Mouth of Dreams
LUIZ SUGIMOTO
O Boca do Lixo cinema is commonly treated with irony in the rare mentions of Brazilian cinematography, despite its importance in the 1970s market. Hence, the care taken by professor and filmmaker Nuno Cesar Pereira de Abreu to strip away prejudices and launch, as he says , "a generous look" at that peculiar community of directors, producers, actors and technicians that shook up the downtown red-light area in São Paulo. His research uses interviews with fifteen characters from the time as its raw material (see box with former actress Matilde Mastrangi) and resulted in Boca do Lixo: Cinema e Classes Populares, a doctoral thesis defended in November at the Institute of Arts. The text, organized in documentary format, should become a book.
"Boca do Lixo" is a derogatory designation created by the police and therefore avoided by those who lived in that industry. The "c
inema da Boca", for its workers, was on Rua do Triunfo, corner of Rua Vitória, public places in a deteriorated region but with names that refer to success and nobility. The meeting point, where productions were planned and jobs were distributed, It was a local food bar that boasted the sign “Soberano.” And actress Helena Ramos, the muse who ensured the capacity of the rooms and one of those interviewed in the research, referred to the place as “Boca dos Sonhos”.
"The environment really attracted me. Instead of a factory warehouse-like studio with its bosses, it was an area where people of all types circulated - people from the circus, radio, occasional unemployed people from television. There was one building with offices for Columbia, Paramount, Warner or national companies per floor. There were printing shops and input stores for the film industry in the surrounding area", describes Abreu, who currently directs the Communication Center at Unicamp.
The elites said it badly, but making films, even in Boca, meant advancement, the possibility of working on something more important. "It was said that, when the guy turned the corner of Rua do Triunfo, he would immediately straighten his body and pose", jokes the researcher. Over time, the "heroes" of the area emerged: according to local codes, they were the new rich, artistically and financially successful.
Directors like David Cardoso, Tony Vieira and Jean Garret, and stars like Matilde Mastrangi, Helena Ramos and Aldine Muller could boast: "My film is in Marabá, I have a captive audience, it appeared on Notícias Populares...", backed by a network popular media. "A lot of people went to films because of this precarious but efficient star system, and everything outside of television schedules", highlights the researcher.
Similar national - Nuno CesarAbreu contextualizes the explosion of cinema in Boca. He states that the law mandating the exhibition of national films (1968), creating a kind of market reserve, is at the root of the development of this so-called marginal industry. In all sectors, the logic of encouraging the production of a similar national product prevailed, reducing imports. In cinema, the official instrument for this would be Embrafilme, but which financed the audiovisual elite.
The Boca group grew on its own two feet. "It attracted an unusual investor: the small businessman, bar or gas station owner, who appreciated these B films and, at the same time, was able to associate with the producers because the costs were not high. There were cases of cheese sellers and rapadura who bought film shares", illustrates the filmmaker.
On the other hand, the mandatory law allowed for an unusual alliance. "Exhibitors, traditionally at the service of international distribution, began to associate or even co-produce films, profiting as exhibitors and as producers. Since the law forced them to show Brazilian films - otherwise, the theaters were actually closed - , a virtuous circle was created", observes Abreu. In the golden decade, from 1970 to 1980, an average of 90 national films were produced per year and close to 40% came from Boca. "This disturbed the market, as the outsiders actually competed for exhibition space."
The Rua do Triunfo production became closely identified with pornochanchada, a cliché that, strictly speaking, should be restricted to erotic comedy, but named everything that strayed from the cultural aura required for Embrafilme's sponsorship. But westerns, cangaços, kung-fus, melodramas and second-rate adventures also came from there. "There was an audience for this: the small employee, the mechanic, the messenger. My thesis deals with cinema and the popular classes because it was a popular cinema made by popular people. Those who went to make films in Boca belonged to the same strata as the spectators and were just as passionate how much", says the researcher.
The decadence - The agony of Boca cinema was noted in the early 1980s and coincided with the agony of the military regime. Embrafilme loses political strength, opening flanks for disobedience to the law requiring the exhibition of Brazilian productions, under pressure from international distributors. We also note the exhaustion of the formula "eroticism, cheap production and large audience". "As one of my interviewees says, the public has become more intelligent than the films", highlights Abreu.
In fact, political openness also brought more liberalization of customs and the following generations were not like that one, who made their head in the cinema, seeking to recognize themselves as erotic beings. "The pornochanchadas seen today are extremely naive, with sex only hinted at: voyeuristic, keyhole stuff. Then, film by film was negotiated with the censors: one breast is OK, but two breasts are not. ; two nudes in the same scene, no. The scenes only became heavy in the final years", recalls Abreu.
Explicit sex - According to the filmmaker, Boca cinema was liquidated with the entry of explicit sex films. Despite the controversy surrounding the pornographic "Deep Throat" or the appealing "Caligula", the great villain, ironically, was a film considered art, but with explicit scenes: "Empire of the Senses". Under the argument of avoiding the accusation of cultural backwardness, Nagisa Oshima's film ended up being shown due to a writ of mandamus, opening the door to one writ after another.
"Explicit sex reached national production and also exhibition, because it stigmatized cinemas. Theaters in urban centers have disappeared and cinemas like Art Palácio and Marabá have become temples or parking lots", laments Nuno Cesar Abreu. He adds one last item to Boca's agony package: "The ticket cost 80 cents of the dollar. If ten people paid 1 real, now we have one person paying 10 reals. We lost the audience, the theaters and the prospect of continuing to produce popular films. The lower classes no longer go to the cinema."
