Black Orpheus
Black Orpheus is a 1959 romantic tragedy film made in Brazil by French director Marcel Camus and starring Marpessa Dawn and Breno Mello. It is based on the play Orfeu da Conceição by Vinicius de Moraes, which is itself an adaptation of the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, set in the modern context of a favela in Rio de Janeiro during Carnaval. The film was an international co-production among production 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; and Luiz Bonfá, whose "Manhã de Carnaval" and "Samba de Orfeu" have become classics of bossa nova. The songs sung by the character Orfeu were dubbed by singer Agostinho dos Santos.
Lengthy passages of the film were shot in the Morro da Babilônia, a favela in the Leme neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro.
Plot
A marble Greek bas relief explodes to reveal black men dancing the samba to drums in a favela. Eurydice arrives in Rio de Janeiro, and takes a trolley 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 the upcoming marriage. The couple go 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 for the carnival. 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 who 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.
Orfeu, Mira, and Serafina are the principal members of a samba school, one of many parading during Carnival. Serafina decides to have Eurydice dress in her costume so that she can spend more time with her sailor. 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, then from Death. Trapped in Orfeu's own trolley station, she hangs from a power line to get away from Death and is killed accidentally 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 a Macumba ritual, a regional form of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé.
At the gate, there is a dog named Cerberus, after the three-headed dog of Hades in Greek mythology. 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, running amok, 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.
Cast
- Breno Mello as Orfeu
- Marpessa Dawn as Eurydice
- Marcel Camus as Ernesto
- Fausto Guerzoni as Fausto
- Lourdes de Oliveira as Mira
- Léa Garcia as Serafina
- Adhemar da Silva as Death
- Alexandro Constantino as Hermes
- Waldemar De Souza as Chico
- Jorge Dos Santos as Benedito
- Aurino Cassiano as Zeca
- Marpessa Dawn was not from Brazil, but from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
- Breno Mello was a soccer player with no acting experience at the time he was cast as Orfeu. Mello was walking on the street in Rio de Janeiro, when director Marcel Camus stopped him and asked if he would like to be in a film.
- Da Silva, the actor who played Death, was a triple jumper who won two Olympic gold medals, in 1952 and 1956.
- The role of Zeca was played by Aurino Cassiano, a young musician from a large musical family. With brother Amaury on cavaquinho and Aurino on pandeiro, they performed in the streets, calling themselves "Dupla Chuvisco". In 1957, they were invited to perform in a film, Pega Ladrão, and then Aurino appeared in another, Vai que é Mole. It was during the filming of Vai que é Mole that Marcel Camus saw Aurino performing on location, and invited him to test for Black Orpheus.
Awards and honors
Influence
Black Orpheus was cited by Jean-Michel Basquiat as one of his early musical influences, while Barack Obama notes in his memoir Dreams from My Father that it was his mother's favorite film. Obama, however, did not share his mother's preferences upon first watching the film during his first years at Columbia University: "I suddenly realized that the depiction of the childlike blacks I was now seeing on the screen, the reverse image of Conrad's dark savages, was what my mother had carried with her to Hawaii all those years before, a reflection of the simple fantasies that had been forbidden to a white, middle-class girl from Kansas, the promise of another life: warm, sensual, exotic, different."The film's soundtrack also inspired Vince Guaraldi's 1962 album Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus.
As a child, Bong Joon-ho watched the film on Korean television and it made a big impact on him.
Remakes and adaptations
- In 1999, Carlos Diegues made Orfeu with a soundtrack featuring Brazilian singer-songwriter Caetano Veloso. The director said it was not a remake of Black Orpheus but a film based on Vinicius de Moraes' 1956 play.