City of God Interview with Slant Magazine: Notes
City of God: an interview with Fernando Meirelles (the director) who talked about 'City of God' to Slant Magazine in 2003.
Link to interview: https://www.slantmagazine.com/features/article/city-of-gods-an-interview-with-fernando-meirelles
Notes:
- City of God tells the true story of the lives of children that grew up in the favelas over three decades (late 60's/70's/early 80's).
- Meirelles' connects the films multiple narratives - 'exposing an epic battlefield of urban corruption at the centre of one of the world's most populous cities'
- Influences: Tarantino's influence is all over City of God and the way the film is assembled resembles Goodfellas by Scorsese.
- The film was a massive hit worldwide which gave Meirellles a platform to focus the world's attention on the darkness of Rio's slums; a drastic change from the positive image the media used to present about Rio.
- Meirelles attempts to globalise the horrors of the favela's to make more people aware of what is occurring in Brazil.
The importance of the book City of God is based upon:
- The film is based off the book 'City of God' by Paulo Lins and was a semi-autobiographical novel published in 1997.
- Paulo was raised in the City of God and his boss asked him to write a novel about it whilst he was doing research for an anthropological work (relating to the study of mankind) about dealers in the favelas.
- It took Paulo 8 years to write the book and was a bestseller when published as it was very shocking for the people of Brazil as there was little knowledge of what exactly happened inside the favelas and COG provided an inside account into this lifestyle.
How Meirelles became involved in the project:
- A friend of Meirelles gave him the book and recommended the book as amazing and he should shoot the film.
- Meirelles originally wasn't interested as he held a dislike for action films & knew little about drug dealers.
- After reading the book, Meirelles found the book 'amazing' and 'shocking' as the story seemed like it was taking place in another place and era to the Brazil where Meirelles lived.
- He decided to make the film as he wanted to understand and show that world & made the film thinking about Brazilian audiences - with little intention of the film becoming an international project.
Meirelles familiarity with favelas pre-production:
- Meirelles had a wide knowledge of favelas pre-production due to newspapers/tv/other films. However this information was from a middle-class point of view so was less detailed than reality as Meirelles only had information about favelas from his part of Brazil.
- The book was written about the favelas from the poorer part of Brazil so when Meirelles shot the film, he wanted to put the camera onto the other viewpoint and tell it through Paulo Lin's point of view and not the middle-class view Meirelles had grown up with.
Impact of City of God in Brazil:
- Meirelles believes the film was a hit due to the debates it has provoked
- He has been to lots of universities/unions with the film and the president of Brazil [Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva] said to Meirelles that his film changed Lula's policies of public security which emphasises the major impact the film had on the lives of people in Brazil.
The current state of favelas:
- Worse than the 80's (post time period of the film)
- Drug dealers control all the favelas; particularly in Rio
- Late 70's/early 80's: each favela had a guy like Lil Ze taking control of all territory in order to sell drugs and control everyone. In the 80's, these bosses began to control their neighbours and other areas as they wanted everything.
- By 200, Rio split between three criminal factions (Red Command, Friends of Friends which is ran by ex-policemen, Third Command) with all favelas belonging to one of these factions
Safety in production:
- Meirelles didn't worry about safety & wasn't afraid of exposing police corruption
- The police were unaware that Meirelles was talking about their corruption until later.
- They weren't afraid to shoot inside these areas as they had permission from the community centres inside the favelas.
- It was a very relaxed shoot as they felt safe & knew nothing would happen but they never got a chance to talk directly to the drug dealers.
Role of Music:
- The role of music in the film reflects the musical nature of Brazil as a country and its people.
- Music is always playing if you go to a favela and walk by the houses (such as samba, funk & rap music)
- Meirelles received some criticism in Brazil due to the amount of music used in the film, which could be very upbeat/happy/funny, but Meirelles defended his use of using upbeat music as a favela is a very fun place to be so Meirelles tried to capture this spirit through the music.
Working with non-professional actors:
- Used non-professionals as wanted to recreate the same feeling of the book as it would make the events of the film feel more natural and real.
- Meirelles learned from Mike Leigh & Ken Loach to not give his actors a script
- Meirelles would tell his actors the intentions behind each scene & character and allowed them to improvise which also created a stronger sense of reality through this style.
- 70% of what you see/hear on screen was improvised.
Involvement with Katia Lund:
- Katia Lund is an American-Brazilian film director & screenwriter.
- Katia was finishing a documentary about drug dealers called 'News From a Private War' (which Meirelles described as 'amazing'), which presented that Katia knew a lot about this universe.
- Meirelles went to Rio and invited Lund to work with him to create a workshop for the boys that wanted to work as actors in the film.
- They worked really well together so Meirelles invited her to join the project as a co-director. Katia didn't take part in choosing locations/art direction/editing/talking to director of photography as she was mostly focused on the acting side of the film.
Themes of hopelessness & redemption in the film:
- No hope for drug dealers as there is no escape so their lives will end with death.
- Rocket is the representation of hope in the film, he's a blend of Paulo Lins, and his friend Rocket who became a photographer.
Comparisons between COG & films such as Goodfellas & Pulp Fiction:
- A certain morality in City of God, Meirelles avoided showing violence on purpose everytime that he had the opportunity to show it and believes crime isn't glamorised in the film.
The Brazilian film community in 2003 & Meirelles post COG:
- 5 to 6 features in the 80's per year, 45 features in 2002. Increase in enthusiasm.
- A new generation is coming out including: Berto Brechi ['The Intruder'], Andrucha Waddington [Me You Them] and Water Salles [The Motorcycle Diaries] which chronicles the life of Che Guevara.
- Meirelles received several Hollywood offers (around 30) due to COG's success but he didn't take any of them as he is involved with Intolerance: The Sequel which he planned to shoot in 2004 [but this didn't occur and he instead shot The Constant Gardener which he received BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Director].
- Meirelles financed City of God himself so he was unused to people telling him what to do so he had to learn how to relate to producers and studios.
'City of God is not only about a Brazilian issue, but one that involves the whole world. About societies which develop on the outskirts of our civilised world':
- When Meirelles travelled with the film throughout different festivals, journalists regularly asked how his society allows this to happen & why they don't take care of the problem.
- No matter what happens in the other side of Brazil, it doesn't affect middle-class Brazil so this allows things to get to this point as they don't believe the problem of the other side of Brazil involves them. Lots of people go without food & everyone think it isn't their problem which isn't true as it's a worldwide problem, especially since all economies are so related.
- 'No country is unfair as the world itself'.
Comments
Post a Comment