“THE
PRINCE”
STARS
WAR REVEALS CRITICS’ FRAGILITY
I say this as a critic who once got tired
of writing down what he believed and decided to put
into practice what he wanted: freedom of speech and
audiences for the discussion of ideas. From this unsettledness
São Paulo International Film Festival was created
in 1977. Before this, the challenges of having a cineclub
at Masp’s (São Paulo Museum of Art) auditorium,
in the iron years of the military dictatorship. One
goal: to stimulate spectators to be the conductors
of ideas. Not mine, which would be boring, but of
so many cinema authors and their teachings.
Concerned
with this philosophy and life strategy, I have since
then been grinding my resentment against an article,
surely an attack, signed by Mario Sergio Conti, in
Aug. 09, 2002 on the newspaper Folha de São
Paulo, with the title “Giorgetti creates loose
plot from a petty idea”, where he repudiates
the release of Ugo Giorgetti’s film “The
Prince”. It was the only disaccording voice in
the Brazilian press against the caustic filmmaker,
aware of the degradation of contemporary social values.
I ask myself in the first place, what good does a
national vehicle of communication such as the paper
“Folha de São Paulo” giving space
to such an irresponsible and disrespectful article.
The
newspaper itself was lost during the week trying to
decide which evaluation should be made official. The
old-fashioned critic said that “The Prince”
was worthy of only one star (bad) in a scale that
goes up to four (excellent). One week later, Inácio
Araújo, the official critic for the paper,
took over the subject again, defended Giorgetti’s
film as it deserved and granted it the maximum number
of stars. But one doesn’t fully understand which
editorial criterium was adopted so that the same film
ended up being indicated to the readers of the same
newspaper with two stars - as average.
Inácio
Araújo fulfilled his role as a film lover,
conscious of the respect towards the author, using
the luggage he has as a creator of audiences and a
diffuser of ideas about the history of cinema. If
the paper wanted to be polemic, it failed, raising
indignation only.
This
example of negative review is the daughter of a journalism
school never punished by its careless and harmful
acts. It’s a mistake to think that we haven’t
been hit by attacks of the sort. It remains in our
minds the trauma of the Collor era, who was elected
thanks to irresponsible reports in his favor by the
Brazilian press, throwing the country into chaos,
with scandals of corruption and delirious blunders.
Among
Collor’s many blunders, there is the violent
break-apart operation of Embrafilme’s structure,
as a revengeful act against the artistic class who
had not supported his candidature. Well or badly,
Embrafilme represented the organization of Brazilian
cinema, production, legislation, distribution, international
diffusion and other necessary paperwork controls.
It was the final blow against an important section
of culture and national expression.
Destructive
journalism cannot contribute for diversity and tolerance.
Good and evil are part of creative process and cultural
sedimentation. Repressing and making fun of the creation
process leaves clear sequels. It mines the courage
of trying and expressing. On the audience side, it
mines the viewer’s identity with their own culture
and reality. Is Collor’s architecture of doom
still working?
It
continues! With this indigestion-green journalism
model. Giorgetti is straightforward when dealing with
his subjects - urban degradation and progressive barbarism,
both shocking for a character who was abroad for 20
years. A and B classes are the intellectual mentors
of this decadence, far from blaming themselves for
the chaos. Vila Madalena, a São Paulo middle
class neighborhood, is unrecognizable with its night
life of bars and bohemia. It is in the eye of this
storm that once lived the ‘foreign’ that
is back to his motherland only for a visit.
Giorgetti’s
dandy character is unbelieving and reticent. Unlike
the old fashioned critic said, the idea in “The
Prince” is not beaten and has not been seen dozens
of times in the movies. On the contrary. It goes upstream
against clichés in American movies, which works
more and more on the emblematic theme of returning
home. As hard as it might hurt the viewer, Giorgetti’s
character doesn’t conciliate with his past and
is not back to stay.
Leon
Cakoff,
for 'Jornal
da Mostra'
Digo
isso como um crítico que um dia se cansou de dizer o que
pensava no papel e resolveu pôr em prática o que
queria: liberdade de expressão e platéias para a
discussão de idéias. Foi dessa inquietude que nasceu
a Mostra Internacional de Cinema em São Paulo, em 1977.
Antes disso, os desafios do cineclubismo no auditório do
Masp - Museu de Arte de São Paulo, nos anos de chumbo da
ditadura militar. Um objetivo: estimular espectadores a ser condutores
de idéias. Não das minhas, que seria maçante,
mas dos tantos autores do cinema e seus ensinamentos.
