1964 ‘Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol’ Directed by Glauber Rocha
Cowherd Manoel and his wife are on the run in the drought-plagued and violent Brazilian badlands of 1940 after he kills a rich grazier. Moving credulously from one allegiance to another, they finally learn that the land belongs neither to God nor the Devil, but to the people.
God and the Devil in the Land of the Sun, Il Dio Nero e il Diavolo Biondo, Le Dieu noir et le diable blond, Gott und der Teufel im Lande der Sonne, Dios y el diablo en la tierra del sol
Asif Khan's #1 Film Selection for Edgar
As a Law student, Rocha was a politically charged beast and first gained the attention of Cannes with this sociopolitical allegory conceived as a piece of experimental neorealism, two terms that form an oxymoron even in artistic representation, but the beast of the Cinema Novo somehow miraculously achieves to make them coexist in a film representing, indeed, an "entranced earth" constituted by dualities:
✓Catholic fundamentalisms vs the Christian example of the Gospels, the latter never shown
✓Salvation through personal deeds and efforts vs salvation through faith, the latter never shown
✓The conscience God gave us all to distinguish what is good and bad vs Satan's current dominion of the world, the latter pervasively…
Iniciando aqui o Cinema Novo, movimento revolucionário mais influente do cinema brasileiro até hoje que, abandonando os conceitos da Nouvelle Vague e do Neorealismo Italiano também ajudou a levar o nosso cinema pro resto do mundo, Glauber Rocha cria aqui uma obra-prima magnífica.
Utilizando de metáforas e personagens que representam o Brasil e o brasileiro através de uma belíssima fotografia que usa da luz natural do nordeste pra criar altos contrastes assim como explora toda aridez da mise-en-scène e sua opressão sobre os personagens (como vimos muito nos Westerns, por exemplo) e adotando movimentos de câmeras eficazes em ajudar a contar a história, Deus e o Diabo é um reflexo do Brasil de sua época, às vésperas do golpe Militar,…
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Religious and governmental bodies, self-proclaimed saviors and saints—all unscrupulous in their quest for power and riches. Only the oppressed can be pure of heart and spirit, but even they will eventually rise up, becoming the oppressor, as is human nature. We see it time and time again. After all, every dog has his day.
Black God, White Devil is rapturous. Theological and sociopolitical allegory—an experimental western that is transcendental in style, with jarring bursts of violence emphasizing the age old power struggle between good and evil. Glauber Rocha’s tale of battling cangaceiros takes place at the end of banditism in Brazil in the early 20th century. After killing his thieving boss, cowherd Manoel and his wife Rosa…
Um detalhe dá à fuga de Paulo e sobretudo ao fato que ele está ferido pela polícia um aspecto imaginário: quando o policial atira nele, sua ação é fragmentada em vários planos e isso dá a seus movimentos alguma coisa de mecânico e irreal.
(Glauber) – Em um western ou em um filme policial pode-se dar o movimento todo, faz-se um filme pelo prazer de filmar esse gênero de coisa; mas em Deus e o Diabo, quando Antônio das Mortes é apresentado pela primeira vez, em ação, isto é, matando, eu fragmentei também essa cena, pois o interessante não é a ação em si mesma, mas o seu caráter simbólico. (Glauber falando sobre Deus e o Diabo na terra do…
The starkness of this film is in contrast to the strange, voice over singing narration that occasionally interjects with a mournful but oddly jaunty tone. It's as jarring as the beautiful yet rugged scenery is to the brutal human interactions on screen. Combined, these features scream at you that everything that we see is wrong, fundamentally unsettling because it is not how things should be. Traditions and religions, social structures and violence all face harsh criticisms here as our characters wander through the wilderness, literally and metaphorically.
Every group our two protagonists seek to belong to seems to try to destroy them. An earnest attempt to making money selling cattle gets them exploited and drives them to violence. Religion turns…
Resenha bibliográfica
ROCHA, Glauber e outros. Deus e o diabo na terra do sol. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 232 p. (Coleção Biblioteca Básica de Cinema, v. 1).
