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Quilombo and Utopia: The Aesthetic of Labor in Linduarte Noronha's Aruanda (1960)

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 20; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13569325.2011.611127

1469-9575

Salomé Aguilera Skvirsky,

Arts and Performance Studies

Abstract This essay focuses on one of the privileged spaces of the Cinema Novo filmscape: the quilombo, or maroon settlement. Though largely neglected by film scholars, the quilombo is an abiding theme for Brazilian political filmmakers. It is the symbolic crossroads where a utopian strain of political thinking converges with a central preoccupation of Brazilian national identity – the question of Brazil's racial character. This essay examines the classic short documentary that introduced the quilombo to Brazilian Cinema. Aruanda (Linduarte Noronha, 1960) is about a rural community of descendants of escaped slaves. The film represents an anti-culturalist approach to the quilombo that was soon superseded by the culturalist appropriation of the quilombo by the Brazilian black movement, by filmmakers like Carlos Diegues, and later, by the Brazilian state. Aruanda locates the utopian element of the quilombo, not in a peculiarly African or Afro-Brazilian culture, but in the unalienated life-activity of its members. Acknowledgment I would like to especially thank the Brazilian film critic Carlos Alberto Mattos for his generosity in helping me access historical materials and for his mentorship. Notes 1 See Bentes (Citation2003: 121). 2 Although quilombo is a foreign word, I will not generally italicize it. 3 One interesting side note is that the favela is these days compared to a quilombo. Ivana Bentes fits this suggestive reference into her essay on the sertão and the favela: 'The culture of samba in the favelas is seen, over and over, as a niche, a kind of urban quilombo, at once integrated with and isolated from the city' (131). See Bentes (Citation2003). For other suggestive treatments of the quilombo-favela convergence, see Carril (Citation2006); Campos (Citation2005). 4 See Ranger and Hobsbawm (1983: 206). 5 See Rodrigues (Citation2001: 12); Fry (Citation2000: 12). 6 Although quilombo and quilombolas (maroons) are foreign words, in the remainder of this essay I will not italicize either. 7 There are important questions to be asked of the link between the Paraíban school of documentary and Cinema Novo. These questions are historical (e.g. How much contact did the filmmakers from each movement have with each other?), aesthetic (e.g. Are there differences between how these schools approach a similar topic – Brazil's northeastern sertão?), and political (e.g. What does it mean for Paraíban filmmakers to make films about Paraíba? What does it mean for Paulistas to do so?). For treatments of the Paraíban school and cinema from/of the northeast, see Leal (Citation1982, Citation1989); Oliveira (Citation1998); Tolentino (Citation2002). 8 I am using Michael Hanchard's notion of culturalism. He defines 'culturalism' as 'the equation of cultural practices with the material, expressive, artifactual elements of cultural production, and the neglect of normative political aspects of a cultural process' (21). 'In culturalist practices, Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Diasporic symbols and artifacts become reified and commodified; culture becomes a thing, not a deep political process' (21). See Hanchard (Citation1994). 'Folklorization' is a similar concept. For treatments of 'folklorization', see Godreau (Citation2002); Urban and Sherzer (Citation1991). 9 See Lévi-Strauss (Citation1952: 6–7). 10 Levi-Strauss, on the other hand, accepts the basic premise of the man on the street – that certain civilizations have achieved different degrees of advancement. But he does not explain this fact as a reflection of innate inferiority, as the man on the street is inclined to. Nor does he turn to social evolutionism: in other words, the solution is not a story about different stages along a linear, progressive path of development. Instead, Lévi-Strauss tries to give a non-teleological, purely historical account of the diversity of human cultures in various contexts of isolation and contact with other cultures. See Lévi-Strauss (Citation1952). 11 Nascimento (Citation1980: 168). Palmares was estimated to have 20,000 inhabitants. It is indisputably the largest maroon society in the Americas. It survived for close to a century, beating back the incursions of Dutch and Portuguese forces intent on destroying this native threat to colonial power. 12 Nascimento (Citation1980: 168). Palmares was estimated to have 20,000 inhabitants. It is indisputably the largest maroon society in the Americas. It survived for close to a century, beating back the incursions of Dutch and Portuguese forces intent on destroying this native threat to colonial power, 160. 