| Black Orpheus | |
|---|---|
 Original poster | |
| Portuguese | Orfeu Negro |
| Directed by | Marcel Camus |
| Screenplay by |
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| Based on | Orfeu da Conceição 1956 play byVinicius de Moraes |
| Produced by | Sacha Gordine |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Jean Bourgoin |
| Edited by | Andrée Feix |
| Music by | |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | Lopert Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 107 minutes |
| Countries |
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| Language | Portuguese |
| Box office | US$750,000[1] |
Black Orpheus (Portuguese:Orfeu Negro[ɔhˈfewˈnegɾu]) is a 1959romantictragedy[2][3][4][5] film directed by French filmmakerMarcel Camus and starringMarpessa Dawn andBreno Mello. It is based on the playOrfeu da Conceição byVinicius de Moraes, which set theGreek legend ofOrpheus and Eurydice in a contemporaryfavela inRio de Janeiro duringCarnaval. The film was aninternational co-production among companies in Brazil, France and Italy.
The film is particularly noted for its soundtrack by two Brazilian composers:Antônio Carlos Jobim, whose song "A felicidade" opens the film, andLuiz Bonfá, whose "Manhã de Carnaval" and "Samba de Orfeu" have become classics ofbossa nova. The songs performed by Orfeu weredubbed by singerAgostinho dos Santos.[6] Lengthy passages of filming took place in theMorro da Babilônia, afavela in theLeme neighbourhood ofRio de Janeiro.[7][8]
Black Orpheus won thePalme d'Or at the1959 Cannes Film Festival,[9] the 1960Academy Award forBest Foreign Language Film,[10] the 1960Golden Globe Award forBest Foreign Film and was nominated for the1961 BAFTA Award forBest Film.
While the 1959 adaptation has been celebrated internationally, it has been criticized by Brazilians and scholars forexoticizing Brazil for an international audience and reinforcing harmfulstereotypes.[11][12]
A marble Greekbas-relief explodes, revealingAfro-Brazilian men dancing thesamba to drums in afavela. Eurydice arrives in Rio de Janeiro and takes atrolley driven by Orfeu. New to the city, she rides to the end of the line, where Orfeu introduces her to the station guard, Hermes, who gives her directions to the home of her cousin Serafina.
Although engaged to Mira, Orfeu is not very enthusiastic about their upcoming marriage. The couple goes to get a marriage license. When the clerk at the courthouse hears Orfeu's name, he jokingly asks if Mira is Eurydice, annoying her. Afterward, Mira insists on getting an engagement ring. Though Orfeu has just been paid, he would rather use his money to get his guitar out of the pawn shop forCarnival. Mira finally offers to loan Orfeu the money to buy her ring.
When Orfeu goes home, he is pleased to find Eurydice staying next door with Serafina. Eurydice has run away to Rio to hide from a strange man whom she believes wants to kill her. The man – Death dressed in a stylized skeleton costume – finds her, but Orfeu gallantly chases him away. Orfeu and Eurydice fall in love, yet are constantly on the run from both Mira and Death. When Serafina's sailor boyfriend Chico shows up, Orfeu offers to let Eurydice sleep in his home, while he takes the hammock outside. Eurydice invites him to her bed, and they make love.
Orfeu, Mira, and Serafina are the principal members of asamba school, one of many parading during Carnival. Serafina decides to have Eurydice dress in her Queen of the Night costume so that she can spend more time with Chico. A veil conceals Eurydice's face; only Orfeu is told of the deception. During the parade, Orfeu dances with Eurydice rather than Mira.
Eventually, Mira spots Serafina among the spectators and rips off Eurydice's veil. Eurydice is forced once again to run for her life, first from Mira and then from Death. Trapped in Orfeu's own trolley station, she hangs from a power line to get away from Death and is accidentally killed by Orfeu when he turns the power on and electrocutes her. Death tells Orfeu, "Now she's mine," before knocking him out.
Distraught, Orfeu looks for Eurydice at the Office of Missing Persons, although Hermes has told him she is dead. The building is deserted at night, with only a janitor sweeping up. He tells Orfeu that the place holds only papers and that no people can be found there. Taking pity on Orfeu, the janitor takes him down a large darkened spiral staircase – a reference to the mythical Orpheus' descent into the underworld – to aMacumba ritual, a regional form of the Afro-Brazilian religionCandomblé.
At the gate, they pass a guard dog namedCerberus. During the ritual, the janitor tells Orfeu to call to his beloved by singing. The spirit of Eurydice inhabits the body of an old woman and speaks to him. Orfeu wants to gaze upon her, but Eurydice begs him not to, lest he lose her forever. When he turns and looks anyway, he sees the old woman, and Eurydice's spirit departs, as in the Greek myth.
Orfeu wanders in mourning. He retrieves Eurydice's body from the city morgue and carries her in his arms across town and up the hill toward his home, where his shack is burning. A vengeful Mira flings a stone that hits him in the head and knocks him over a cliff to his death, with Eurydice still in his arms.
Two children, Benedito and Zeca – who have followed Orfeu throughout the film – believe Orfeu's tale that his guitar playing causes the sun to rise every morning. After Orfeu's death, Benedito insists that Zeca pick up the guitar and play so that the sun will rise. Zeca plays, and the sun comes up. A little girl appears, gives Zeca a single flower, and the three children dance.
Notes
OnRotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 87% from 71 reviews, and an average rating of 7.9/10, with the consensus: "Colorful, atmospheric, and infectious,Black Orpheus takes an ancient tale and makes it fresh anew, thanks in part to its bewitching bossa nova soundtrack."[20]Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 81 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[21]
However, the film has been criticized, especially in Brazil.[12][22]Vinicius de Moraes, author of the 1956 playOrfeu da Conceição upon which the film was based, was outraged and left the theater in the middle of the screening.[12][23] Critics of the adaptation byMarcel Camus argued that it reinforced various stereotypes about Brazilian culture and society and about Afro-Brazilians specifically, portraying the characters as "simple-minded, overtly sexual, and interested only in singing and dancing."[11] Setting out to make itself more "appealing" to foreign audiences, the film resorts to a "cheap and problematic exoticism" of Brazil.[23]
Black Orpheus won thePalme d'Or at the1959 Cannes Film Festival,[9] the 1960Academy Award forBest Foreign Language Film,[24] and the 1960Golden Globe Award forBest Foreign Film, and was nominated for the1961 BAFTA Award forBest Film. In the last case, Brazil was credited together with France and Italy. In July 2021, the film was shown in the Cannes Classics section at the2021 Cannes Film Festival.[25]
Black Orpheus was cited by artistJean-Michel Basquiat as one of his early musical influences,[26] whileBarack Obama notes in hismemoirDreams from My Father (1995) that it was his mother's favorite film.[27][28] Obama, however, did not share his mother's preferences upon first watching the film during his first years atColumbia University: "I suddenly realized that the depiction of the childlike blacks I was now seeing on the screen, the reverse image ofConrad's dark savages, was what my mother had carried with her toHawaii all those years before, a reflection of the simple fantasies that had been forbidden to a white, middle-class girl fromKansas, the promise of another life: warm, sensual, exotic, different."[29]
The film's soundtrack also inspiredVince Guaraldi's 1962 albumJazz Impressions of Black Orpheus.
As a child, filmmakerBong Joon-ho watched the film on Korean television and it made a big impact on him.[30]
Arcade Fire's fourth studio albumReflektor (2013) featured themes linked and inspired by the film.
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