{"id":79,"date":"2018-03-23T20:56:37","date_gmt":"2018-03-24T00:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/?p=79"},"modified":"2018-03-23T20:56:37","modified_gmt":"2018-03-24T00:56:37","slug":"analysis-of-marcel-camus-orfeu-negro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/2018\/03\/23\/analysis-of-marcel-camus-orfeu-negro\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysis of Marcel Camus\u2019\u00a0Orfeu Negro"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marcel Camus\u2019\u00a0Orfeu Negro<\/em>\u00a0is a French film based on\u00a0the Brazilian play\u00a0Orfeu da Concei\u00e7\u00e3o.\u00a0<\/em>The film\u2019s and play\u2019s plot\u00a0is\u00a0inspired by the\u00a0Greek myth\u00a0Orpheus and Eurydice<\/em>\u00a0taking place in Rio de Janerio, Brazil, during the Brazilian festival Carnival. The story begins with Eurydice fleeing to Rio in search\u00a0of\u00a0her cousin, Serafina. Like the myth entails, Eurydice flees to escape Death and\u00a0believes\u00a0by running away to Rio she is safe. While looking for Serafina, Eurydice bumps into Orfeu,\u00a0the film’s protagonist, while riding a trolley. Getting off the trolley Eurydice is given directions to her cousin’s house where Orfeu is a neighbor; How Ironic? As the plot develops Orfeu and Eurydice fall in love similar to the Greek myth. Later on during festival\u00a0activities, Eurydice\u00a0is chased\u00a0by Death who\u00a0unfortunately\u00a0finds her among the crowd. Finally, and as a tragic typically ends, Eurydice\u00a0is killed\u00a0by Orfeu while trying to rescue her.<\/p>\n

Positively critiquing the film I would argue that the choreography and music was spot on, adding a sense of genuine\u00a0Brazilian\u00a0culture. I really liked how the same song carried throughout the entire length of the film, which I later learned is a tradition. Songs\u00a0are sung with accompanying music from floats driving down the streets precedingCarnival and locals follow the music and sing along. Another strength of the film was the use of red lighting during the\u00a0last\u00a0scene with Eurydice adding to the drama of death as well as the \u201cred\u201d aspect of the underworld where Eurydice goes.<\/p>\n

What I did not like about the film, however, was\u00a0the way\u00a0the Afro-Brazilians\u00a0were portrayed\u00a0in the film. These prejudices of how Afro-Brazilians\u00a0are viewed\u00a0actually relates to our current Unit \u201cBlackness in Brazil\u201d. One of our readings was a chapter of Gilberto\u00a0Freyre’s\u00a0The Masters and the Slaves\u00a0<\/em>which describes Afro-Brazilians as being obsessed with sexual desire as a side-effect of\u00a0the institution of\u00a0slavery and their African origin. This eroticism was heavily depicted throughout the film especially in times of high festivities.\u00a0Specifically\u00a0depicted in which the song and dance of the Afro-Brazilians began to sound\u00a0animalistic. The Afro-Brazilians are also portrayed as\u00a0impoverished\u00a0but in an extremely careless\u00a0manner. For\u00a0example, Serafina buys a dress over food despite the fact that she\u2019s struggling with money. Surprisingly the entire Rio de Janerio population is singing and dancing without a care in the world not to mention the shanty towns the Afro-Brazilians live in.<\/p>\n

I found this film overall confusing, not on the fault of the film necessarily but on\u00a0my fault\u00a0for being ignorant about the Brazilian Carnival and its cultural value along with the original Greek myth in which the film\/play is\u00a0inspired from. Seeing this film with this knowledge would have clarified some points\u00a0at\u00a0the beginning of the film. \u00a0I also found\u00a0the intent of\u00a0the film confusing. It\u2019s unclear the director\u2019s intent of the stereotyping such as whether he unknowingly\u00a0stereotypes the Afro-Brazilians, or is trying to expose the stereotypes by exaggerating them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marcel Camus\u2019\u00a0Orfeu Negro\u00a0is a French film based on\u00a0the Brazilian play\u00a0Orfeu da Concei\u00e7\u00e3o.\u00a0The film\u2019s and play\u2019s plot\u00a0is\u00a0inspired by the\u00a0Greek myth\u00a0Orpheus and Eurydice\u00a0taking place in Rio de Janerio, Brazil, during the Brazilian festival Carnival. The story begins with Eurydice fleeing to Rio in search\u00a0of\u00a0her cousin, Serafina. Like the myth entails, Eurydice flees to escape Death and\u00a0believes\u00a0by running […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":302,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/302"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions\/80"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}