censors b a n n e d , cut, or restricted almost all of the C i n e m a Novo films,
and major C i n e m a Novo directors left the country because they were intimidated. Most
importantly, the directors increasingly adapted to the military censors by burying their
stories in layers of meaning, making their films less and less accessible to the u n e d u -
cated majority.
U n d e r the hardliners, the directors either internalized or anticipated military limits or
they made their films abroad. Despite their individual inexperience or ignorance,
internal disagreements, changing and imprecise standards, and susceptibility to external
pressure and wider elite norms, the military censors did prevent Brazil's most innova-
tive film-makers from leading a popular m e d i u m into opposition. A subtext of
opposition did remain in C i n e m a Novo films, b u t m i n u s an explicit statement of
opposition to the legitimacy of the military. T h e military thus helped stifle C i n e m a
Novo by preventing a film discourse that sought to interact with a wider mass audience.
Correspondence: D r Frederick Schiff, School of C o m m u n i c a t i o n , University of Houston,

H o u s t o n , T X 77204 USA. F A X 1-713-743-2876
A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s : A National E n d o w m e n t for the H u m a n i t i e s travel-to-collection grant

made this study possible. I would like to thank A n a Maria Varela Cascardo Campos,
Cosme Alves Netto a n d Carlos Alberto de Mattos and their staff for assistance in
collecting materials. William Hawes, K e n n e t h Short, Karl Reinhardt, and David
Culbert made helpful suggestions about earlier versions of this article.
NOTES
[1] Ruy Guerra's The Hustlers (Os cafajestes, 1962), Nelson Pereira dos Santos' Barren Lives (Vidas
s3cas, 1963), and Glauber Rocha's Black God, White Devil (Deus e diabo na terra do sol, 1964), are
a trilogy of among the best of the Cinema Novo films. In America, many video rental stores, such
as Blockbuster Video, have a few Brazilian films to rent. More recent films include Bruno Baretto,
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1977); Hector Babenco, Pixote (1981) and his Kiss of the Spider
Woman (1985). New Yorker Film, 16 W. 16th St., New York, NY 10023 (tel. 212-247-6110) has
16mm films for rental, including some Cinema Novo directors: Leon Hirszman, They Don't Wear
Black Ties (1981, $250); Carlos Diegues, Ganga Zumba (1980, $350), and Xica da Silva (1976,
$300). Facets Multimedia in Chicago, 1517 W. Fullerton St., Chicago, IL 60614; tel. 800-331-
6197, rents or sells video cassettes ($25 for two films for 4 days). They distribute 3 Cinema Novo
classics by Glauber Rocha: White God, Black Devil (1964), Land in Anguish (Terra em Transe,
1967), and Antonio das Mortes (1968).
[2] T. E. SKIDMORE(1988) The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil, 1964-1985) (New York) pp. 27,
82, 134-150.
[3] Johnson's commentaries (1984) Cinema Novo X 5: masters of contemporary Brazilian film (Austin,
Texas) and the collection of essays by R. JOHNSON & R. STAM (Eds) (1982) Brazilian Cinema
(London) are outstanding. In addition, there are film critiques available in Portuguese by I.
XAVIER(1983) Sertao Mar: GlauberRocha e a est3tiea dafome (Sao Paulo) as well as two works by
J. C. BERNARDET(1985) Cineastas e Imagens do Povo (Sao Paulo) and his (1978/1967) Brasil em
tempo de cinema (Rio de Janeiro). The documents section of the Museu de Arte Moderna
cinematheque also has contemporaneous film reviews published in major national newspapers and
magazines.
[4] At the MAM cinematheque, the curator is Cosine Alves Netto (tel.: 210-2188, extension 34;
FAX: 5521-240-6351) and its director is Jo~lo Luiz Vieira, who also teaches at the Universidade
Federal Fluminense in nearby Niter6i (FAX: 717-4553); at the Banco do Brasil's Centro Cultural
the director is Carlos Alberto de Mattos (tel.: 216-0290); IBAC's director is Sergio Sanz (tel.:
232-8090).
[5] For partial filmographies of Cinema Novo films of the period, see B. S. P. HOLLYMAN (1983)
Glauber Rocha and the Cinema Novo: a study of his critical writings and films (New York) pp.
204-213; R. JOHNSON (1984) op. cir., pp. 234--236; R. JOHNSON (1987) Thefilm industry in Brazil:
culture and the state (Pittsburgh, Pa.), pp. 202-226, J. BURTON (Ed.) (1986) Cinema and Social
Change in Latin America: conversations with filmmakers (Austin) p. 288.
[6J The censorship reports are housed in the National Archives in the building that also accommo-
dates the federal publishing house, in the "industrial graphics zone." Contact Aria Maria Varela
Cascardo Campos (tel.: 5561-226-9026, extension 423), who is in charge. Federal censorship
