In “Regarding Regionalism According to a Specific ‘Point of View’”—chapter four of his doctoral thesis on the work of Glauber Rocha—Ismail Xavier analyzes the process that the filmmaker uses to bypass the concept of regionalist fiction conveyed by the traditional language of Hollywood movies. This idea is expressed in particularly radical terms in Rocha’s 1964 film Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol. Though the film includes a string of contradictions regarding the world of the Brazilian sertão region, in Xavier’s opinion Rocha takes an approach that—as João Guimarães Rosa did in Grande Sertão: Veredas (1956)—suggests an innovative connection between his characters and how they are changed by their relationship to that part of Brazil. The author identifies a wide range of alternatives to treatments driven by both “landscape” and “picturesque” solutions. Xavier compares more traditional works and those that break with such naturalist canons, thereby giving the narrative a subjective tone and narrowing the gap between subject and object. It would be helpful, at this point, to mention Vidas Secas (1938), the very brief, simple literary work written by Graciliano Ramos. The novelist’s indirect-free style and the subtlety of the movie version of the book directed by Nelson Pereira dos Santos help to expose the audience to the characters’ experience. Though the film Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol takes a different approach to the curt tone adopted by Ramos, Xavier’s thesis insists that both works are alike in the way they capture the bleak destitution of the Brazilian northeast.   

This excerpt is taken from the fourth chapter of the book Sertão Mar—Glauber Rocha e a Estética da Fome (Sa~o Paulo: Brasiliense, 1983). It is the text of the doctoral thesis defended by Ismail [Norberto] Xavier (b. 1947) at the Universidade de São Paulo.

In this text, in a variety of ways, Xavier explores a formal approach to an expression of national identity; in so doing, he presents the equation from the opposite perspective. In his opinion, the richness of Glauber Rocha’s work projects a defiant “form” in which the subject is discussed after it has been described. The inhabitants of the Brazilian sertão region are no longer seen as “other than myself,” thus creating an open discussion that is both discontinuous and devoid of any trace of homogeneity.  

Glauber [de Andrade] Rocha (1939–81) was a celebrated film director, actor, and film critic in the 1960s and 1970s. He was a key member of “Cinema Novo,” the movement he led based on films such as Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1964) and Terra em Transe (1967).

[As complementary reading, see the following texts by Rocha in the ICAA digital archive: “Uma estética da fome” (doc. no. 807556); “MAMB não é museu: é escola e ‘movimento’ por uma arte que não seja desligada do homem” (doc. no. 1110859); and “Nordeste” (doc. no. 1111194). See also Chapter V of Sertão Mar, the above-mentioned book by Ismail Xavier, entitled “Considerações sobre a estética da violência” (doc. no. 1110711)].