Description
Carlos Diegues is interviewed by Lúcia Nagib at the Hotel Bel Ami in Paris on March 24, 2016. Diegues begins by describing his upbringing, his birthplace of Maceió, Alagoas, and his teenage years in Rio de Janeiro. He talks about the influence his father had over his cultural education and credits him for providing an introduction to the greats of Brazilian literature such as Jorge Amado, Graciliano Ramos, Raquel de Queiroz and Jorge de Lima. Diegues remembers meeting film director and screenwriter David Neves at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, acting as an assistant to director Ruy Guerra, and his early encounters with director Nelson Pereira dos Santos, whom he describes as the “glue of Brazilian Cinema.”
Diegues recounts memories of his days at law school and describes his connections with the political and cultural movements of the time; the Centro Popular de Cultura (CPC) and the Cinema Novo phenomenon. He discusses the ways in which directors King Vidor, F.W. Murnau, Jean Renoir and Federico Fellini greatly inspired his own aesthetic and cinematographic taste.
Diegues traces his career as a director, citing numerous films, including Os herdeiros (The Inheritors, 1969), Quilombo (1984) and O grande circo místico (The Great Mystical Circus, 2017). He addresses how the military dictatorship in Brazil and issues of state censorship influenced his filmmaking career. He shares anecdotes from the years he spent living and working outside Brazil in voluntary exile in Italy and France. He tells stories of working alongside influential people from the Brazilian motion picture industry, from editor Eduardo Escorel to director-screenwriter Joaquim Pedro. Diegues remembers the year his film Ganga zumba (1964) screened at Critics’ Week in Cannes, the same year that Nelson Pereira dos Santos’s Vidas secas (Barren Lives, 1963) and Glauber Rocha’s Deus o e diabo na terra do sol (Black God, White Devil, 1964) were selected to represent Brazil at the festival. He refers to this as a truly exceptional year in which Brazilian cinema was discovered in Europe. He discusses the ways in which Brazil’s political and social history form the backdrop to his films and how Brazilian literature, music and cultural traditions are integral components of his work. He talks about his role as a Brazilian filmmaker and the historical and cultural relevance of the Cinema Novo movement.
(jtakahashi 7/21/17)
