Roberto Santos(1928-1987)
- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Roberto Santos was born in a working-class suburb of São Paulo in 1928.
Started his cinema activities around 1952, in the first big studio
built in Brazil, the Vera Cruz Studio. In 1956 makes his first movie,
"O Grande Momento" ("The Great Momment"), the first neo- realistic
movie made in Brazil. In 1965 Roberto Santos adapts a short novel by Guimarães
Rosa, "A Hora e Vez de Augusto Matraga" ("Matraga"), the only
successful adaptation to cinema of a work by Guimarães Rosa, the most
important name in Brazilian literature in the 20th century. The movie
goes to the Cannes Festival and it is well received. During the late
60s and 70s his career is marked by problems with the censorship.
Nevertheless, he directs more 6 movies, among them the two experimental
movies "Vozes do Medo" ("Voices of Fear") -- a movie with the structure
of a magazine -- and "As Três Mortes de Solano" ("The Three Deaths of
Solano"), an experiment where the same plot is told three times, first
in the fantastic realm, then as a realistic plot, and finally as a
circus pantomime. Meanwhile he works in TV and directing commercials.
The success of an adaptation for TV of another Guimarães Rosa's story
prompts him to write a screenplay for the marvelous short novel "Campo
Geral", about a kid growing in the back-country of Brazil. After months
of trouble to obtain the rights, the project is abandoned, and he
decides to tackle another myth of Brazilian literature, 'Machado de
Assis'. His last movie, "Quincas Borba", recreates Machado de Assis's
fin-de-siècle universe in the troubled 80s. Roberto Santos died of a heart
attack at the São Paulo airport, just after returning from the Festival
of Gramado, where "Quincas Borba" was shown and heavily criticized by a
click of critics.
