TROPICAL UNDERGROUND. THE BRAZILIAN CINEMA MARGINAL AND THE REVOLUTION OF CINEMA
„SEM ESSA, ARANHA and Belair Films: The Brazilian Underground and Cinema Marginal in den 1970s”
Lecture by Fernão Pessoa Ramos (Campinas/Chicago)
25.01.2018 at the DFF cinema.
Rogério Sganzerlas SEM ESSA, ARANHA, a 16 mm film of 17 long shots, is a masterpiece of improvisation and a provocative cinematic poem with the superstar of Cinema Marginal, Helena Ignez, in one of the leading roles. It is one of six films that Rogério Sganzerla shot together with Júlio Bressane in the important but short-lived production company Belair Films. These films were a radical artistic reaction to the difficult political situation following the intensification of censorship by the military dictatorship in Brazil in 1968.
Fernão Pessoa Ramos is Professor of Film Studies at the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp). He was co-founder of SOCINE (Brazilian Society of Film Studies) and has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago since 2018. His book Cinema Marginal, a Representação em seu Limite, published in 1987, is a milestone in research on the Cinema Marginal.
Film: SEM ESSA, ARANHA
Brazil 1970.
Director: Rogério Sganzerla
Cast: Jorge Loredo, Helena Ignez, Maria Gladys. 102 mins. OV with English subtitles.
Zé Bonitinho or ‘Aranha’ (German: ‘Spinne’) and his three wives experience different adventures on the streets, in bars and cabarets. Filmed with little time and money, the film consists of a series of mostly improvised scenes, accompanied by music and screams without a script, showing Brazil of the 1960s and 1970s, a country marked by hunger and social problems. Due to censorship during the military dictatorship, the film was first shown to the public in 1978.
