Black Orpheus, Blu-ray (1959/2010)
Director: Marcel Camus
Starring: Marpessa Dawn, Breno Mello, Lourdes de Oliveira
Studio: Euro-London Films/The Criterion Collection 48 [8/17/10]
Video: 1.33:1 color
Audio: Portuguese or English-dubbed PCM mono
Subtitles: English
Extras: Feature-length French documentary (2003) on film’s cultural and musical roots and resonance today in Brazil; Archival interviews with Marcel Camus and with Marpessa Dawn; New interviews with Brazilian cinema scholar Robert Stam, jazz historian Gary Giddins, and Brazilian author Ruy Castro; Featurette on bossa nova; Featurette on the Orpheus legend; Theatrical trailer; Illustrated printed booklet with essay by film critic Michael Atkinson
Length: 107 minutes
Rating: *****
This is the sort of classic film reissue that Criterion specializes in and is the master of. Not only are the picture and audio far superior to anything previously available – 100% better than the laserdisc version I’ve had for years – but the 50GB capacity of Blu-ray allows for a cornucopia of bonus features, even more than are listed on the back cover. As Atkinson says in his essay, back in 1959 the art film genre generally came “in only a few shades of glum” – most of the films were black & white and they consisted of Bergman, Italian neorealism, Japanese samurais and French noir. So the blaze of color, dance, excitement and music of Black Orpheus was a blast that exposed viewers around the world to Rio, Brazilian music, and culture, including bossa nova.
Black Orpheus was the one-hit wonder of French director Camus, with whom there is an interesting interview in the extras. He spent 18 months in Rio and had a delay of many months trying to get distribution and money set up for the filming. Orson Welles was the only outside filmmaker who had previously done filming in Rio, which resulted in a film that has not been seen. Camus was fascinated by a play by a Brazilian author translating the Greek legend of Orpheus to black inhabitants of Rio’s favela slums. He adapted it for Black Orpheus and aside from a few lead actors used local untrained Brazilians. Marpessa Dawn was the only outsider, coming from Pittsburgh, and Orpheus was played by a Rio soccer star. There was and still is some criticism of the film as coming from a European outsider’s distorted and romanticized view of the plight of Rio blacks, but just as with Gershwin’s all-black opera Porgy & Bess, never mind the sociopolitical readings – Black Orpheus stands as a landmark film.
The Orpheus story of the most famous mediation exercise in human history melds perfectly with the extremes of Carnival party time among the poor of the favela. It handles the specter of death in a believable way with it being simply a Carnival reveler costumed in a skeleton suit. Euridice’s fears are doubled because of already having been dogged by the skeletal figure back in her home village, and also by Orfeu’s two-timed financee Mira. Having Orfeo being inadvertently responsible for her death is a master stroke. Orfeo’s search for Euridice takes him thru the surrealist halls of bureaucracy and thence to an actual Umbanda ritual (think voodoo/Candomble/Santeria) where an old woman channels the spirit of Euridice. All the participants are excellent, the cinematography captures the wild spirit of Carnival, and the wonderful music by Jobim and Bonfa is of course what launched the bossa nova craze. (The recent Rio video by Diana Krall was one of her biggest hits, and I’m just now listening to the gorgeous reissue of Sinatra/Jobim as I write this; bossa nova is having something of a reincarnation lately.)
Criterion’s work in cleaning up and restoring the eye-pooping cinematography of Black Orpheus is much appreciated. The two interviews from the time of the film’s debut at Cannes are very informative, and although it’s very long and reuses some footage from the other extras, the feature-length documentary is worthwhile. I recall being knocked out by the first U.S. release of bossa nova by Bud Shank and Laurindo Almeida (before Getz/Giberto), but I found Gary Giddins’ explanation of the beginnings of bossa nova in Brazil most interesting. I had some tech problems with the navigation of languages and subtitles and was forced to view the first half of the film with its English-dubbed soundtrack, but when I returned to view the rest it finally switched to the more pleasing original Portuguese and English subtitles. I had forgotten they also translated the song lyrics, which was most helpful.
– John Sunier
