Product Description
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Winner of both the Academy Award for best foreign-language film
and the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or, Marcel Camus’ Black
Orpehus (Orfeu negro) brings the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus
and Eurydice to the twentieth-century madness of Carnival in Rio
de Janeiro. With its eye-popping photography and ravishing,
epochal soundtrack, Black Orpehus was a cultural event, kicking
off the bossa nova craze that set hi-fis across America spinning.
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Blame it on the bossa nova. French director Marcel Camus created
an international sensation, and a craze for all things Brazilian,
when he released Black Orpheus in 1959. Black Orpheus, based on a
play by Vinicius de Moraes, is a valentine to Rio, Carnaval, and
the infectious sounds of salsa and the then-just-emerging sultry
bossa nova. When it was released, despite having won the Palme
d'Or at Cannes, Black Orpheus had not been widely known, but
after it won the O for Best Foreign Language Film, audiences
worldwide sparked to its joyous cinematography and unforgettable
soundtrack. Much as Leonard Bernstein did two years later with
Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story, Camus takes a centuries-old
tale of love and doom, the Greek legend of Orpheus, and sets it
in modern times, against an unforgettable musical backdrop. The
actors are all splendid, including Breno Mello making his screen
debut as Orfeo, a streetcar conductor musician with an untamed
heart. The American-born Marpessa Dawn, who had been acting in
France, plays the lovely, innocent Eurydice, who captures Orfeo's
heart. Yet the entire cast is unforgettable, including Lourdes de
Oliveira as the gorgeous, hot-tempered Mira, Orfeo's intended,
and the lit-from-within Léa Garcia as Serafina. Even the young
boys who follow Orfeo's every move are winning and natural young
actors. But it's Rio itself that takes center stage in Black
Orpheus--a place, through Camus's eyes, where even walking
through the marketplace or disembarking a ferry is a
dance--joyful, intricate, free, full of possibility. As the
characters' stories build into the free-for-all climax of
Carnaval itself, they encompass life and death, tragedy and
comedy, and beautiful, music that will haunt the viewer
long after the final scenes.
The new Criterion Collection set features a wealth of extras,
including a new digital print that showcases the vibrant colors
and textures of Rio and its hillside favelas. Most memorable and
impressive are the documentaries on the making of Black
Orpheus--especially the mixed feelings, remembered quite bluntly,
of playwright de Moraes when he saw the liberties that Camus had
taken with his work. There are wonderful short features from the
early '60s, while the initial impact of Black Orpheus was still
being felt, including a casual interview with Dawn, serene and
composed, about the sensation she and her cast members had
created. Not to be missed is the feature on the creation of the
soundtrack, by jazz historian Ruy Castro, focusing on how Camus
chose the music that would define the world's view of Brazil for
a generation, with amazing interviews with influential musicians
and artists, including Gilberto Gil and Seu Jorge. "The
soundtrack was at least as popular as the film," says Gil, and
while that may be true, it would be hard to imagine one without
the other. --A.T. Hurley