RIP Breno Mello
Breno Mello, the spectacularly handsome, charming, brooding star of the original “Black Orpheus,” has died in Brazil.
Mello is one of the main attractions of this unusual film, a favorite in my youth for its music, vibrance, and sad tale based on Greek myth but set in the hills of the unbelievably lovely Rio. Although he was not an actor, but a soccer star, he more than rose to the occasion as the tragic hero of the film:
ADDENDUM: I haven’t read any of Obama’s memoirs. But from this excerpt, it appears that the film “Black Orpheus” played some sort of role in the attraction between Obama’s parents. Who knew?:
Shortly before she moved to Hawaii, Stanley saw her first foreign film. Black Orpheus was an award-winning musical retelling of the myth of Orpheus, a tale of doomed love. The movie was considered exotic because it was filmed in Brazil, but it was written and directed by white Frenchmen. The result was sentimental and, to some modern eyes, patronizing. Years later Obama saw the film with his mother and thought about walking out. But looking at her in the theater, he glimpsed her 16-year-old self. “I suddenly realized,” he wrote in his memoir, Dreams from My Father, “that the depiction of childlike blacks I was now seeing on the screen … was what my mother had carried with her to Hawaii all those years before, a reflection of the simple fantasies that had been forbidden to a white middle-class girl from Kansas, the promise of another life, warm, sensual, exotic, different.”…
When Ann told her parents about the African student at school, they invited him over for dinner. Her father didn’t notice when his daughter reached out to hold the man’s hand, according to Obama’s book. Her mother thought it best not to cause a scene. As Obama would write, “My mother was that girl with the movie of beautiful black people playing in her head.”
As for the idea Obama voices that the blacks portrayed in the film are “childlike,” there are indeed some characters in the movie who seem very simple and almost simple-minded (Serafina’s sailor boyfriend, for example, and Orfeo’s nasty former girlfriend Mira). Many of the extras are portrayed as happy-go-lucky poor people (both blacks and whites). But many other main characters are hardly that, among them both Orfeo and Eurydice, as well as the philosophical trolley conductor Hermes.
Here’s another of my favorite excerpts from the movie, the very last scene. These particular people are childlike because—well, because they’re children. The little girl reminds me a bit of myself when I was her age: dark curly hair, I liked to dance, and I spent a fair amount of time hanging out with my older brother and his friends—although hardly in such beautiful surroundings. I even had a dress like that.
The children believe that Orpheus used to make the sun come up every day by playing his guitar, and they are frantically trying to do so now that he’s gone:
Hadn’t seen the movie in 30-40 years. Have been listening lately to Getz-Gilberto bossa nova, without much reference to the song titles. When I saw the guitar coming out, I guessed the tune of the song-to-be, and nailed it. Memory.
great great movie –
I wanted to ask, was it not Bruno also playing the masked Satanic figure?
Whig: no, Death was played by Ademar Da Silva.
One of our most popular video course reserves — fine film, rip.
*Whig: no, Death was played by Ademar Da Silva.*
thanks – always thought it was Bruno playing two parts. Ah the world before IMDB and wiki!
Great movie – always loved Brazilian music. Jobim was a hero to me. Stan Getz really introduced that music (and Jobim) to America, Joao Gilberto was a friend/contemporary of Jobim and very much a part of the Brazilian music scene at the time. He didn’t think his sister, Astrud, was a god enough singer to do the vocal on “The girl from Ipanema” for the American release, but Getz insisted and the rest is history. I always loved Corcovado – one of the great songs of all time. A few years back I remember seeing a clip of Jobim playing guitar as Sinatra sang a medley of Jobim songs – amazing, Juat went to Youtube and had a look – here’s the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKQWqwMAhF0
Enjoy
Dane: You might enjoy this post on “The Girl From Ipanema.”
parenthetically – anyone ever seen `Four Days in Sept’, about the kidnapping in 1969 of the U.S. ambassador to Brazil?
Dubious political sympathies of course, but an excellent movie I just saw the other day. Mention of `Girl From Ipanema’ reminded me of `Four Days…’
Saw it in college, gave myself props for seeing exotic flick.
The thing I recall most is the dumbass sailor. I get annoyed when people are shown that stupid, although I suspect there are some, and unrequited love can exacerbate it.
He had no pride.
All in all, an embarrassing character.
The story itself…lost love for any reason is the premise behind a zillion stories, including some I’m trying to sell.
“Black Orpheus” also introduced the world to the late, great Vince Guaraldi, and led Charles Schulz to pick him for the soundtracks of the Charlie Brown animated TV specials after he heard “Cast Your Fate To the Wind” on the radio.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PddZZ83Be8E
I was sad to hear Bruno Mello died. I have seen the film many times, but not recently. But, when I would watch it, as a young girl, I would hope that my own future would be sunny, bright and sensual, with an air of the exotic…that wasn’t what happened…I guess his death reminds me of what never happened….