Brazil: A Report on Torture

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Brazil: A Report on Torture
Directed by Haskell Wexler, Saul Landau
Edited by Robert Estrin

Brazil: A Report on Torture is a 1971 documentary film directed by Haskell Wexler and Saul Landau. [1] The film had its premiere on October 21, 1971 at the Whitney Museum in New York City. [2]

Contents

The documentary tells the story of Brazilians who were tortured while imprisoned in Brazil and were then living in exile in Chile. It is the first film to document such torture in Latin America. [3]

Synopsis

The film features interviews conducted with 17 of the 70 Brazilians brought to Chile in January of that year as part of an exchange for the Swiss ambassador Giovanni Bucher, who was kidnapped the month before in Rio de Janeiro by the armed guerilla group VPR (Popular Revolutionary Vanguard). In addition to testimonies, reenactments are conducted by the former prisoners which demonstrate the cruelty suffered—including the use of the pau de arara method. [4]

Release

The film premiered at the Whitney Museum in New York City on October 21, 1971, where it was accompanied by an interview with Salvador Allende, the 29th President of Chile. Later that same year it was broadcast on WNET, followed by a discussion that included the scholar Alfred Stepan. [5]

In August 2012 Brazil: A Report on Torture was broadcast on Brazilian television, marking its television broadcast debut in Brazil. [6] It also received a screening at the Instituto Moreira Salles in Rio de Janeiro in November 2012, followed by a discussion including subjects interviewed in the film. [7] [8] This marked the first time that some of the film's participants had seen the film in its entirety. [7]

The Brazilian diplomat Jom Tob Azulay held a private screening of the film for Brazilian performers Antônio Carlos Jobim and Elis Regina in the 1970s, which led to him being persecuted by Brazil's military government as a result. [9] [10] He later commented on the film's obscurity in Brazil, stating that it was "unbelievable" and was likely due to the "repressed society" and the effect that the "veil of forgetfulness plays on torture". [10]

Reception

In a 2012 review in Piauí magazine, film director and editor Eduardo Escorel was extremely critical of the movie, criticizing Wexler and Landau for staging re-enactments of torture with the former torture victims, which he felt showed a "total lack of restraint, decorum and modesty". Escorel went on to say that this, along with other criticisms, "might explain why it was so many years in obscurity." [11]

In contrast, film historians James and Sara T. Combs felt that the movie was an "excellent example of the "appeal to conscience"" and the movie has received praise from diplomat Jom Tob Azulay. [4] [10] The film was also honored in a 2014 film festival at the Brazilian Consulate in New York and was featured in the 2015 documentary Rebel Citizen , directed by Pamela Yates. [12] [13]

