Filmography

CREDITS

Original Title: Terra em Transe.Fiction, long-length, 35mm, black and white, Rio de Janeiro, 1967. 3.100 meters, 115 minutes. Production: Mapa Filmes e Difilm; Distribution: Difilm; Release: 8 May 1967, Rio de Janeiro; Executive Producer: Zelito Viana; Associate Producers: Luiz Carlos Barreto, Carlos Diegues, Raymundo Wanderley, Glauber Rocha; Production Manager: Tácito Al Quintas; Director: Glauber Rocha; Assistant Directors: Antônio Calmon, Moisés Kendler; Argument and Screenplay: Glauber Rocha; Cinematographer: Luiz Carlos Barreto; Camera Operator: Dib Lufti; Stills: Luiz Carlos Barreto, Lauro Escorel Filho; Sound: Aluizio Viana; Editor: Eduardo Escorel; Scenographer and Costumes Designer: Paulo Gil Soares; Ms. Danuza Leão's costumes: Guilherme Guimarães; Titles: Mair Tavares; Poster: Luiz Carlos Ripper; Original Music: Sérgio Ricardo; Conductor: Carlos Monteiro de Sousa; Quartet: Edson Machado; Voices:Gal Costa e Sérgio Ricardo; Music: Carlos Gomes (O Guarani), Villa-Lobos (Bachianas n.3 e 6), Verdi (Othelo's ouverture); Canto negro Aluê do candomblé da Bahia, Samba de favela do Rio; Locations: Rio de Janeiro e Duque de Caxias (RJ); Awards: FIPRESCI Award and Luis Buñuel Award at the International Film Festival Cannes/1967; Golden Dolphin for Best Film - Rio de Janeiro/1967; Golden Owl for Best Supporting Actor (José Lewgoy) Rio de Janeiro/1967; Air France Cinema Award for Best Film and Best Director - Rio de Janeiro, 1967; Critics' Award, Cinema and Youth Great Award - Locarno, Italy; Critics' Award for Best Film - Habana, Cuba; Best Film, Special Mention for Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Modesto de Sousa), Special Award to Luiz Carlos Barreto (for Production and Cinematography) - Juiz de Fora (Minas Gerais/Brasil);Cast: Jardel Filho - PauloMartins; Paulo Autran - D. Porfírio Diaz; José Lewgoy - D. Filipe Vieira; Glauce Rocha - Sara; Paulo Gracindo - D. Júlio Fuentes;

Hugo Carvana - Alvaro; Danuza Leão - Silvia; Jofre Soares - priest Gil; Modesto de Sousa - senator; Mário Lago - military; Flávio Migliaccio - humble man; Telma Reston - humble wife; José Marinho - Jerônimo; Francisco Milani - Aldo; Paulo César Pereio - Student; Emanuel Cavalcanti - Felício; Zózimo Bulbul - reporter; Antonio Câmera- índio; Echio Reis, Mauricio do Valle, Rafael de Carvalho, Ivan de Souza; Special Appearances: Darlene Glória, Elizabeth Gasper, Irma Álvares, Sônia Clara, Guide Vasconcelos.

"Convulsion, shock between different parties, different political tendencies and economic interests, and violent power struggles. These are what take place in Eldorado, tropical country or island. I placed the film there because what interested me was the general problem of the Latin-American trance, not the Brazilian one alone. I wanted to open the theme "trance", that is, the instability of the consciousness." 

"(...) Porfírio Diaz, an operetta napoleon, a scorpion and Pharisee's soul, clutching the crucifix and the fascist black flag, serves full time the Compañia de Exploitaciones Internacionales under the pretext of serving Christ. Senator Diaz hates the people and intends to be crowned emperor of Eldorado to dominate the underdeveloped people of Eldorado with his almighty superman determination. Vieira, governor of Alecrim, a province of Eldorado, is a populist demagogue who wins the elections with the votes of the peasants and workers, but once in charge, commands the shooting of their leaders. Don Julio Fuentes is the utmost expression of the progressist bourgeoisie of that country. Owner of everything - ore, oil, ironworks, press, television - finds himself, at a certain moment, crushed by the competition of the Compañia de Exploitaciones Internacionales and, in an impotent rage, accepts the possibility of making an alliance with the popular forces in order to gain power. Fuentes, however, is no different from the typical white politicians. At the turning pont, he sends his good intentions to hell and serves as stepping stone to Diaz, the imperialist crab pincer of Eldorado.

There is the poet, oh God, the sordid, the beautiful, the generous, the naïve, the pure and maculate poet Paulo Martins, a man divided like a piece of gut is divided by a knife, a man who bleeds, and dreams, finds his own self, and alienates, and dances, and grumbles, and tries, and searches, and loves, and goes round. Paulo Martins is the consciousness in trance. He, poet and soldier, soldier and poet, buffoon and hero, dilacerates himself in the attempt of embracing the contradictions of Eldorado, in order to, in the dark of the chaos, forge the weapon that will be capable of redeeming the country. Paulo Martins tries to trust, tries to believe, tries to submit to the bureaucratic schemes of a dialetics that lacks originality and heroism. Everything and everyone fails. Diaz, whom the poet was friends with, fails; Vieira, whom the poet attempted to serve, fails. The revolutionary, who, in the name of sclerotic formulae, intend to manipulate the reality far away from their savage hearts, also fail.

There is a moment when Paulo Martins is alone. The deadly stroke against the final democratic possibilities of Eldorado is mounted; the imperialism strikes the country on the head and cracks its skull; Vieira gives up the fight; the people, perplexed and manacled, don't know what to do, the bureaucrats, abstract articulators of an impracticable strategy, use their exclamations like people who recite an impotent exorcism. The stroke is on the march, the fascist black flag is over the country. The poet is alone, sleepless. His insomnia is enlightened by the gleam of a burning consciousness, though. The poet burns within the night of Eldorado, and both his sympathy and solitude get filled with rumours, complaints, moans, sufferings and tears that the night of the country absorbs and shuts up.

Suddenly, it turns out that the poet - vigilant consciousness - decides to assume, at the expense of his own life, the boarder situation that dilacerates him, dilacerating Eldorado. Alone, as absolutely alone as someone who is born - or as someone who dies - the poet, with the people, by the people and to the people, throws himself with bared breast against the guns that condemn Eldorado and make it crouch. On the behalf of everyone, incarnating everyone's right to live, to be free and have dignity, the poet breaks through the police barriers and falls down, riddled by the bullets. (...)"

Hélio Pellegrino, Jornal do Brasil, Rio, 30/08/81, extract from a text written in 1967, after the premiere of the film.

MARTIN SCORSESE PRESENTS GLAUBER ROCHA