actually began in 1906 but became more restrictive after 1964.
[7] JoHNsoN & STAM (1982) Brazilian Cinema, pp. 216-224; JoHNsoN (1984), Cinema Nova X 5, pp.
86-88.
[8] D. NEVES (1992) personal interview, Rio de Janeiro. Cinema Novo director.
[9] A. STEPAN (1971) The Military in Politics: changing patterns in Brazil (Princeton).
[10] 1bid., pp. 172-187.
[1t] THOMASSKIDMORE (t988) The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil.
[12] G.A. O'DoNNELL (1973) Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism: studies in South Ameri-
can politics (Berkeley).
[13] A. STEPAN (1988) Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the southern cone (Princeton).
[14] THOMASSKIDMORE (1988) The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil.
[15] Ibid., p. 134.
[16] Cascardo, Aria Maria Varela (1992), personal interview, Brasilia.
[17] Later military administrations turned to castelistas. Gen. Ernesto Geisel (1974-1979) provided a
political "opening" and Gen. Joao Batista Figueiredo (1979-1985) returned the country to a
civilian, elected president. But the oil crisis of 1973 combined with the import-intensive heavy-in-
dustry investments kept Brazil's balances of trade and services negative. In the late 1970s, the
growth rate slowed down, inflation accelerated and the debt repayment burden worsened. After
the second oil shock of 1979, the country could no longer continue with debt-led growth and was
threatened, as in the pre-coup days, with defaulting on its foreign obligations. The accumulated
debt took off from $3 billion in 1964 to $12.6 in 1974 to $43.5 billion in 1978 to more than $100
billion in 1985. By 1984, the country was in its fourth consecutive year of per capita economic
decline. Goulard was removed when inflation hit an annual rate of 125 per cent; the last full year
of military rule, 1984, inflation was 222 per cent. Between 1960 and 1980, the top five per cent
of income earners gained a net 10 per cent from the bottom 80 per cent of the population, making
Brazil one of the most inegalitarian countries in the world.
[18] P. MCDONOUGH (1981) Power and Ideology in Brazil (Princeton, N.J.).
[19] Ibid., p. 174.
[20] 1bid., p. 199.
[21] The list of Cinema Novo directors and their films collected by Bumes Saint Patrick Hollyman,
op. cir., provides a starting point for analysis. Film historician Jos6 Carlos Avellar advised me on
specific significant films. The list was updated to the mid-1970s and one significant director,
Eduardo Escorel, was added. Since the compendium includes underground or avant-garde
film-makers (Stam, 1982) who broke away from, and disidentified with, the original group after
about 1968, I excluded Rogerio Sganzeria, Andrea Tonacci, Neville Duarte d'Almeida and the
later works of Jfilio Bressane. I concentrated on directors who had four or more feature films in
the period.
[22] R. JOHNSON (1987) The Film Industry in Brazil: culture and the state (Pittsburgh, Pa.) pp. 87-103.
[23] J. BURTON (Ed.) (1986) Cinema and Social Change in Latin America: conversations with filmmakers
(Austin) p. 136.
[24] JoHNsoN & STAM (1982) Brazilian Cinema; JOHNSON (1984), Cinema novo X 5.
[25] R. STAM (1982) On the margins: Brazilian avant-garde cinema, in JOHNSON & STAM, Brazilian
Cinema, pp. 306-327.
[26] HOLLYMAN Glauber Rocha.
[27] BURTON~ Cinema and social change.
[28] Ibid., p. 133.
[29] C. DIEGUES (1993), personal interview, Rio de Janeiro. Cinema Novo director and essayist.
490 17. S c h i f f
[30] Josfl CARLOSAVELLAR (1992), personal interview, Rio de Janeiro. Film critic and historian.
[31] HOLLYMAN, Glauber Rocha.
[32] See filmography for details.
[33] R. SCHWARTZ(1982) Cinema and The Guns, in Jorrr4SON & SWAM,Brazilian Cinema, pp. 128-133.
[34] G. ROCHA (1963) Revisao Critiea do Cinema Brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro).
[35] C. A. NETrO (1992) personal interview, Rio de Janeiro. Curator of the cinematheque of the
Museu de Arte Moderna.
[36] C. DIEGUES personal interview, 1992.
[37] S. OROZ (1984) Carlos Diegues: os filmes que nao filmei (Rio de Janeiro).
[38] JOHNSON Cinema novo X 5.
Frederick Schiff received his docwrate in sociology at UCLA and taught political sociology for five years at
Washington University in St Louis. He travelled and did research in Argentina and Brazil in the mid-1970s.
He became a reporter and foreign correspondent, covering Argentina, Spain, Morocco and Lebanon. He has
worked for UPI and USA Today. He is now an assistant professor in the School of Communication at the
University of Houston.
Filmography: c i n e m a n o v o , 1960-1975
Abbreviations:
B&W = black and white

