Somewhere in the Brazilian hinterlands of the 1940s, ranch hand Manoel becomes an outlaw after killing his swindling boss. He pledges allegiance to Sebastião, a self-styled holy man who preaches revolt against rich landowners even as he perpetrates unspeakable acts of violent zealotry against the innocent. While the landowners hire a mercenary to take out Sebastião, Manoel and his wife Rosa join cangaceiros Corisco and Dadá, only to find themselves once more in league with evil, deluded forces.
Glauber Rocha’s scorched-earth allegory about the blind followers of dead-end ideologies, Black God, White Devil is one of the Cinema Novo movement’s most uncompromising statements on still-relevant social issues. Read more about the film with Fábio Andrade’s Criterion Collection essay, former IU Cinema guest J. Hoberman’s 2023 write-up for the New York Times, plus a brief contextualization of the movie’s original 1964 release from the Cannes Film Festival.
Celebrate the film’s 60th anniversary at IU Cinema this Friday and Saturday!
“The fusion of European and Afro-Brazilian elements—dialogue, exquisite black-and-white images, and music by VillaLobos—is startlingly original and poetical in conveying the hope and despair of the oppressed.” — Ted Shen, Chicago Reader
A new 4K restoration of Black God, White Devil will be playing at IU Cinema on September 27 at 7pm and September 28 at 7pm as part of the New Americas Cinema series.