(Orfeu Negro [de] • Black Orpheus [en])
Brazil / France / Italy 1959
d: Marcel Camus
Criterion (Region 0 us)
sc: Jacques Viot, Marcel Camus (based on the play "Orfeu da Conceicao" by Vinicius de Moraes)
c: Jean Bourgoin (Eastmancolor)
e: Andrée Feix
m: Antonio Carlos Jobim, Luis Bonfá
p: Sacha Gordine (Dispat Films / Gemma / Tupan Filmes)
w: Breno Mello, Marpessa Dawn, Lourdes de Oliveira, Léa Garcia, Ademar Da Silva, Alexandro Constantino, Waldemar De Souza, Jorge Dos Santos, Aurino Cassiano, Maria Alice, Ana Amélia, Marcel Camus, Elizeth Cardoso, Arlete Costa, Maria de Lourdes, Modesto De Souza, Agostinho dos Santos, Fausto Guerzoni, Afonso Marinho, Esther Mellinger, Eunice Mendes, Dinorah Miranda, Zeni Pereira, Teresa Santos
pr: 12 Jun 1959
aw: Academy Awards 1960 Oscar Best Foreign Language Film • Cannes Film Festival 1959 Golden Palm • Golden Globes, USA 1960 Best Foreign Film
rt: 107:39 min
dvd-rl: 08 Jun 1999
ar: 1.33:1 (4:3 Academy Ratio)
sd: Portuguese Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono • English Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono
st: English
supp: The Criterion Collection #48
This new digital transfer was created from a new 35mm interpositive. The sound was created from a 35mm optical track print
• Uncut version of the film, featuring four minutes of previously unseen footage
• Remastered sound that showcases Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luis Bonfá’s bossa nova score
• French theatrical trailer (4:18 min)
• Booklet with Liner Notes by David Ehrenstein
In recreating the Orpheus legend in Rio de Janeiro with an all black cast, Camus celebrates not only the universality of the story, but the exoticism and poetry of Brazil and her culture. Orpheus, a charismatic trolley car conductor and star of one of the Carnival's Samba schools, is betrothed to the wonderfully brassy Mira but in love with Eurydice. Pursued by Death and the vengeful Mira, the doomed lovers weave their way through a carnival-mad Rio that seethes and strains towards the sweaty release of Carnival night. Although certain of the more sentimental scenes seem rather dated, the relentless - almost abstract - onslaught of colour, noise and frenetic movement stands up very well, compelling one towards the visual splendour of the inevitably poignant ending.
— FD, Time Out Film Guide
•••••
French director Marcel Camus reworks the Orpheus legend among poor blacks in Rio de Janeiro at carnival time; his Orpheus is a streetcar conductor, his Eurydice a country girl who has come to the city for carnaval. In the exhilarating atmosphere of the festival, they meet and fall in love, but Death, in the guise of a persistent suitor in skeleton costume, stalks the girl. In the space of twenty-four hours, the young couple relive the tragic myth. As a precursor of Brazilian new wave films, featuring a cast of non-professionals, and with the vibrant colors, and delirious dance, costumes and music of carnaval, Black Orpheus captures in the slums and bay of Rio a poetic infusion of naturalism and fantasy, classicism and voodoo.
— PFA
