Ismail Xavier – författare

Examines the centrality of Cinema Novo to filmmaking in Brazil.“A camera in the hand and ideas in the head” was the primary axiom of the young originators of Brazil’s Cinema Novo. This movement of the 1960s and early 1970s overcame technical constraints and produced films on minimal budgets. In Allegories of Underdevelopment, Ismail Xavier examines a number of these films, arguing that they served to represent a nation undergoing a political and social transformation into modernity.Its best-known voice, filmmaker Glauber Rocha claimed that Cinema Novo was driven by an “aesthetics of hunger.” This scarcity of means demanded new cinematic approaches that eventually gave rise to a legitimate and unique Third World cinema. Xavier stands in the vanguard of scholars presenting and interpreting these revolutionary films-from the masterworks of Rocha to the groundbreaking experiments of Julio Bressane, RogÉrio Sganzerla, Andrea Tonacci and Arthur Omar-to an English-speaking audience. Focusing on each filmmaker’s use of narrative allegories for the “conservative modernization” Brazil and other nations underwent in the 1960s and 1970s, Xavier asks questions relating to the connection between film and history. He examines the way Cinema Novo transformed Brazil’s cultural memory and charts the controversial roles that Marginal Cinema and Tropicalism played in this process. Among the films he discusses are Black God, White Devil, Land in Anguish, Red Light Bandit, MacunaÍma, AntÔnio das Mortes, The Angel Is Born, and Killed the Family and Went to the Movies.A compelling chronicle of the history of modern Brazilian cinema, Allegories of Underdevelopment brings to light the work of many filmmakers who are virtually unknown in the English-speaking world.

Glauber Rocha is known as the visionary Brazilian director of landmark films, Black God, White Devil, Entranced Earth and Antonio das Mortes. Hitherto virtually unknown outside Brazil is that he was also a brilliant film critic and innovative thinker on world cinema. On Cinema brings together for the first time in the English language a comprehensive selection of Rocha's film writings, revealing for the first time to English-speaking readers the full critical power, inventiveness and vision of a great filmmaker. Rocha's writings, endowed with critical verve and humour, give insights into key moments of film history, as well as the politics of world cinema. Here he fearlessly confronts the film establishment and debates with a host of sacred filmmakers of the world pantheon. Included is Rocha's early criticism of Brazilian films, landmark manifestoes such as 'An Aesthetics of Hunger' and 'An Aesthetics of Dreams', articles about the development of Cinema Novo, and his international film criticism, including pieces on Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, James Dean, David Lean, John Huston, Stanley Kubrick, John Ford, Jean-Luc Godard, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini, Luis Bunuel, Luchino Visconti and Roberto Rossellini. The publication of On Cinema, edited by film scholar Ismail Xavier and in expert translation, is an international publishing event.

Glauber Rocha is known as the visionary Brazilian director of landmark films, Black God, White Devil, Entranced Earth and Antonio das Mortes. Hitherto virtually unknown outside Brazil is that he was also a brilliant film critic and innovative thinker on world cinema. On Cinema brings together for the first time in the English language a comprehensive selection of Rocha's film writings, revealing for the first time to English-speaking readers the full critical power, inventiveness and vision of a great filmmaker. Rocha's writings, endowed with critical verve and humour, give insights into key moments of film history, as well as the politics of world cinema. Here he fearlessly confronts the film establishment and debates with a host of sacred filmmakers of the world pantheon. Included is Rocha's early criticism of Brazilian films, landmark manifestoes such as 'An Aesthetics of Hunger' and 'An Aesthetics of Dreams', articles about the development of Cinema Novo, and his international film criticism, including pieces on Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, James Dean, David Lean, John Huston, Stanley Kubrick, John Ford, Jean-Luc Godard, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini, Luis Bunuel, Luchino Visconti and Roberto Rossellini. The publication of On Cinema, edited by film scholar Ismail Xavier and in expert translation, is an international publishing event.