m. = length measured in metres (not minutes)
dir. = director
prod. = producer
1. = location, usually of the production company
p.a. = principal actors/actresses
The films listed here are all those by Cinema Novo directors for the period 1960-1975 for which a
censorship report was on file in the National Archive in Brasilia. The censorship rating is the last item
in each record. Films were usually restricted to audiences over the age indicated. Separate restrictions
effected export licenses and television exhibition. Most of the information herein was taken from the
censorship records.
1961
Five Times Slum (Cinco Vezes Favela), B&W, 16 mm., 2723 m.; prod. Centro Popular de Cultura de
Uni~o Nacional de Cultural; 1., Rio; five shorts: A Slum Dweller (Umfavelado), dir., Marcos Farias, p.a.:
Fl~ivio Migliaccio, Isabela; Joe from Dogtown (Z~ de Cachorra), dir., Miguel Borges; p.a.: Peggy Aubry,
Valdir Onofre, Jo~o Angelo Lubanca; Samba School, Joy of Living (Escola de samba alegria de viver), dir.,
Carlos Diegues; p.a,: Abdias do Nascimento, Oduvaldo Viana Filho, Maria da Graqa; Catskin (Couro
de gato), dir., Joaquim Pedro de Andrade; p.a.: Paulinho, Cl~iudio Correa e Castro, Riva Nimitz,
Henrique C6sar, Napole~o Muniz Freire; San Diego Quarry (Pedreira de S~o Diogo), dir., Leon
Hirszman; p.a.: Glauce Rocha, Sadi Cabral, Francisco de Assis; over 14 yrs.
The Turning Wind (Barravento), B&W, 35 mm., 2235 m.; dir. Glauber Rocha; prod. Rex Schindler/
Glauber Rocha Communicaq6es Artlsticas; 1., Salvador; p.a.: Luisa Maranh~io, Ant6nio Pitanga, Aldo
Teixeira, Luci Carvalho.
1962
Assault on the Payroll Train (Assalto ~o trem pagador), B&W, 16 mm.; dir. Roberto Farias; prod. Herbert
Richers; 1., Rio; p.a.: Elifzer Gomes, Luisa Maranh/io, Reginaldo Farias, Rute de Sousa, Grande Otelo,
Dirce Migliaccio, Ambr6sio Fregolente, Gracinda Freire; over 18 yrs.
The Hustlers (Os cafajestes), B&W, 35 ram., 2571 m.; dir. Ruy Guerra; prod. Magnus Filme Ltda.-Jece
B r a z i l i a n F i l m a n d M i l i t a r y Censorship 491
Valadfio; 1., Rio; p.a.: Norma Benguel, Jece Valadfio, Daniel Filho, Luci Carvalho, Glauce Rocha; over
18 yrs.
The Man with the Golden Mouth (B6ca de ouro), B&W, 35 mm., 2777 m.; dir., Nelson Pereira dos
Santos; prod., Jarbas Barbosa/Famafilmes; 1., Rio; p.a.: Jece Valad~o, Odete Lara, Daniel Filho; over
18 yrs.
The Given Word ( 0 pagador de promessas), B&W, 35 mm., 2642 m.; dir., Anselmo Duarte; prod.,
Cinedistri--Cia. Produtora e Distribuidora de Filmes Nacionais/Osvaldo Massaini; 1., Silo Paulo; p.a.:
Leonardo Vilar, G16ria Menezes, Dionisio Azevedo;
The Port ofCaixas (Pfrto das Caixas), B&W, 16 mm., 2143 m.; dir., Paulo Cfsar Saraceni; prod., Elisio
de Sousa Freitas/Equipe Produtora Cinematogrfifica; 1., Rio; p.a.: Irma Alvarez, Reginaldo Farias,
Paulo Padilha, Sfrgio Sanz, Margarida Rey.
Street Ambush (Tocaia no asfalto), B&W, 16 mm., 980 m.; dir., Roberto Pires; prod., Rex Schindler,
David Singer; 1., Salvador; p.a.: Agildo Ribeiro, Arosori de Oliveira, Othon Baston, Adriano Lisboa,
Geraldo del Rey, Ant6nio Pitanga; over 18 yrs.; TV after 10 p.m.
1963
Barren Lives (Vidas s~cas), B&W, 16 mm., 1165 m.; dir. Nelson Pereira dos Santos; prod., Herbert
Richers, Luls Carlos Barreto; 1., Rio; p.a.: Atila I6rio, Maria Ribeiro, Jofre Soares; over 10 yrs.
Death in Three Acts (Morte em trfs tempos), B&W, 35 mm.; dir., Femando Campos; prod., Luiz Carlos