13 Nascimento (Citation1980: 168). Palmares was estimated to have 20,000 inhabitants. It is indisputably the largest maroon society in the Americas. It survived for close to a century, beating back the incursions of Dutch and Portuguese forces intent on destroying this native threat to colonial power, 167. 14 One odd feature of Nascimento's formulation is that the quilombo emerges as a model that is simultaneously distinctly Brazilian and purely African. There is nothing syncretic or hybrid in his quilombo. Still, the distinct Brazilianness of the quilombo model is not irrelevant. But what does this Brazilianness amount to? In what sense is the quilombo a Brazilian form? Merely, because it existed on Brazilian soil? Perhaps this stress is explained by Nascimento's intended audience. His audience is somewhat nationalist and an Afro-Brazilian tradition would be more palatable (even if not syncretic), more readily owned as their own, than one borrowed directly from Africa. For an audience that feels itself to be Brazilian, he must provide a way for it to be both Brazilian and African – uncontaminated by the European and yet with longstanding ties to Brazil. The quilombo as Nascimento has conceived of it accomplishes this. 15 In practice, it is more complicated than this. See Fiabani (Citation2005). 16 Nascimento (Citation1980: 156). 17 See Péret (Citation2002). Although Péret's claim that Palmares had slaves is today little believed. 18 For example, see Reis et al. (Citation1996). 19 Fry (Citation2000: 11). 20 Fry (Citation2000: 11), 12. 21 Telles (Citation1999: 82–83). 22 Fry (Citation2000: 13). Also see Fry (Citation1982, Citation2005). 23 See Hanchard (Citation1994). 24 Véran (Citation2002). See French (Citation2007). Jan Hoffman French offers much the same account. According to her, anthropologists looked for (a) signs of communal land use in a rural setting, (b) residents who could remember the slave past, (c) signs of long-term land use, (d) 'cultural practices that could be construed as ethnic markers' (112). French also notes that the policy requiring visits by anthropologists was changed in 2003, resulting in some debate about the drawbacks of relying on self-identification alone. 25 Véran (Citation2002: 23). 26 Véran (Citation2002: 23) 27 French (Citation2007). 28 French (Citation2007) So that, in the case of the community of Mocambo, it was able to use the quilombo clause to gain land rights without any evidence suggesting that its residents were indeed descended from runaway slaves (114). 29 French (Citation2007), 113. 30 See Segato (Citation1998); Fry (Citation1982). 31 For the controversy over the film's authorship, see Oliveira (Citation1998). Although Linduarte only credited Carvalho and João Ramiro Mello with being assistant directors on Aruanda, both Carvalho and Ramiro Mello have publicly said that the three men co-wrote the script. The script, according to Ramiro Mello, was not even remotely based on Linduarte's 1958 newspaper article about Serra do Talhado (this was Linduarte's argument). Instead, the three men collaborated on the final script after filming according to Mello. This authorship controversy spelled a break in the Linduarte-Carvalho friendship. The two men reconciled in 1979 (Oliviera 1998: 75–76). 32 For readings of Aruanda, see Paranaguá and Avellar (Citation2003); Leal (Citation1989); Rocha (Citation1960); Moretzsohn and Caputo (Citation2005); Johnson (Citation1998). 33 Johnson (Citation1998: 194). 34 Rocha (Citation2003: 144). 35 There is a distinction to be made between the Paraíban school of documentary filmmaking and Cinema Novo, though there is certainly overlap. And we should perhaps remember that these descriptive labels are for the most part imposed after the fact and usually by critics; they are not self-imposed tags. The Paraiban school was situated in Paraíba and emerged with the Aruanda project in the late 1950s. It included filmmakers from Paraíba who had been involved in the 50s with the Catholic-sponsored Cineclube of João Pessoa and with the Faculty of Philosophy at the newly created Federal University of Paraíba. These filmmakers included Linduate Noronha, Vladimir Carvalho, João Ramiro Mello (Romeiros da Guia, 1962), Rucker Vieira (A Cabra na Região Semi-Árida), and Ipojuca Pontes (Os Homens do Caranguejo, 1969). For more on the beginnings of Paraíba school, see Oliveira (Citation1998). 36 For an account of the indexical dimension of the 'aesthetic of hunger' as it applies to Aruanda and to Vladimir Carvalho's later film A Pedra da Riqueza, see Carvalho (Citation2003b). 37 Oliveira (Citation1998: 169). 38 Gomes and Clemente (Citation2003: 76). 39 Oliveira (Citation1998: 169). 40 Oliveira (Citation1998: 169) 41 Lopes (Citation2003: 32). 42 Carvalho (Citation2003b: 112). 43 Mattos (Citation2008: 82). 