GLAUBER ROCHA RETROSPECTIVE

Why are we putting together a full retrospective of Glauber Rocha's film work at the end of this century? Is this the commemoration of some anniversary? Far from it, even if Rocha died almost twenty years ago. Twenty was the age when he made his first short film; his work also spans twenty years, from his first feature film in 1960 to the last in 1980.

It is impossible to remain indifferent when talking about Glauber. It is just as hard not to be emotional. Everyone who has met him has been impressed by his powerful character and the strength of his discourse. I was a first-hand witness of this in 1969 in Venice, in the 1970s in Rome where he used to live with French film-maker and actress Juliet Berto, and especially in February 1981, six months before he died, in Sintra, Portugal where, as a sick man, he was trying to rest.

Glauber also had specific ideas, first of all about film-making, but also about the world. He had an unbelievably persuasive way of communicating these ideas. In that respect, only Jean-Luc Godard compares to him.

A film-maker, Glauber has also been a myth for a long time now: many people know his name but have never seen a film of his. Only a handful around the world have actually seen all his films.

How important is Glauber Rocha today? We live in a film world that is ruled by conformity and conformism, where "the main problem (or the main symptom) of our times is how swift the takeover of any new or alternative form takes place", to quote Philippe Carles talking about Free Jazz in the 1960s and the 1970s. Incidentally, part of Glauber's work was contemporary with Free Jazz, as a cinema of true violence, inner and outer violence, a cinema of tearing apart, a cinema of fulguration.

Glauber remains an exemplary figure. Like John Cassavetes in the USA, yet in a different context, he took the greatest risks which, one could say, caused him to die. But he was never taken over by any sort of system. A film icon of what used to be called the Third World, he went, like Eisenstein, beyond the confined framework of political film-making by creating personal esthetics which perfectly fit in Brazilian culture. There is no formalism in Glauber's work. His camera often moved about (long before Lars von Trier), but it always was for a reason.

Even if he failed at becoming a Third World film-maker, he remains one of the greatest Latin American directors and, because of his wild originality, a true and unique creator in film history.

Philippe Jalladeau

 

FILMOGRAPHY

Short Films

TERRACE / PATIO 1959

MARANHÃO 66 1966

DI CAVALCANTI 1977

 

Documentaries

AMAZONIA, AMAZONIA / AMAZONAS, AMAZONAS 1965

HISTORY OF BRAZIL / HISTORIA DO BRASIL 1974

JORGE AMADO IN CINEMA / JORJAMADO NO CINEMA 1977

 

Length Fiction Films

BARRAVENTO 1961

BLACK GOD, WHITE DEVIL / DEUS E O DIABO NA TERRA DO SOL 1964

EARTH ENTRANCED (a.k.a. LAND IN ANGUISH) / TERRA EM TRANSE 1967

CANCER 1968 / 1972

ANTONIO DAS MORTES / O DRAGO DA MALDADE CONTRA O SANTO GUERREIRO 1969

THE SEVEN-HEADED LION / DER LEONE HAS SEPT CABECAS 1970

SEVERED HEADS / CABECAS CORTADAS 1970

CLARO 1975

THE AGE OF THE EARTH / IDADE DA TERRA 1980