Barreto, Armando Noguieira, Alvaro Ferraz de Abreu; 1., Rio; p.a.: Irma Alvarez, Joseph Guerreiro,
Osvaldo Loureiro, Milton Rodrigues; over 18 yrs.
Garrincha, ffoy of the People (Garrincha, alegria do povo), B&W, 35 ram., 1673 m.; dir., Joaquim Pedro
de Andrade; prod., Luis Cesar Barreto, Armando Nogueira; 1., Rio; unrestricted.
The Guns (Os fuzis), B&W, 35 mm., 2395 m.; dir., Ruy Guerra; prod., Jarbas Barbosa/Copacabana
Filmes; 1., Rio; p.a.: Atila I6rio, Nelson Xaxier, Maria Gladys, Leonides Bayer, Ivan Chndido, Paulo
C~sar, Hugo Carvana, Maurlcio Loiola, Rui Polanah, Joel Barcelos; over 18 yrs.
1964
Black God, White Devil (Deus e o diabo na terra do sol), B&W, 35 mm., 3387 m.; dir., Glauber Rocha;
prod., Glauber Rocha, Jarbas Barbosa, Luiz Augusto Mendes; 1., Rio; p.a.: Geraldo del Rey, Ion~
Magalhaes, Othon Bastos, Lidio Silva, Maurlcio do Vale, S6nia dos Humildes; over 18 yrs.
Racial Integration (lntegra~ao racial), B&W, 16 mm.; dir. & prod., Paulo C~sar Saraceni; 1., Rio;
prohibited.
1965
The Departed One (A falecida), B&W, 16 mm., 3118 m.; dir., Leon Hirszman; prod., Produr
Cinematogrfificas Meta; 1., Rio; p.a.: Femanda Montenegro, Ivan Cfindido, Paulo Gracindo, Nelson
Xavier, Vanda Lacerda; over 18 yrs.
Path to Salvation (Vereda da salva;~o), B&W, 35 mm.; dir., Anselmo Duarte; over 18 yrs.
The Time and Trials of Augusto Matraga (A hora e vez de Augusto Matraga), B&W, 16 mm.; dir., Roberto
Santos; prod., Luiz Carlos Barreto; p.a.: Leonardo Vilar, Jofre Soares, Maria Ribeiro, Aurea Campos,
Fl~vio Migliaccio, Mauricio do Ville; over 10 yrs.
1966
All the Women in the World (Todas as mulheres do mundo), B&W, 35 mm., 2587 m.; dir. & prod.,
Domingos de Oliveira; p.a.: Paulo Jos~, Leila Diniz; over 18 yrs. with cuts.
492 F. S c h i f f
The Big City (A grande cidade), B&W, 16 mm., 2330 m.; dir. & prod., Carlos Diegues; 1., Rio; p.a.:
Leonardo Vilar, Anecy Rocha, Ant6nio Pitanga, Joel Bracelos, Hugo Carvana; over 18 yrs.
The Priest and the Carl ( 0 padre e a re@a), B&W; dir., Joaquim Pedro de Andrade; prod., Luiz Carlos
Barreto/Difilm; over 18 yrs.
1967
Bebel, A Would-Be Star (Bebel, a gar~ta propaganda), B&W, 35 ram.; dir., Maurice Capoville; over 18
yrs. with cuts.
Edu, Heart of Gold (Ed~, cora~So de ouro), B&W, 35 mm., 2273 m.; dir., Domingos Oliveira; p.a.: Paulo
Jos6, Leila Diniz, Norma Benguel, Amilton Fernandes, Joana Forum, Mafia Gladys; over 18 yrs. with
CUTS.
Face to Face (Cara a cara), B&W, 35 ram., 2101 m.; dir. & prod., Julia Bressane; p.a.: Helena Ignez,
Antero de Oliveira, Paulo Gracindo, Maria Lflcia Dall; over 18 yrs.
Ca'rl From Ipanema (Gar6ta de Ipanema), colour, 35 mm., 2605 m.; dir., Leon Hirszman; prod., Saga
Filmes Ltda.; p.a.: Adriano Reis, Arduino Colasanti, Jos6 Carlos Marques, M~ircia Rodrigues, Irene
Stef~nia, Jo~to Saldanha, Iracema de Alencar; over 10 yrs.
Land in Anguish (Terra em transe), B&W, 35 mm.; dir., Glauber Rocha; prod., Mapa - Difilm; 1., Rio;
p.a.: Jardel Filho, Glauce Rocha, Jos6 Lewgoy, Paulo Autran, Fl~vio Migliaccio, Jofre Soares, Danuza
Le/to, Paulo Gracindo; prohibited.
One Against the Death Squad (Perpdtuo contra o esquadrao da matte), B&W, 35 mm., 2470 m.; dir.,
Miguel Barges; prod., Liana Aureliano/Saga Filmes Ltda.; p.a.: Milton Moraes, S6nia Dutra, Waldir
Onofre, Eliezer Games, Angelito Mello, Roberto Batalim; over 18 yrs.
