STARS AND STARDOM IN BRAZILIAN CINEMA STARS AND STARDOM IN BRAZILIAN CINEMA Edited by Tim Bergfelder, Lisa Shaw and João Luiz Vieira berghahn N E W Y O R K (cid:127) O X F O R D www.berghahnbooks.com Published in 2017 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2017 Tim Bergfelder, Lisa Shaw and João Luiz Vieira All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. cataloging record is available from the Library of Congress British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-78533-298-2 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-78533-299-9 (ebook) Contents Acknowledgements vii List of Illustrations viii .............................................................................................................................................................................................. Introduction 1 Lisa Shaw and Tim Bergfelder ..............................................................................................................................................................................................  1. Consuming visions: female stars, the melindrosa and desires for a Brazilian film industry 23 Maite Conde ..............................................................................................................................................................................................  2. A star system created by fans: Pernambucan cinema in the 1920s 46 Luciana Corrêa de Araújo ..............................................................................................................................................................................................  3. A star in the spotlight: Carmen Santos and Brazilian cinema of the 1920s 60 Ana Pessoa ..............................................................................................................................................................................................  4. Carmen Miranda: from national star to global brand 73 Ana Rita Mendonça and Lisa Shaw ..............................................................................................................................................................................................  5. Cinelândia magazine and the creation of home-grown movie stars in the 1950s 93 Lisa Shaw ..............................................................................................................................................................................................  6. Oscarito and Grande Otelo: ‘the terrible twosome’ 111 João Luiz Vieira and Leonardo Côrtes Macario ..............................................................................................................................................................................................  7. Eliane Lage: a falling star in the skies of the tropics 128 Ana Carolina de Moura Delfim Maciel vi . CONTENTS  8. Radio stars on screen: critiques of stardom in Moacyr Fenelon’s Tudo azul (1952) 144 Luís Alberto Rocha Melo ..............................................................................................................................................................................................  9. Jece Valadão, the ‘charming crook’: a star image between tradition and modernity 162 Rafael de Luna Freire .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 10. José Mojica Marins versus Coffin Joe: auteurism and stardom in Brazilian cinema 178 Laura Loguercio Cánepa .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 11. As loiras: Brazil’s screen blondes 196 Stephanie Dennison .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 12. A star is born: the rising profile of the non-professional actor in recent Brazilian cinema 210 Charlotte Gleghorn .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 13. The black body reframed: Lázaro Ramos and the performance of interracial love 227 Ben Hoff .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 14. Seu Jorge as a cross-media star: between local authenticity and global appeal 249 Katia Augusta Maciel .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 15. Latin lover or Latin(o) loser? Rodrigo Santoro and the Hollywood stereotype 263 Daniel O’Brien .............................................................................................................................................................................................. Index 283 Acknowledgments A decade ago the British Academy, as part of their UK-Latin American/Caribbean Link Programme, facilitated the creation of a network of scholarly interaction related to Brazilian cinema. We gratefully acknowledge the Academy’s support in fostering a link that has since grown into regular intellectual exchanges, ultimately resulting in this joint publication. Supporting this project from the start with their advice and recommendations were Professor Ismail Xavier (Universidade de São Paulo) and Professor Lúcia Nagib (University of Reading), whom we would like to thank particularly warmly. Equally helpful were the suggestions made by the anonymous reviewers of the book manuscript. At Berghahn, we were expertly guided and supported by Mark Stanton, Adam Capitanio, Chris Chappell, and Caroline Kuhtz. Above all, we would like to thank our contributors, who have shown unwavering commitment and patience as this volume has come to fruition. Tim Bergfelder (University of Southampton) Lisa Shaw (University of Liverpool) João Luiz Vieira (Universidade Federal Fluminense) September 2016 lllustrations  1.1 Cover of Cinearte magazine featuring actress Eva Nil, 1927. 24  2.1 Heloiza (Guiomar Teixeira) in A filha do advogado (1926). 52  3.1 Carmen Santos in a sensual pose to promote the film A carne. Photograph published in Selecta magazine on 24 January 1925. 63  3.2 Carmen Santos in a publicity photograph for the film Mademoiselle Cinema (1925). 67  4.1 Carmen Miranda in That Night in Rio (1941). 86  5.1 Cover of Cinelândia magazine from March 1954. 99  6.1 Oscarito and Grande Otelo in A dupla do barulho (1953). 112  7.1 Eliane Lage holding the Saci trophy for best actress, which she was awarded for her performance in Ravina (1958), alongside her children. 136  9.1 In Os cafajestes Valadão’s seductive character holds one girl in his arms while looking at another, while in A navalha na carne he plays a violent pimp who exploits the poor, old prostitute Neusa Sueli (Glauce Rocha). 170 10.1 Coffin Joe in Esta noite encarnarei no teu cadáver (1967). 185 10.2 Coffin Joe in Encarnação do demônio (2008). 189 11.1 Xuxa stars as Cinderella in Xuxa em o mistério da Feiurinha (2009). 202 12.1 Vinícius de Oliveira’s role as Dario in Linha de Passe once again emphasizes his association with marginalized, urban youth. 216 12.2 Josué (Vinícius de Oliveira) cries as he watches Dora’s bus leave at the end of Central do Brasil. The close-up emphasizes the importance of the character’s reaction for narrative closure. 219 13.1 Lázaro Ramos in Madame Satã (2002). 231 14.1 Seu Jorge in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004). 251 15.1 A model Hollywood Latino couple? Rodrigo Santoro with Jennifer Lopez in What to Expect When You’re Expecting (2012). 274 Introduction Lisa Shaw and Tim Bergfelder The proliferating histories of screen stardom Stars and film industries centred on stars have been an important strand in the study and criticism of cinema. As early as the 1920s, theorists including Rudolf Arnheim, Béla Balázs, Siegfried Kracauer and Walter Benjamin discussed the significance of personae, images and iconic stars such as Charles Chaplin and Greta Garbo, and their integral function within the interconnecting aesthetic, social and affective systems that the new mass medium of cinema represented.1 Following the consolidation of Hollywood as an industry and as a popular art form in the 1930s and 1940s, the seemingly universal appeal of stars caught the atten- tion of, among others, anthropologists such as Hortense Powdermaker,2 sociolo- gists such as Edgar Morin3 and semioticians such as Roland Barthes.4 Within the nascent academic discipline of film studies in the 1970s, Richard Dyer’s ground- breaking book Stars (first published in 1979) mapped a field and methodology – or rather a set of methodologies – for the analysis of stars as a simultaneously aesthetic and social phenomenon of modern culture.5 Dyer’s text inaugurated a rich seam of scholarship that has gone from strength to strength in the last few decades and that shows no sign of abating today if the sheer number of publications is anything to go by.6 Nevertheless, while many of Dyer’s original observations and definitions still hold true today, there have been a number of developments in the field and in the actual cultural presence and social function of stars in the decades since the late 1970s that have taken star studies in new directions, with new priorities, new contexts and new parameters. Early star studies tended to assume a homology between the terms ‘star’ and Hollywood. Stars were seen as a key feature of the Hollywood system