Black Orpheus

“Myths embody the common ideals and aspirations of a civilization…[and] encourage viewers to participate ritualistically in the basic beliefs, fears, and anxieties of their age” (Giannetti 350).

The French New Wave, or nouvelle vague, films of the late 1950’s grew out of a critical interest in the art of film. Like many French directors who followed the work of important auteur-directors of the period such as Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, and Alain Resnais (Beaver 259), Marcel Camus broke from traditional cinema by approaching film as a highly personal form of art. The mythical tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, as told by Camus in the film Black Orpheus, is not merely a repetition but rather a reinvention of the Greek oral story.

Through the use of myth and archetypal characters, Camus paints a portrait of life that the audience, no matter what their individual expectations, experiences, or gazes¬—private, gendered, racial, ethnic, economic, or national—may be, understands. There is, in Camus’ Black Orpheus, a common story for universal interpretation. The cycles of life, love, and eventually death, all prominent in this mythical tale, are familiar to all; they are inevitable. Each viewer may see the truth of self in story.

Camus’ reinvention, applying the unique approach of nouvelle vague, uses film as a medium to present not only an artistic view of the mythical story but also to break the color barrier of screen. In a time when white actors, directors, and producers ruled the world of fantasy and film, and, in which Black actors were infrequently seen on screen and then usually only in bit parts or roles of servitude, Camus chose an all-Black cast for his leading roles. And, by doing this, he elevated his audience to a new level of artistic and social consciousness. Movie-goers, then and now, encouraged to find mirror images, both physical and emotional, discover that certain basic elements of the human condition—life, love, fear, and loss—as told through Black Orpheus within the Brazilian culture, are much the same for people of all races, cultures, and ethnicities.

Camus, having designated myth as a common denominator among viewers, goes on to work the magic of his artistry on sound, silence, color, and camera angles. And, in doing so, he becomes both artist and teacher. While viewers come to this film with an anticipation of the age-old unfolding of events in the Orpheus tale, they also become the unsuspecting students of Camus’ belief in life ever after and an enchantment with West African culture.

Employing a fascinating undertone of West African influence to enhance the myth of Orpheus, Camus opens the film by engaging spectators in an ancient scene of tribal drumming and dance. So mesmerizing is the sound of the drums and the movement of the men, women, and children, that its continued use throughout most of the film becomes hypnotic. One falls under the music’s spell as it rises in heightened excitement and celebration singing out its story of anger, pride, life, love, celebration, and death. Consumed with interest and involvement in the unfolding story, the viewer may not even realize that the lyrical drumming, when diminished in volume from time to time, continues to pulsate beneath the words and movements of the actors. The viewer, thus, becomes recipient of the vibrant whispers of an ancient heritage beating ever onward like the soundless yet powerful throbbing of a human heart.

A statue of Christ overlooking the city of Rio suggests that Christianity is the operative religion of the Brazilian people. However, Camus reveals that most have modified their religious philosophies based on their West African heritage. Candomble, Umbanda, and Quimbanda, all offshoots of Santeria, a syncretic religion brought to Brazil by African slaves who blended their religious beliefs with Catholicism, are practiced in Brazil. In Umbanda, guide spirits, usually Native Americans or African ancestors, receive the spirits of those who have passed. The most popular Brazilian guides, in Umbanda, are the “Old Black Man (Preto Velho) and Old Black Woman (Preta Velha) who represent the wise old slaves full of wisdom and healing” (Candomble). In a ceremony within a Umbanda church, where Orpheus seeks to make contact with Eurydice, a Preta Velha of the congregation calls out to Eurydice’s spirit to come forth and present itself. Eurydice’s spirit then enters the woman’s body and speaks to Orpheus through the woman’s head. Since the Umbanda belief is that a spirit never dies but travels on an eternal journey through other worlds, sometimes reincarnating into another physical body, Camus points out that the cycle of life is endless.

The cycles of life from birth to death are emphasized, by Camus, throughout the film with the use of circular patterns of movement. Camus, the art teacher turned film director (Camus), uses color and motion to create these patterns. The round yellow kite, representing the sun, the dawning of a new day, Orpheus, and challenges of life, rises from the clutches of the young child’s hands, floats in circular motion upward under a blue-green sky, then falters, spiraling downward toward it’s possible demise. Yet we see the kite, having escaped death for a time, rising again in later scenes as a testament to a new day and renewed life.

