O Canto do Mar (1952, Alberto Cavalcanti)

O Canto do Mar aka Song of the Sea (1952, Alberto Cavalcanti)

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0184327/
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Cavalcanti's masterpiece, during the sound period at least, in which he rediscovered his native country and the towns of Recife where he had lived as a child. The film is mainly a portrait of the dramatic poverty of this tropical town; the continual influx of the hungry, driven from the Sertão by drought and destitution; the rites, more African than Christian, of the "Candombles"; the population living in straw huts; the vast beaches; and the daily difficulties of life. Unfortunately, it was never shown in Europe and had only a brief career in Brazil.

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Returning to Brazil, Cavalcanti energised the local film industry, though this powerful drama's poetic brand of social realism didn't win universal favour. In the drought-stricken north-east, we follow a migrant family's fortunes in a port city where mother love stifles and the only routes of escape are prostitution or the sea. Cardoso's wonderful as the mother, while Cav observes the place and culture with clear eyes, at a lyrical pace.

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Alberto Cavalcanti was multi-national to a remarkable extent. Brazilian by birth, he worked in French commercial and avant-garde cinema of the 1920s, in British documentaries of the 1930s, and in British features of the 1940s. He also returned briefly to Brazil in an effort to revitalize its production, then lived in Paris during his last years, although he visited and made films elsewhere. In the long view, however, Cavalcanti may be most closely associated with British film, especially with British documentary.

Even Cavalcanti's early years in France led to that subsequent connection. Following work as a set designer, most notably for Marcel L'Herbier, he made the seminal Rien que les heures in 1926. Though part of the avant-garde experimentation of the 1920s, Rien inaugurated the "city symphonies," one of the lines picked up by John Grierson as he was molding the British documentary of the 1930s. (The other lines came from the work of Flaherty, and of the Soviets, notably Vertov, Eisenstein, and Turin.)

Before being invited by Grierson to join the General Post Office Film Unit, Cavalcanti had experience in the early sound films produced by the French studios. As he became involved in British documentary he distinguished himself, especially through his work with sound in relation to image. Granton Trawler, The Song of Ceylon, Coal Face, Night Mail , and North Sea offer evidence of his contributions. It might be argued that these films contain more sophisticated multi-layered sound and edited images—what Eisenstein called vertical montage—than that evident in narrative fiction films of the time. Cavalcanti's personal creativity became the basis for teaching other, younger members of the documentary group. Harry Watt, Basil Wright, and others have attested to Cavalcanti's significance as a teacher of conception and technique.

Though Grierson always acknowledged Cavalcanti's importance to the artistry of British documentary, there developed a split between the Grierson faction (dedicated to making films to bring about social change) and the Cavalcanti faction (more concerned with ways in which realist film technique and style could be brought to the larger audiences of the theatres). In fact, an anthology surveying the documentary film, The Film and Reality , co-produced by Cavalcanti and Ernest Lindgren in 1942, created a furor behind the scenes when it was released. It presented essentially an aesthetic history of documentary (Cavalcanti selected the excerpts), ending with coverage of feature fiction films embodying some of the characteristics of documentary. The Grierson group was reputedly outraged that no attention was paid to what they viewed as the dominant purpose of British documentary, which was a sort of citizenship education—communication by the government to the citizenry.

For his part, Cavalcanti said late in life that he always thought he and Grierson were up to the same thing essentially—that of course he had a social sense, as surely as did Grierson. The real trouble was that he had not received adequate screen credits for the work he had done for the GPO Film Unit during Grierson's regime. (Grierson favored the idea of anonymous collective rather than individual auteurs.)

When Cavalcanti returned to entertainment filmmaking early in the war he was missed by the documentary bunch. At the same time it must be said that Cavalcanti (like Watt, who followed him shortly) brought with him a documentary influence to Ealing Studios that extended into the wartime fiction film. The impact of his experiences in the documentary world can be seen, for example, in The Foreman Went to France , which he produced, and in Went the Day Well? , which he directed. On the other hand, Cavalcanti's finest achievement as fictional producer/director may well be Dead of Night , a mingling of fantasy and actuality. The surrealistic elements of the film recalled the French avant-garde.

In summary it can be said that Cavalcanti seemed always to be the artist, personal creator and, especially, consummate technician. He applied himself to the basic modes of film art—narrative fiction, avant-garde, and documentary—in a full range of capacities—set designer, sound recordist, producer, and director. A charming journeyman artist with a cosmopolitan and tasteful flair, he taught and influenced a lot of other filmmakers and was responsible for noteworthy innovation and experimentation in many of the films with which he was associated.

—Jack C. Ellis


Cast

Luiz Andrade
Glauce Bandeira
Fernando Becker
Débora Borba
Margarida Cardoso
Ernani Dantas
Alfredo de Oliveira
Aurora Duarte
Cacilda Lanuza
Antônio Martinelli
Miriam Nunes
Ruy Saraiva
Alberto Vilar
Maria do Carmo Xavier