Satan in a Small Town (Proezas de Satands na Vila do Leva e Tr~s), B&W, 35 mm., 100 rain.; dir., P~olo
Gil Soares; prod., Therezinha Muniz; 1., Minas Gerais; p.a.: Jofi'e Soares, Isabela, Emanuel Cavalcanti,
Fausto Games; over 10 yrs.
1968
An~nio das Mattes ( 0 drag~o da maldade contra o santo guerreiro), colour, 35 mm.; dir., 2838 m.,
Glauber Rocha; prod., Mapa Ltda.; p.a.: Mauricio do Vale, Odete Lara, Othon Bastxos; over 18 yrs.
with cuts.
Capita, B&W, 16 ram., 3150 m.; dir. & prod., Paulo Cesar Saraceni; p.a.: Izabella, Othon Bastos; over
14 yrs.
Courage (Panda de valente), B&W, 35 ram., 2684 m.; dir., Luiz S6rgio Person; prod., Lauper Filmes
Ltda.; p.a.: Chico Martins, Atila I6rio, Marlene Franca, Jofre Soares; unrestricted.
Hunger for Love (Fame de amor), B&W, 35 mm., 2082 m.; dir., Nelson Pereira dos Santos; prod., Paulo
P6rto, Herbert Richers; p.a.: Leila Diniz, Paulo P6rto, Arduino Colasanti, Irene Stef~nia; over 18 yrs.
A Man in the Nude ( 0 homem nu), B&W, 35 mm., 3270 m.; dir., Roberto Santos; prod., Pelmex/
Wallfilme; over 18 yrs.
Roberto Carlos in the Rhythm of Adventure (Roberto Carlos em ritmo de aventura), colour, 35 mm.; dir.,
Roberto Farias; prod., R.F. Farias Ltda.; p.a.: Roberto Carlos, Jos6 Lewgoy, Reginaldo Farias, Rose
Passini; unrestricted.
Queen of Bandits (Maria Bonita, rainha do cangafo), colour, 35 mm., 2990 m.; dir., Miguel Barges;
prod., Konstantin Tkaczenko; p.a.: Milton Moraes, Roberto Batalim, Sonia Durra, Celi Ribeiro; over
18 yrs. with cuts.
The Real Brazil (Brasil verdade), B&W, 35 mm., 3195 m.; four shorts Recollections of Outlaws
("Mem6ria do canga~o"), As The World Turns ("Viramundo"), Soccer Locker Room ("Subterr~neos
do futebol'), Our Samba School ("Nossa Escola de Samba"), dir., Paulo Gil Soares; prod., Thomaz
Farkas; over 14 yrs., not for export.
B r a z i l i a n F i l m a n d M i l i t a r y Censorship 493
1969
The Impossible Happens ( 0 impossivel acontece), B&W, 35 mm., 2204 m.; directors, Anselmo Duarte,
Carlos Adolpho Chadler, Daniel Filho; p.a.: G16ria Menezes, Rubens de Falco, Adolpho Chadler; over
18 yrs. with cuts.
Macundtima, colour, 35 mm., 2923 m.; dir., Joaquim Pedro de Andrade; prod., K. M. Eckstein; p.a.:
Grande Otelo, Paulo Jos6, Jardel Filho, Dina Sfat, Rodolfo Arena; over 18 yrs with cuts.
Prophet of Hunger (Oprofeta dafome), B&W, 35 mm., 2690 m.; dir., Aurcie Capovilla; prod., Cinedistri
Ltda.; p.a.: Jos~ Mojica Marins; incomplete record.
The Sugar Mill (A bolaneira), B&W, 35 mm.; short; dir., Wladimir de Carvalho; prod., Celio Schneider
Gon~alves; unrestricted.
Two Faces of a Coin (As duas faces da moeda), B&W, 16 mm., dir., Domingos de Oliveira; prod., B.J.D.
Produ~6es Cinematogr~ificas Ltda.; p.a.: Fregolento, Neuza Amaral, Adriana Prieto; over 18 yrs.
Vengeance in the Badlands (Queld do Paje~), colour, 35 mm., 3438 m.; dir., Anselmo Duarte; prod.,
Columbia Pictures of Brasil, Inc.; p.a.: Tarcisio Meira, Rossana Ghessa, Isabel Cristina, Jece Valad~o;
over 18 yrs. with cuts.
1970
Cancer, B&W, 16 mm.; dir. & prod., Glauber Rocha; 1., finished in Cuba, 1973-1974; p.a.: Odete Lara,
Hugo Carvana, Ant6nio Pitanga, Rog6rio Duarte; prohibited.
The Gods and the Dead (Os deuses eos mottos), colour, 35 mm., 3000 m.; dir., Ruy Guerra; prod., Daga
Filmes Erda.; p.a.: Oton Bastos, Norma Benguel, Itala Nandi, Rui Polanah, Nelson Xavier; over 16 yrs.
