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The first installment in a loose trilogy that includes 1967’s Entranced Earth and 1969’s Antonio das Mortes, Glauber Rocha’s Black God, White Devil nonetheless stands alone as a benchmark for the difference between polemic and propaganda. If Rocha’s Italian contemporaries Sergio Corbucci and Damiano Damiani devised the Zapata western to turn the traditional western inside out—critiquing rather than valorizing imperialism—then Black God, White Devil might be called a Lampião western, after the folk hero of Brazilian social banditry who casts a long shadow over the film. More than allegorizing third-world revolutionary and decolonial struggles, Rocha stages a mythmaking intervention into Brazilian history.

As its English title suggests, Black God, White Devil is a film of two halves, each of which slots into a separate western subgenre, and could probably satisfy as a film in its own right. Taken as a whole, though, the film incites a...

The first installment in a loose trilogy that includes 1967’s Entranced Earth and 1969’s Antonio das Mortes, Glauber Rocha’s Black God, White Devil nonetheless stands alone as a benchmark for the difference between polemic and propaganda. If Rocha’s Italian contemporaries Sergio Corbucci and Damiano Damiani devised the Zapata western to turn the traditional western inside out—critiquing rather than valorizing imperialism—then Black God, White Devil might be called a Lampião western, after the folk hero of Brazilian social banditry who casts a long shadow over the film. More than allegorizing third-world revolutionary and decolonial struggles, Rocha stages a mythmaking intervention into Brazilian history.

As its English title suggests, Black God, White Devil is a film of two halves, each of which slots into a separate western subgenre, and could probably satisfy as a film in its own right. Taken as a whole, though, the film incites a...

The tough thing about being an intrepid cinephile: you trawl and dig for lesser-known masterpieces of world cinema, watch them on subpar (sometimes sub-subpar) rips, and only five-or-so years later see them get a loving restoration. As is the case with their recent L’amour fou release and Ousmane Sembène retro, Janus are putting out Glauber Rocha’s Cinema Novo masterpiece Black God, White Devil in a 4K restoration that looks so good I can only envy anybody who sees it for the first time like so.

Ahead of its November 17 debut at Film Forum, a new trailer has arrived and, in terms often applicable to Glauber Rocha, “goes super-hard.” His brutal vision of Brazil, seen with the added clarity of Metropoles Productions’ restoration, suggests the ideal for these releases: elucidate a lost classic and herald a new entry in the canon. And if I can make suggestions: The Age of the Earth next,...

“Black God, White Devil” is so not what you’d expect from a director who’d write a manifesto titled “The Aesthetics of Hunger.” That treatise, published shortly after this film was released in 1964, was the 25-year-old Brazilian Glauber Rocha’s plea for a new type of filmmaking that the “Third World” should adopt to expose the exploitation of their countries by the global north. It’s a staple of film studies classes to this day.

“Black God, White Devil,” however, is far from homework. The Brazilian film is a pulsing, anarchic vision that makes it feel like a progenitor to the then-just-nascent Spaghetti Western movement in Italy. This is a different kind of manifesto, one that feels written in bullets, a shoot-’em-up that marries a propulsive plot and extremely memorable characters to its revolutionary politics.

Janus Films has given a 4K restoration to this masterwork, that’ll premiere...

Film at Lincoln Center has announced the cinephile-favorite Revivals section for the 60th New York Film Festival, coming to NYC September 30 through October 16. The program showcases new restorations and preservations of important works from canonical filmmakers.

This year’s selection includes the hard-to-find “The Mother and the Whore” — which cameoed in the form of a poster featured in 2005’s “The Squid and the Whale” and brought the scandalous Jean Eustache some renewed attention. Starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, Bernadette Lafont, and Françoise Lebrun, the philosophical love triangle set against the sexual revolution divided Cannes audiences in 1973. Earlier this year, the Les Films du Losange restoration opened the Cannes Classics section. It makes its North American premiere at NYFF.

Many of the significant works featured in the lineup include the world premiere restoration of Claire Denis’ “No Fear No Die”; a new 4K restoration of Glauber Rocha’s incendiary, audience-provoking “Black God, White Devil...

Following Main Slate, Spotlight, and Currents, the 60th New York Film Festival have now unveiled its final film-focused section with Revivals. Featuring brand-new restorations of works by Claire Denis, Pedro Costa, Edward Yang, Jean Eustache, Manoel de Oliveira, Cauleen Smith, Kira Muratova, and more, it’s quite a stellar lineup of lesser-known works by established auteurs as well as long-underseen films by directors deserving of more acclaim.

“The Revivals section continues to look beyond acknowledged and revered classics, and to challenge the conventions of the canon,” said Florence Almozini, Senior Director of Programming at Film at Lincoln Center. “This year’s lineup proves once again that even relatively recent decades are full of potential cinematic discoveries, by showcasing significant works from artists of diverse backgrounds and origins in striking new restorations.”

See the lineup below ahead of the festival, taking place September 30-October 16.

Beirut the Encounter

Borhane Alaouié, 1981, Lebanon, 97m

Arabic with English subtitles

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