Black Orpheus
Directed by	Marcel Camus
Produced by	Sacha Gordine
Written by	Marcel Camus Vinicius De Moraes Jacques Viot
Starring	Breno Mello Marpessa Dawn Lourdes de Oliveira Léa Garcia
Music by	Luiz Bonfá Antonio Carlos Jobim
Cinematography	Jean Bourgoin
Editing by	{{{editing}}}
Distributed by	GAGA Communications
Released	June 12, 1959 (French release) December 21, 1959 (U.S. release)
Running time	100 min.
Language	Portuguese
Budget	{{{budget}}}
Preceded by	{{{preceded_by}}}
Followed by	{{{followed_by}}}
IMDb profile

Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro in Portuguese) is a 1959 film made in Brazil by French director Marcel Camus. It is based on the play Orfeu da Conceição by Brazilian poet Vinicius de Moraes, which is an adaptation of the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, setting it in the modern context of Rio de Janeiro during the Carnival. The film was an international co-production between production companies in Brazil, France and Italy.

The film is particularly renowned for its soundtrack by bossa nova legend Antonio Carlos Jobim, featuring songs such as "Manhã de Carnaval" (written by Luiz Bonfá) and "A felicidade" that were to become Bossa nova classics.

Black Orpheus won the Palme d'Or at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival as well as the 1960 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the 1960 Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film (in those awards the film was credited as a French production; only in the 1961 BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Language Film, was Brazil credited together with France and Italy).

In 1999, the film was essentially remade as Orfeu by Carlos Diegues, this time with a soundtrack featuring contemporary Brazilian pop singer-songwriter Caetano Veloso.

Plot

Orpheus (Breno Mello) is a trolley driver in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as well as a playboy amongst the women of his town. Although engaged to be wed, he does not seem very enthusiastic about the concept of marriage and spends the majority of the film trying to avoid his fiancée Mira (Lourdes de Oliveira).

The film begins with Orpheus and his fiancée going to get a marriage license only after his fiancée agrees to get his guitar out of the pawn shop. The clerk at the courthouse makes reference to the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, causing Orpheus's fiancée to get jealous and assume that there is another woman in his life. When Orpheus gets home, he finds that his neighbor Serafina's (Léa Garcia) cousin named Eurydice (Marpessa Dawn) has been visiting. Death is after Eurydice (The man in the skeleton suit). This is shown in a scene in which the man chases her down and Orpheus gallantly goes to her rescue.

Orpheus, upon seeing Eurydice, wins her graces by playing her a song on his guitar and telling her the story of Orpheus and Eurydice which he had just learned at the courthouse. Orpheus is a pleasant break from the insanity of Carnival, which seems to agitate Eurydice’s already frightened state. The two of them fall in love, yet are constantly on the run from both Orpheus's fiancée and death, both of whom wish to kill Eurydice.

On the day of Carnival, Eurydice dresses in Serafina's costume in order to keep her face concealed. During the festival, Orpheus uses every excuse to be able to dance with Eurydice rather than Mira. He consistently tells Mira to get back to her place.

Eventually, Eurydice’s identity is revealed and she is forced once again to run for her life from both Mira and death. This time she is not so lucky, and is killed by Orpheus in his own trolley station when he turns the power on and accidentally electrocutes her. Death says "Now she's mine" before knocking him out. Despite the obvious fact that she is dead and the less obvious fact that he is the one who actually killed her, he looks for Eurydice within the Bureau of Missing Persons. The janitor there tells him that the place only holds papers, and that no people would be found there. The janitor seems to be illiterate and Orpheus's reading ability is also presented as being highly questionable. The janitor, taking pity on Orpheus takes him down the stairs and to the place of a Hoodoo/Voodoo ritual in a scene that seems to mimic catafalque.

At the gate, there is a dog named Cerberus, after the three-headed dog of Hades in Greek mythology. At this ritual, Orpheus is able to channel the spirit of Eurydice through the body of an old woman. Orpheus calls out to her and asks to see her, but Eurydice begs him not too look toward the voice, lest he lose her forever. When he looks back to see Eurydice, her spirit leaves the woman and he loses her forever (This is in direct correlation to the Greek myth in which Orpheus is able to save his love Eurydice but loses her forever when he looks back at her).

He wanders in mourning for the continuation of the film. The Greek Orpheus also wandered around after Eurydice's death, refusing all other women until he is killed by Thracian women in the heat of Dionysian ritual. Like the Greek Orpheus, this Orpheus is killed by a group of apparently crazed women. As we see Orpheus' and Serafina's shack burning (Set by Mira no doubt), it is finally Mira's stone that hits him in the head and knocks him over a cliff to his death.

There are two children, Benedito and Zeca, who seem to follow Orpheus around throughout the plot (especially Benedito) who have the idea that it is Orpheus's guitar that causes the sun to rise in the morning. After Orpheus dies, Zeca is compelled by Benedito to pick up the guitar and play so that the sun may rise again. Zeca is able to play the guitar and the sun does rise. A little girl comes by and the film ends with the three of them dancing.

Trivia

Marpessa Dawn, the actress who played Eurydice, was not actually from Brazil, but rather Pittsburgh. [1]

A young boy who dances across the screen playing pandeiro grew up to win a national pandeiro-playing contest and play his instrument around the world. Lately, Carlinhos Pandeiro de Ouro teaches in Los Angeles and at California Brazil Camp.

Links

• Orfeu Negro at the Internet Movie Database
  
• David Ehrenstein essay at criterionco.com