"A camera in the hand and ideas in the head" was the primary axiom of the young originators of Brazil's Cinema Novo. This movement of the late 1960s and 1970s overcame technical constraints and produced films made on practically non-existent budgets. This work examines a number of these films, arguing that they served to represent a nation undergoing a political and social transformation into modernity. Film maker Glauber Rocha claimed that Cinema Novo was driven by an "aesthetics of hunger". This scarcity of means demanded new cinematic approaches which eventually gave rise to a legitimate and unique Third World cinema. This text presents and interprets revolutionary films - from the works of Rocha to the experiments of Julio Bressane, Rogerio Sganzerla, Andrea Tonaci and Arthur Omar. Focusing on each film maker's use of narrative allegories for the "conservative modernization" Brazil and other nations underwent in the 1960s and 1970s, the author asks questions relating to the connection between film and history. He examines the way in which Cinema Novo transformed Brazil's cultural memory and charts the reactionary roles which Marginal Cinema and Tropicalism played in this process. Among the films he discusses are "Brazil: Year 2000", "Black God White Devil", "Land in Anguish", "Red Light Bandit", "Macunaima", "Antonio das Mortes", "The Angel is Born", and "Killed the Family and went to the Movies". A history of modern Brazilian cinema, this book brings to light the work of many film makers who are virtually unknown in the English-speaking world.

Glauber Rocha is known as the visionary Brazilian director of landmark films, Black God, White Devil, Entranced Earth and Antonio das Mortes. Hitherto virtually unknown outside Brazil is that he was also a brilliant film critic and innovative thinker on world cinema. On Cinema brings together for the first time in the English language a comprehensive selection of Rocha's film writings, revealing for the first time to English-speaking readers the full critical power, inventiveness and vision of a great filmmaker. Rocha's writings, endowed with critical verve and humour, give insights into key moments of film history, as well as the politics of world cinema. Here he fearlessly confronts the film establishment and debates with a host of sacred filmmakers of the world pantheon. Included is Rocha's early criticism of Brazilian films, landmark manifestoes such as 'An Aesthetics of Hunger' and 'An Aesthetics of Dreams', articles about the development of Cinema Novo, and his international film criticism, including pieces on Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, James Dean, David Lean, John Huston, Stanley Kubrick, John Ford, Jean-Luc Godard, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini, Luis Bunuel, Luchino Visconti and Roberto Rossellini. The publication of On Cinema, edited by film scholar Ismail Xavier and in expert translation, is an international publishing event.