Hot Blooded on a Cold Afternoon (Sangue quente em tarde frio), colour, 35 mm., 2569 m.; dir. & prod.,
Renato Neuman; p.a.: Milton Rodrigues, Talula Campos, Angela Santos, Francisco Santos, Rejane
Medeiros; over 18 yrs. with cuts.
House of Assignations (A casa assassinada), colour, 35 mm., 2958 m.; dir., Paulo C6sar Saraceni; prod.,
Sergio Saraceni; p.a.: Norma Benguel, Carlos Kroeber, Tereza Medina, Augusto Lourenqo, Rubens
Araujo; prohibited.
Killed the Family and Went to the Movies (Matou a familia e foi ~o cinema), B&W, 35 ram., 1847 m.;
dir. & prod., Julio Bressane; p.a.: Marcia Rodrigues, Renata Sorrah, Antero de Oliveira, Paulo Padilha,
Rodolfo Arena, Vanda Lacerda; over 18 yrs.
Lost Love offfuliana (ffuliana do amor perdido), colour, 35 mm., 3049 m.; dir., Serg]o Ricardo; prod.,
Entrefilmes Ltda.; p.a.: Maria do Rosario, Francisco di Franco, Macedo Neto, Antfnio Pitanga, Itala
Nandi; over 18 yrs. with cuts.
Man Without Importance (Urn homem sem importfmcia), B&W, 35 ram., 2044 m.; dir., Alberto Salv~
Contel; prod., Grupo C~mara Produ96es Cinematogrfificas Ltda.; p.a.: Oduvaldo Viana Filho~ Glauce
Rocha, Rafael de Carvalho, D'Artagnan Mello, Dita C6rte-Real; over 18 yrs. with cuts.
Severed Heads (Cabezas cortadas), colour, 35 mm.; dir., Glauber Rocha; prod., Mapa Ltda., Filmscon-
tacto y Profilmes; 1., Barcelone, Spain; p.a.: Pierre Clement.i, Francesco Rabal, Rosa Maria Penna;
prohibited.
1971
A Certain Capt. Rodrigo (Urn certo capitao Rodrigo), colour, 35 ram., 3047 m.; dir., Anselmo Duarte;
prod., Companhia Cinematogr~tfica Vera Cruz; p.a.: Francisco di Franco, Elsa de Castro; over 18 yrs.
with cuts.
For Whoever's Staying, Bye (Prfi quem fica, tchau), colour, 35 mm., 2524 m.; dir., Reginaldo Farias;
prod., R. F. Farias Ltda.; p.a.: Reginaldo Farias, Stepan Nercessian, Rosana Tapaj6s, Fl~vio Migli-
accio, Jos~ Lawgoy; over 18 yrs.
494 17. S c h i f f
Otelo Wins Millions (Bar~o Otelo no Barato dos Bilhges), colour, 16 ram.; dir., Miguel Borges; L. C.
Barreto Produq6es Cinematogrfifica Ltda.; p.a.: Grande Otelo, Dina Sfat, Milton Moraes; over 18 yrs.
with cuts.
Sao Bernardo, color, 35 mm., 3112 m.; dir., Leon Hirszman; prod., Saga Filmes Ltda.; p.a.: Othon
Bastos, Isabel Ribeiro, Nildo Parente; over 18 yrs. with cuts.
1972
Nudity Will Be Punished (T6do a nudez serd castigada), colour, 35 mm.; dir., Arnaldo Jabor; prod., R.
F. Farias Ltda.; prohibited.
The Playboy CassyJones (CassyJones, o magnifico sedutor), colour, 35 mm., 2851 m.; dir., Luis Sergio
Person; prod., Lauper Filmes Ltda.; p.a.: Paulo Jos6, Sandra Brea; over 18 yrs. with cuts.
1973
Fabulous Fittipaldi (Ofabuloso FittipaldO, colour, 35 mm.; dir., Roberto Farias; prod., R. F. Farias/H.B.
Filmes; p.a.: Emerson Fittipaldi; unrestricted but no "good quality" certificate.
Joanna, the Frenchwoman (Joanna Francesa), colour, 35 ram., 3150 m.; dir., Carlos Diegues; prod.,
Ipanema Filmes Ltda.; p.a.: Jeanne Moreau, Carlos Kroeber, Helber Rangel, Eliezer Gomes; over 18
yrs. with cuts.
1974
History of Brazil (Hist6ria do Brasil), colour, 35 mm., 165 min.; dir., Glauber Rocha & Marcos
Medeiros; prod., Sambra Cinema e Communica96es; 1., Cuba & Italy; over 16 yrs.
1975
Priest's Sin (Pecado na sacristia), colour, 35 mm., 2372 m.; dir. & prod., Miguel Borges; p.a.: Mauricio
do Valle, Itala Nandi; unrestricted with cuts.

