On Cinema

Glauber Rocha is known as the visionary Brazilian director of landmark films, Black God, White Devil, Entranced Earth and Antonio das Mortes. Hitherto virtually unknown outside Brazil is that he was also a brilliant film critic and innovative thinker on world cinema. On Cinema brings together for the first time in the English language a comprehensive selection of Rocha's film writings, revealing for the first time to English-speaking readers the full critical power, inventiveness and vision of a great filmmaker. Rocha's writings, endowed with critical verve and humour, give insights into key moments of film history, as well as the politics of world cinema. Here he fearlessly confronts the film establishment and debates with a host of sacred filmmakers of the world pantheon. Included is Rocha's early criticism of Brazilian films, landmark manifestoes such as 'An Aesthetics of Hunger' and 'An Aesthetics of Dreams', articles about the development of Cinema Novo, and his international film criticism, including pieces on Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, James Dean, David Lean, John Huston, Stanley Kubrick, John Ford, Jean-Luc Godard, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini, Luis Bunuel, Luchino Visconti and Roberto Rossellini. The publication of On Cinema, edited by film scholar Ismail Xavier and in expert translation, is an international publishing event.

Glauber Rocha (1939-1981) is Brazil’s most important filmmaker and founder of the 1960s and ’70s Cinema Novo movement. His films are landmarks of Brazilian and world film history. He was also a prolific writer and film critic, whose critical thought made a decisive contribution to the notion of Third Cinema.

Ismail Xavier is Professor of Film at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. His book Allegories of Underdevelopment: Aesthetics and Politics in Modern Brazilian Cinema (1997) marks a milestone in Brazilian cinema studies.

Editorial co-ordination by Lúcia Nagib, University of Reading, UK. Translation by Cecília Mello, Stephanie Dennison and Charlotte Smith