44 In the August 6th 1960 article in which Glauber Rocha embraced Aruanda, he simultaneously praised another film released the same year, Arraial do Cabo (Paulo César Saraceni, 1960). Both films were inaugurating a new Brazilian cinema tradition. Arraial do Cabo is a beautiful, lyrical film about fishermen fishing. Although its narrative arc follows activities of fisherman at work, depicting their chores in chronological order, still, the approach to work is not like Aruanda's. It is surely a film about work, but it does not communicate this same sense of the creative and utopian character of work in a properly organized society. Arraial do Cabo is thereby a counterpoint to the aesthetic of labor I have been trying to describe, but one that comes close enough so that the subtle differences can be appreciated. For a short discussion of Arraial do Cabo's domestic and international reception, see Rocha (Citation1960, Citation2003). Another crude counterpoint may be seen in the recent quilombo documentary, Quilombo Country (Leonard Abrams, 2006). The film begins with a visual account of the steps in making manioc flour and tries to give a similar account of house-building and armadillo-cooking. Although all the steps are 'named' and represented in order, the effect is quite different from Flaherty or Carvalho. In my view, it is the equivalent of cinematic 'telling' rather than 'showing'. See note 54. 45 Glauber (2003: 145); translation mine. 46 Although Norohna has claimed that he had not see Man of Aran before working on Aruanda, the film's resemblance to Flaherty's work has been observed by such renowned critics as Jean-Claude Bernardet, who has attributed this resemblance to Carvalho. See Walter Carvalho (Citation2007); Noronha (Citation2003). 47 See Carvalho (Citation2007). 48 Carvalho (Citation2003a). 49 Mattos (Citation2008: 69). 50 In some ways Man of Aran stands out within Flaherty's oeuvre. The Aran islanders were considered by Flaherty to be his people (he was of Irish descent) and not an exotic other like the Inuit or the Pacific islanders. Linduarte's and Carvalho's relationship to the people depicted in Aruanda is similar – after all, these filmmakers are from Paraíba and were engaged in examining life in Paraíba. They were not exactly outsiders or interlopers to the place or people they were documenting. In light of this subtle distinction, we may ask whether this changes the ethnographic character of the films by Flaherty and Linduarte. 51 Rony (Citation1996: 7). 52 Industrial Britain is an interesting case because it concretizes the link between Flaherty's romanticism and Grierson's propagandistic, pro-industry project. And in fact, in enlisting Flaherty's participation on the project, Grierson was hoping to harness Flaherty's sensibility to his anti-romantic vision: 'But how otherwise than by coming to industry, even as it is, and forcing beauty from it, and bringing people to see beauty in it, can one, in turn inspire man to create and find well-being?' (quoted in Guynn 85). William Guynn sums up: 'Grierson enticed Flaherty to participate in the Empire Marketing Board's mission by suggesting that industrial labor could be visualized as belonging to the tradition of the British craftsman. It was doubtless a challenge to the Flaherty eye to discern in the looming industrial landscape and the monotony of the assembly line vestiges of individual human workmanship'. See Guynn (Citation1998). Grierson and Flaherty shared an interest in labor and work – and this interest made Flaherty susceptible to Grierson's arguments. The great films associated with Grierson's leadership at the Empire Marketing Board (EMP) and the General Post Office (GPO) – Drifters (Grierson, 1929), Industrial Britain (Flaherty et al., 1931), Song of Ceylon (Basil Wright, 1934), Night Mail (Wright, Watt, Anstey, et al., 1936) – were, after all, films about work made by progressive social democrats (and self-styled socialists): the work of the British herring industry, the work of the British steel and coal industries, the work of Ceylonese tea harvesting, the work of mail distribution. For treatments of the British Documentary movement and national cinema and identity, see Higson (Citation1995); Dodd and Dodd (Citation1996). For a discussion of Grierson's ideological commitments, see Aitken (Citation1990). 53 It should be added that there are several ethnographic films that depict subsistence activities, but whose approaches are merely indexical – that is, whose approaches are allusive. An example in the quilombo film genre is Leonard Abrams' recent film Quilombo Country (2006). 54 Quoted in Williams and British Film Institute (Citation1980: 89). 55 Rotha and Ruby (Citation1983: 152). 56 Marx, Engels and Tucker (Citation1978: 76). 57 Marx, Engels and Tucker (Citation1978: 76) 58 Marx and Engels (Citation1967: 505–07). 59 Marx and Engels (Citation1967: 505–07) 60 Löwy (Citation1987b: 894). 'Romantic anti-capitalism' is a phrase first coined by Georg Lukács. For a discussion of the differing strains of romanticism, see also Löwy (Citation1981). For a discussion of the term's provenance, see Löwy (Citation1987a). For a response to Löwy's account of romantic anti-capitalism and Löwy's counter-response, see the first part of Rosso and Watkins (Citation1990). 