The São Paulo Connection: The Companhia Cinematografica Vera Cruz and O Cangaceiro
1998; Volume: 11; Issue: 21-22 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/ntc.1998.0016
ISSN1940-9079
Autores Tópico(s)Cultural, Media, and Literary Studies
ResumoPART III THE STUDIO SYSTEM THE SAO PAULO CONNECTION: THE COMPANHIA CINEMATOGRÁFICA VERA CRUZ AND O CANGACEIRO _______________________ANA M. LOPEZ_______________________ Tulane University The experience of the Vera Cruz studios in Säo Paulo is a typically "fifties" moment in the history of Latin American filmmaking; a moment of change, debate, euphoria, increasing internationalism (of personnel, distribution , influences), and, of course, failure. The Companhia Cinematográfica Vera Cruz, in existence between 1949 and 1954, represents the most concerted effort to implement studio-based filmmaking in Brazil. In Rio, other companies like Atlántida and Cinédia were also studio-based, but unlike them, Vera Cruz was modern, wellequipped , and, since it was backed by the wealthy Säo Paulo bourgeoisie, well-financed. For its founders, the great industrialists Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho and Franco Zampari, Vera Cruz — like the Museu de Arte Moderna and the Teatro Brasileiro de Comedia which they had also created— was a symbol not only of their own cultural aspirations but of the modernity and effervescence of the paulista bourgeoisie in general. If anyone could, they would be the ones to finally produce a Brazilian cinema of international "quality," the opposite of the much-detested carioca chanchada. Their "internationalism " was certainly inspired by Hollywood's universality (and the studio mode of production), but the technical know-how for the company was all European. Among the talent imported by Vera Cruz were important figures such as the British cinematographer Chick Fowle, the Austrian editor Oswald Haffenrichter, the Danish sound engineer Eric Rasmussen, and a number of Italian directors (Adolfo CeIi, Luciano Salce, and Ruggero Jacobbi) associated with the Teatro Brasileiro de Comedia. Of course, the principal "import" was not really an importation, but the return of a prodigal son: Vera Cruz hired as its executive producer the Brazilian-born directorproducer Alberto Cavalcanti, who had begun his career with the French avant-garde, worked at Joinville in multilingual productions, participated in the establishment of the British documentary movement, and greatly contributed to the success of the Ealing studios. Cavalcanti's reign as director was short-lived: by all accounts, he had a difficult personality and his high-©1998 NUEVO TEXTO CRITICO Vol. XI No. 21/22, Enero a Diciembre 1998 128________________________________________________________ANA M. LOPEZ standards, cosmopolitanism, and sexual preferences quickly came into conflict with the company. Cavalcanti left Vera Cruz in 1951. Before returning to Europe, he directed three films (Simäo, o Caolho, 1952, a political chanchada featuring the great comedian Mesquitinha; Mulher de verdade, 1954, another comedy; and O canto do mar, 1954, a restaging of his French port city film En rade (1927) in Pernambuco) for Kino and Maristela, studios that had emerged in the shadows of Vera Cruz.1 In its five years of activities, Vera Cruz produced a few documentaries (including two shorts directed by Lima Barreto) and 18 feature films, ranging from historical and contemporary melodramas to "bio-pic" films, historical epics, and comedies. Its output, when coupled with increasing filmmaking activity in Säo Paulo itself and in Rio and with a general euphoria over the possibilities of Brazilian filmmaking, led critic Salvyano Cavalcanti de Paiva to predict in a 1952 cover article in the weekly news magazine Mánchete (then in its first year of publication), based on the fact that national film production had doubled (from 10 films in 1947 to 20 in 1950), that production would reach 40 films per year in the near future. And echoing the famous nationalist cliché, he exhorted: "Our three and a half million weekly spectators, eager and willing to pay to see films spoken in their own language with local actors and national themes, are waiting for a historical change. After all, is this or is it not the 'Country of the Future?'"2 As we know, in the short-term it wasn't, and Vera Cruz was not the company of the future either. Vera Cruz had not taken into account the limitations of the domestic market and the difficulties of breaking into the international market: its big-budget productions (the average Vera Cruz film cost ten times more than a Rio chanchada), extraordinarily high overhead costs, and, eventually, its indebtedness to the...
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