The archetypal female characters, Eurydice as the pure and tender virgin garbed in white, Serafina as her caring comrade dressed in flowered frock, and Mira as the red-costumed conniving coquette are often seen with the colorfully clad Greek-like chorus of female followers forming a circle around them. With the use of this circular pattern, Camus establishes a cycle of female connection. Female connections, as observed by Nancy Chodorow, explorer and theorist of gender difference, show that women, who form lasting bonds with their mothers at birth, also form close personal ties to other women. Their relationships with other women are a way of resolving and re-creating the mother-daughter bond and are an “expression of women’s general relational capacities and definition of self in relationship” (Byars 103). Camus shows his viewers, that, no matter the difficulties and disagreements women encounter, their lives are entwined with one another and they will go on through the ages sharing a common bond of familiarity.

Camus’ choice of Carnival, as setting for Black Orpheus, provides a sensual backdrop of vibrant color and vibrating celebration in which festive crowds of costumed revelers, moving as one, dance in swirling circular motion. Empowered by the freedom of a holiday away from their regular routines of life, its difficulties, poverty, and fears, the dancers find release in rhythmic unity. Daily worries and obstacles are set aside for the moment, until the time of merriment ends, and night recycles itself again into day, when ordinary activities are resumed.

Throughout the film, viewers are called upon to remember that the celebration of life and love must one day come to a close. Death is not an option. It is imminent and may happen when one is least aware. A foreshadowing of Eurydice’s fate, however, is warned by Camus as his camera follows her entrance into the city of Rio. It captures her fear as she is startled by a blind man who tells her she is like a frightened bird. And, as she takes her leave, she is unaware of a cage of flapping black ravens—symbolic of death—foregrounded by the stalking camera. Spectators, however, given a voyeuristic view, watch and know Eurydice is in harm’s way. An aerial shot, allowing a birdseye view of her tiny figure entering a city of towering brick confirms that danger lies ahead.

When Orpheus goes to the morgue to locate his beloved Eurydice, following her death, he has great difficulty in finding her. Knowing that, until her body is buried, her spirit will not rest, he makes his way by elevator to the thirteenth floor. Still, he cannot find her. After a brief but distressing encounter with a maintenance man who shows him a room full of papers and tells him there is no life there, only lost people, he is finally shown to a stairwell—a spiral staircase—which appears to lower itself into the bowels of the building. In a high-angle shot, Camus’ camera peers downward from its pinnacle, capturing the dreary winding walkway and its deadly descent into the underworld of Hades—the morgue.

Finally, Camus tells his viewers that, while the individual may pass from this life, for humankind, there is no actual death. There is, instead, a renewal of life. In the final scene of Black Orpheus, the children take up the roles of Orpheus and Eurydice, indicating that the cycle of life continues every onward. The joy and sadness of Orpheus’ and Eurydice’s days does not end. Through the children, who have been touched by the couple’s lives, the spirit of their love, hope, and dreams continues as the sun once again rises on a new day.

Camus, former art teacher, prisoner of war during most of World War II (Camus), and French film director, who broke from traditional cinema in 1958 and reinvented the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in Black Orpheus, presented his audiences—then and now—with both an artistic view of the Greek tale and a new way of identifying with film. By casting people of color in leading roles and promoting the similarities of all people with regard to the human condition, he not only created an award winning film but translated the narrative of the age-old story of life, love, and loss into a universal language of common comprehension, sensitivity, and recognition. Camus, for those who have come to know him through his artistic reinvention of the Orpheus myth, Black Orpheus, will be long remembered with admiration for his unique and lasting contribution to film and for bringing a sense of unity to the many gazes of spectators without which there would be no cinema.

By Coralie Cederna Johnson

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Beaver, Frank. Dictionary of Film Terms the Aesthetic Companion to Film Analysis. New York:
Twayne Publishers, 1994. 259.

Byars, Jackie. “Psychoanalysis and Feminist Film Theory: The Problem of Sexual Difference andIdentity.”

Multiple Voices in Feminist Film Criticism. Diane Carson, Linda Dittmar, and JaniceR. Welsch, editors. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994. 103.

“Camus, Marcel.” Britannica. Online. Netscape. 22 Jan. 2001. Available: http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/8/0,5716,20198+1,00.html.

“Candomble.” Online. Netscape. 6 Feb. 2001. Available:
www.geocities.com/Area51/Chamber/5015/candomble.htm.

Giannetti, Louis. Understanding Movies. Eighth edition. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1999. 350.