COMMENTARY

For some time now it has been clear that Cavalcanti's contribution to both the documentary film movement in particular, and cinema in general, has been underestimated. Despite this no sustained critical account of his work has appeared in English. Few have seen his early French films, and little is known of his work after leaving Britain in 1950. The book which he published in Brazil in 1976, Film e Realidade (Film and Reality), has never been translated into English.

Given the promise that he once showed, it seems unfortunate that Cavalcanti was unable fully to develop his career and realise his potential. Although a very different person from Grierson, he seems to have shared Grierson's proclivity for moving on rather too quickly to new situations, and making serious errors of judgement. Elizabeth Sussex's illuminating ‘Cavalcanti in England’ (1975), the first item here, touches on some of Cavalcanti's moments of bad judgement, such as his early decision to leave Ealing in 1950, despite Michael Balcon's entreaties that he stay. Cavalcanti's bitterness at the way he perceives himself to have been treated by other members of the documentary movement is also evident here. The extent to which Grierson, in particular, acted against Cavalcanti may never be known, but there is evidence to suggest that some harm was done. At one level it is difficult to believe that Grierson and Cavalcanti could ever have got on, given the differences in their personalities. Grierson was didactic, dogmatic, ascetic, homophobic and colonial in mentality. Cavalcanti, on the other hand, was a cultivated European intellectual with Third World sensibilities, something of a hedonist, and gay.

Cavalcanti's ‘The Evolution of Cinematography in France’ (1936) reveals his influence from the Parisian avant-garde at the time. He talks about cinema's ability to create rhythm and movement, and create a ‘semblance of the marvellous’. He also argues that the introduction of the sound film has produced a ‘regressive phenomenon’, and that the aesthetic systems of the silent cinema must seek to integrate sound in a creative and experimental way. In ‘The British Contribution’ (1952), Cavalcanti moves rather erratically between the French avant-garde of the twenties, the documentary movement, and the problems facing the contemporary Brazilian cinema.