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Jom Tob Azulay Filmmaker and diplomat, born in Rio de Janeiro (1941). From 1971 to 1974 serves as deputy-consul of Brazil in Los Angeles while attending courses in film technique, history and aesthetics at University of Southern California (UCS), UCLA and California Institute of the Arts. Becomes familiar with the technique and aesthetics of direct-cinema in 16mm, which at the time became dominant in the production of the Documentary and which he considers appropriate for the development of an independent cinema in Brazil, including fiction. In 1972 takes a course with Hollywood’s highly influential Slavko Vorkapich on Film as a Visual Art. In 1973, the experience of filming with Brazilian director of photography Fernando Duarte the recording of the LP Tom & Ellis will be decisive for the outcome of his future projects of musical documentaries in Brazil. In Los Angeles he is acquainted with the film Brazil: Report on Torture, a documentary about torture during the Brazilian military regime made in Chile by Haskell Wexler and Saul Landau (1971), which he helps to publicize clandestinely in Brazil and in the US. In 1975 he resigns for political reasons from the Ministry of Foreign Relations. Still in Los Angeles, he meets the Brazilian world-known filmmaker Alberto Cavalcanti (1897-1982) with whom he would later work influencing him in his conception of cinema. Returning to Brazil in 1974, he produces with the support of state-owned Embrafilme Um Homem e o Cinema, Cavalcanti`s last work, and makes his first films as photographer-director: the medium-length documentary Exu Mangueira (1975) and the short Euphrasia (1975). Both point to his future aesthetic and thematic inclinations: the immediate rouchian apprehension of reality of direct-cinema and the reconstitution of the historical past. In 1975, he is one of the first to use portable-video equipment in Brazil, photographing video-art works by Rio de Janeiro's prominent plastic artists, as Annabela Geiger and Fernando Cochiaralli. His first feature films, The Sweet Barbarians about famed Caetano Velloso, Maria Bethania, Gilberto Gil and Gal Costa and Heart Pounding Beat (1983), are musicals about pop music using direct-cinema technique. Heart Pounding Beat uses direct-cinema technique in a fictional comedy language in which two actors improvise their dialogues as the real action - a Gilberto Gil tour from north to south of the country – takes place. The sound of the film in Dolby-Stereo, processed in Los Angeles, introduces this vital audio technology for the first time in Brazilian cinema. In 1993, he is the Brazilian producer of the ending of It's All True, unfinished film by Orson Welles, shot in 1942 in Brazil. In 1995, he releases O Judeu, a historical film, filmed in Portugal, first Portuguese-Brazilian official coproduction which he produces and directs with an international cast and technical crew. The Jew wins among others the prize of Best Movie at the 1995 Brasilia Film Festival and the HBO/Brazil (1996) award, as well as other national and international awards. Launched commercially in New York receives a positive review in the New York Times which critic Stephen Holden compares its photography, by the renowned Portuguese DP Eduardo Serra, to the painting of Caravaggio. This experience leads him to dedicate himself to the Portuguese-Afro-Brazilian cultural heritage as the thematic source for his future film projects, such as the film Estorvo by Ruy Guerra (1998), a Portuguese-Cuban-Brazilian coproduction of which he was delegate-producer. From 1999 to 2001, he works in public television as director of programs and documentaries, while also teaches cinema at Estácio de Sá University. From 2002 to 2007, acts as Head of Strategic Affairs at the recently created National Agency of Cinema (ANCINE), in which he contributes significantly to the formulation and execution of the agency's international policy. He publishes texts and gives lectures in Brazil and abroad on cinematographic politics and culture, such as the article For a Cinematographic Policy for the 21st Century in The World Film Industry, organized by Alessandra Meleiro. He acts also as audiovisual thesis examiner for the course of the Rio-Branco Institute / MRE (2006). In 2010, he is reinstated in the diplomatic career by the Amnesty Commission of the Ministry of Justice and assigned as cultural and audiovisual attaché to the Brazilian embassy in New Delhi, India. In his works, Azulay seeks to convey critical thematic objectivity with an aesthetic audiovisual look such as in: Aide-Memoire - Paths of Brazilian Diplomacy, first documentary on Brazilian diplomacy and foreign policy; Debret - A Watercolor of Brazil ,ocumentary about the French painter Jean Baptiste Debret, BNDES Selection award using puppet characters mixed with sophisticated digital special effects; Portrait of Cavalcanti, documentary for Canal Brasil about Alberto Cavalcanti; Five Times Machado, tv series based on Brazil’s top writer Machado de Assis` short-stories of which he was producer and director apart from directing one of the episodes. This work used modern high-definition (HD) digital technology technique to attain a direct-cinema approach in the reconstitution of a 19th. Century historical time piece. Nowadays he is dedicated to the streaming production of the series Cartas Bahianas, once again a historical co-production with Portugal with screenplay by Millor Fernandes, Geraldo Carneiro and Ruy Guerra apart from also organizing reviews and preservation projects of his work and texts.

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References

  1. Sattamini, Lina (2010-05-19). A Mother's Cry: A Memoir of Politics, Prison, and Torture under the Brazilian Military Dictatorship. Duke University Press. p. 16. ISBN   978-0822392842.
  2. Hentoff, Nat (December 16, 1971). "TV". Village Voice. p. 50. Retrieved 10 January 2016.
  3. Green, James (2010). We cannot remain silent. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. pp. 260–3. ISBN   9780822347354 . Retrieved 10 January 2016.
  4. 1 2 Combs, James; Combs, Sara (2014). Film propaganda and American politics. New York: Routledge. p. 140. ISBN   978-0815313229 . Retrieved 10 January 2016.
  5. "The NEW American FILMMAKERS series", Village Voice, p. 72, September 23, 1971, retrieved January 10, 2016.
  6. Ferraz, Lucas (5 August 2012). "Filme Relata Tortura no Brasil" (in Portuguese). Gazeta de Alagoas. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
  7. 1 2 "Ex-militantes 'descobrem' repercussão de filme sobre tortura 41 anos depois" (in Portuguese). Folha de S.Paulo. 22 November 2012. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
  8. "Debate sobre Brasil: um relato de tortura" (in Portuguese). Universo Online. 20 February 2013. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
  9. Costa, Gilberto (18 August 2010). "Comissão anistia diplomata que exibiu em Los Angeles documentário sobre tortura na ditadura" (in Portuguese). Empresa Brasil de Comunicação. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
  10. 1 2 3 Éboli, Evandro (7 February 2011). "Diplomata Jom Tob Azulay é reintegrado ao Itamaraty" (in Portuguese). O Globo. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
  11. Escorel, Eduardo (9 August 2012). "Brasil – Um Relato de Tortura (II)". Revista Piauí. Retrieved 5 October 2018.
  12. Scheck, Frank (12 October 2015). "'Rebel Citizen': NYFF Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
  13. "Mostra sobre ditadura brasileira é apresentada nos EUA" (in Portuguese). Brazil Ministry of Justice. Portal Brasil. 5 May 2015. Retrieved 30 January 2016.