61 There has been some controversy regarding Marx's view of the abolition of the division of labor in the future society. Some scholars argue that Marx's views shift between the German Ideology in which he declares the necessity of abolishing the division of labor and Capital in which even in the emancipated society of the future productive activity would be divided: it would fall under the category of a realm of necessity (production for the sake of survival) and a realm of freedom ('the development of human energy which is an end in itself') which has the realm of necessity as its basis. For more on this controversy, see Parekh (Citation1975); Rattansi (Citation1982). 62 It would be interesting to compare this project to that of Song of Ceylon (1934). After all, Song of Ceylon shares – perhaps more than any other film associated with the British documentary film movement – Flaherty's lyrical, romantic sensibility. William Guynn has argued that Song of Ceylon idealizes Ceylonese life and its labor regimes (which had never included wage-labor) and uses this idealized representation as an implicit indictment of British industrial society. Its ideological commitments seem contradictory, for while it succumbs to Orientalism, it also provides a critique of colonial exploitation (but one that did not at all displease its sponsors – the Ceylon Tea Propaganda Board – who basked in the film's success). See Guynn (Citation1998). That a critique of colonial exploitation can coincide with exoticism should not come as a surprise. Certainly, Aruanda is navigating this terrain, but I would argue that the specificity of its idealization (e.g. the singular focus on unalienated labor) goes some way toward saving it from a critique similar to Guynn's critique of Song of Ceylon. Wright's film includes several elements missing from Aruanda, including the filming of Ceylonese customs and religious practices. Still, we have seen that the singular focus on labor did not save Flaherty. Aruanda's redemption is to be found in its refusal to reject the salutary possibilities of development and change. 63 See Burton (Citation1997). 64 Sayers (Citation2003). For more on Marx, work, and human nature, see Sayers (Citation1998, Citation2005, Citation2007); Adams (Citation1991). 65 Adams (Citation1991: 252). Sayers, who has written about similar issues, disagrees with Adams on this point. Sayers argues that there is nothing romantic in Marx and that 'Marx completely rejects the craft ideal' (449) implied in Adams' article. On this question of the craft ideal, he cites Marx's line about 'craft idiocy' from The Poverty of Philosophy (1847): 'The automatic workshop wipes out specialists and craft-idiocy.' In the section in question, Marx is discussing Proudhon's romantic criticisms of industrial society. Proudhon is concerned about the rarified division of labor in industrial society and, in the function of this critique, Proudhon idealizes the journeyman of the Middle Ages. Marx is targeting craft-idiocy within feudal society, which tends toward a certain onesideness, and is not commenting on craft in precapitalist societies. There are other problems that I have discussed above with the model of handicraft production in precapitalist, non-exploitative societies. The fundamental issue here is the relation between art and handicraft. While Sayers wishes to make a sharp distinction – to celebrate the one and denigrate the other – Adams evokes a certain continuity between the two by referring to 'artistic craft'. This is what Sayers is objecting to. But he has not convinced me that Marx makes as sharp a distinction as he does. His example from The Poverty of Philosophy is easily dismissed as Marx's critique of craft within feudal society and not craft as such. See Sayers (Citation2007); Marx (Citation1995). 66 Adams (Citation1991: 270). 67 Sayers (Citation2003). Sayers counters the efforts of structuralist Marxists to sharply distinguish between the young Marx of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts and the mature Marx of Capital, particularly around the issue of alienation and species being. Sayers' tries to reconstruct Marx's views on labor and its role in man's self-realization. He finds evidence throughout Marx's corpus for the view that work is man's 'vital activity', his 'human essence'. For another effort to recuperate Marx's humanism and the unity of his thought particularly around the question of alienation, see Mészáros (Citation2005). 68 Marx and Engels (Citation1972). 69 Löwy (Citation1987b: 903). 70 Noronha's following documentary, O Cajueiro [The Northeasten Cashew Tree] (1969), as we can perhaps perceive from its title does not focus on labor and production with the same stubbornness as Carvalho's films. Noronha also made a feature film, O Sálario da Morte [Death's Pay Roll] (1971), about a criminal gang in the city of Pombal in Northeastern, Brazil. 71 Carvalho (Citation2003b: 112).