Villa-Lobos, national identity and history in Cinema Novo: an analysis based on Black God, White Devil

Abstract

We consider as a starting point the film Black God, White Devil (Glauber Rocha, 1964) to analyze the use of Villa-Lobos’ works in it and in three other films of the Brazilian Cinema Novo: The Dare (Paulo César Saraceni, 1965), Entranced Earth (Glauber Rocha, 1967) and The Heirs (Carlos Diegues, 1968-1970). These last three are related both to each other by their theme and to Glauber Rocha’s previous feature film in several instances, such as the musical and its associations of meaning to what would be, for these directors, the national identity. Though their contradictions, Villa-Lobos and his music end up becoming very representative of this identity in the films of Cinema Novo, an “allegory of the nation” as proposed by Guerrini Júnior (2009).