Frederick Schiff - Brazilian Film and Military Censorship Cinema Novo 1964 1974

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Droits d'auteur :

Frederick Schiff - Brazilian Film and Military Censorship Cinema Novo 1964 1974

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Droits d'auteur :

Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television

ISSN: 0143-9685 (Print) 1465-3451 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/chjf20

Brazilian Film and Military Censorship: Cinema Novo,

To cite this article: Frederick Schiff (1993) Brazilian�Film�and�Military�Censorship:�Cinema

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01439689300260371

Published online: 15 Sep 2006.

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Brazilian Film and Military Censorship:

The S o c i o - E c o n o m i c Context o f Brazil's Film Industry

The Ideology of the National Security State

E S G ideology as a total managerial view that justified the progressive militarization of

prolonged crisis of legitimacy. His analysis is based on opinion surveys he conducted in

Images of Opposition [21]

The Censorship Records

Censorship Under the Moderate Military, 1964-1968

changes in the censorship criteria at the time. As in other forms of governmental

Censorship Under the Hardline Military, 1969--1974

to distribution limited to intellectuals and the middle class because of their u n c o n v e n -

Correspondence: D r Frederick Schiff, School of C o m m u n i c a t i o n , University of Houston,

A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s : A National E n d o w m e n t for the H u m a n i t i e s travel-to-collection grant

B&W = black and white

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