A Editora Civilização Brasileira inicia sua Biblioteca Básica de Cinema com um passo acertado: publicar o roteiro e depoimentos sobre a fita Deus e o diabo na terra do sol. No entanto, a coleção vai seguindo rumos equívocos, traduzindo bitolamentos estéticos e preocupações do passado (Umberto Barbaro, Aristarco).
Falar sobre este livro quer dizer: falar sobre o filme de Glauber Rocha. Passar da discussão falada à discussão escrita. Uma “reprise” recente em S. Paulo veio situar a obra que, segundo um jornal carioca, “atinge o ponto mágico do cinema”. Ou melhor, que…
A startlingly original portrayal of the suffering of the oppressed, Black God, White Devil is a crucial film in the first phase of the Cinema Novo movement. Glauber Rocha’s direction brings about the quietness of daily existence in all it's sweat dripping hardships for a people struggling just to survive, and early on focuses on the intense-looking suffering in the eyes of its principal characters Manuel and his wife Rosa, played wonderfully by Geraldo Del Rey and Yoná Magalhães. The manual labours of the disadvantaged Manuel turn out to be the result of profiteering when his employer attempts to defraud him of his remunerations and commences to beat him. In a fleeting moment of anger, Manuel murders his employer and…
Wild West Summer 2021, week 18: Watch a Western that played in competition at Cannes, Venice or Berlin
progress: 7/25
You could say that Black God, White Devil was a film provoked by the impossibility of doing a truly great Western, as, for instance, John Ford could. Equally, there was a trail of inspiration from Eisenstein ... and further ideas from Visconti and Rossellini, from Kurosawa and from Buñuel. It arose from this tussle between Ford and Eisenstein, from the anarchy of Buñuel, and from the savage strength of the lunacy of surrealism.
— Glauber Rocha
Black God, White Devil fully embodies the pulsating energy, audacity, and idealism wrapped up in its director's description, full of handheld cameras, desolate landscapes,…
A biblical western of epic symbolism and not-so-epic lethargic pace. There's no question about the astonishingly powerful imagery in the film and its overall artistic and political relevance to cinema. What's controversial about Rocha, and that gets crystal clear sitting through this movie, is that his geniality at directing and producing iconic sequences may not be equivalent to his ability using these skills in drawing the audience's attention to tell important stories. Despite suffering from lack of rhythm, or better too slow of a rhythm, there's an undeniable class, so its understandable why film schools use it, in framing and cinematography.
Part of the Film School Dropouts Challenge
Week 19: Cinema Novo
What a perfect coincidence that a theatre near me are doing a Cinema Novo series, when Cinema Novo was the movement of the week on the FSDO challenge that I’m doing!!
Black God, White Devil was a pretty awesome experience. It's a brutal, unique, poetic and nightmarish portrait of religious and socialpolitical issues in the dry, harsh and poverty-stricken setting of a sertão plagued by violence, starvation and religious hysteria. The handheld camerawork and stark b&w photography could seem amateurish at times, but it becomes rather mesmerizing and gives a realistic feel, and its full of disturbing imagery, and coupled with the rapid editing some powerful scenes are created.…
"Tá contada minha história, verdade e imaginação / Espero que o senhor tenha tirado uma lição / Que assim mal dividido, esse mundo anda errado / Que a terra é do homem, não é de Deus nem do Diabo"
Parece que ainda não entendemos essa lição.
It seems like we haven't learned this lesson yet.
This is an often bizarre, sometimes terrifying, and very dark film. The pace will go from pure chaos with frantic editing/cinematography and walls of sound in the form of agonized screams + crashing music in one scene, then turning into a slow, methodical borderline silent film for the next 10 minutes. Another bizzare feature is the dude singing folk songs as narration/exposition/recap throughout a lot of the film. I didn't mind it, but I don't understand it really.
In fact, there's quite a bit I didn't understand about the film. As an ignorant American- I'm sure I missed almost all of the political, religious, allegorical, and symbolic elements; I'm also sure that Glauber Rocha explicitly didn't care to be understood…
