Cinema Then, Cinema Now; How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman

Hi, welcome to cinema then, cinema now, the film series with lively discussion. I'm your host, Jerry Carlson, and I teach cinema studies at the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York. Today we continue our ten part series, a survey of Latin American film of the last 25 years. In fact, today we have our second Brazilian feature film, How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman. Quite an interesting comedy about, on Gen. speaking, non-comic subject, that is cannibalism. This film comes from 1971 and is in beautiful color filmed in the Amazon or along the coast, or accurately of Brazil. We'll be talking about the film, its cultural reference, and its peculiar form of comedy afterwards with two guests.

Today we have Professor Ella Showhat of the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York, and Professor Jean Franco of Columbia University. Enjoy, How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman Hi, welcome back to cinema then, cinema now. I hope you had a feast of a film with How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman. If you'll forgive me for that pond and stick around, I think we have some interesting things to say in the next 30 minutes or so. Before we begin with that, let me introduce to you today's two guests. Sitting to my left is my colleague, Ella Showhat, who is a professor of cinema studies at the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York. Ella is a specialist on third world cinema and is the author of the recently published, She is really cinema, east, west, and the politics of representation from the University

of Texas, from the University of Texas Press. She's currently her scholarship, currently leads her into questions of gender race and of colonialist discourse. Sitting to mine, right is Professor Jean Franco, Jean is a professor of comparative literature at Columbia University. Her most recent book is Plotting Women, Gender and Representation in Mexico. In addition to her literary courses, she has taught a number of courses on film at Columbia, including seminars on Bunuel and Latin American film. She is, in fact, also the present elect of the Latin American Studies Association of America. Jean, let's start, if we might, with some of the literary origins of this film itself. This film comes from a whole tradition of narratives, captivity narratives. What kind of relationship does this film have?

What is its origin in any particular narrative and what kind of relationship does it have to that tradition? Well, it's related to one very specific, captivating narrative of a German called Hanstaden, who in the 1540s was shipwrecked off the coast of Brazil and was captured by Tupinumba and in 1557, which is the year, which ostensibly is the year of the film. It's dated 1557. He published his account of his stay among the cannibal tribes. One of the big difference in the his account and the account of the film is that he wasn't eaten. Right. The other big difference, of course, he didn't, he never admits to having a woman in the film. So there are two big differences, but the opening credits, the engravings, as he's shown in the opening credits and which are intermingled with shots of the Frenchman, right, are, in fact, doing, in fact, come from this, it's a killer, from Stadens' book.

And, of course, one of the other differences being that he's not French, he's German, but I think there are some interesting reasons that maybe we can discuss why Nelson Pereira would choose the Frenchman to be rather than a German. Okay. Okay. But let's- And actually, he's played by Brazilian Italian. Oh, is that right? He passed, is that is the first, is the first, because- I think it's an interesting point, because on the filmmakers part, because it's a choice that reflects the European colonizer as one of, and the same, whether his French, German or Italian, in terms of the Native American perspective, which the film attempt to present, it's kind of an interesting point to collapse the different European powers into a one interest group, when it's viewed from a Latin American or a Marineian perspective. Yeah.

One of the interesting things about this film is this question of perspective, in the opening sequence of the film, which moves very, very rapidly in this pre-credit sequence, sets us up for, I think, the criticism of colonialists we're going to see in the rest of the film. Right. I think what's interesting about it, if we compare it to the different colonial narratives, which always focus on the perspective of the colonizers, they come from the ocean, here the camera is set on land, so actually you see the perspective you get to see an abstract perspective of the Native Americans or the inhabitants of that land, even the language that this cover is usually a language which means certain perspective, certain focalisation, and here it's averted, simply by having the camera set on land and not on the ocean. Right. Right. Right.

So we don't really see a shipwreck, we begin after they've arrived. Right. That's it. Yeah. And there's also, I think, another point to me about that, it's a very interesting way in which he, the engraving, the quotations, the quotations are all from very well-known accounts of Brazil written by discoverers, missionaries, but always written from the point of view of the colonizer. And he, from time to time, the narrative is interrupted, the film narrative is interrupted by one of these little quotations, which tell you that Indians are beasts, the animals, they're guilty of every possible sin, right, and then the image shows you the Indians dancing or whatever, feasting, and so on. And then there's a difference between the language, the dialogue and the image, which comes up again and again, like when the Puritan, he's French, by the way, because the French were fighting the Portuguese for possession of Brazil, and its French Protestant, right, it was French Protestant, so that's important to bear in mind because there's the hypocrisy of

the Calvinists who say that he was trying to escape and knocked him on the head and he falls in the water. So again and again, those little slippages between the dialogue and the image, right. Actually, you see it actually already in the pre-credit sequence and you can see the pre-credit sequence as a kind of an anticipation of what's going, what kind of strategy the narrative is going to employ throughout the film, which is a strategy of, as you said, contradiction between the official history, which is inscribed by those intertitles and the narrative itself, which is actually the perspective of the film, an anti-colonial perspective. And already in this pre-credit sequence, what we see is the official account of the native Americans as barbarians, savages. And what we see in terms on the image track, we actually see exactly the opposite. We see them as hospitable people, very generous people who are very nice, very welcoming

toward the French or the colonizers. They even offer them women and actually it's very interesting. As we see them hugging the native American women, we hear, it's told, I mean it's seen exactly the same point that we hear them speaking about the fact that they have no human face. And it's really interesting, this question of body as they're touching them, but actually saying, so it tells you about them using their sexuality and yet at the same time not recognizing their humanity, which is quite ironic representation. That thought, there's an interesting point about this difference between the pre-credit sequence and the body of the text. The pre-credit sequence sets up this contrast between the image and then the voice over the official colonialist account.

But then what we're in the film itself, one of the things I find peculiar about it, is that we're following the experiences of the Frenchman who would be the person that the European would identify with or the North American, yet somehow the film is from the perspective, to use that sort of phrase, of the people themselves. I think it's interesting that the perspective cannot be limited to the question of points of view. I think that's what we have to distinguish. It's not a traditional Hollywood film where sympathy and identification of the spectator is constructed through the simple point of view shots. Here it's a much more abstract kind of perspective of the Native American. It's not simply sympathy for a particular character. It's channel through a general perspective, anti-colonial perspective, and it doesn't mean that the film would idealize the Native Americans as this kind of paradise, which is, again, the whole question of the discovered land as a form of paradise is typical

of colonial discourse. So the film doesn't take also the notion of positive image of the discovered land. It's not noble savages either, but on the other hand, what's interests me very much is like the way the film blurs that boundary. Having set up the boundary, those of the evil savages and where the good Christians, then it proceeds to blur that distinction because the Frenchman kills Portuguese and whoops, which are as he kills them, right? And then he's quite obviously very interested in money, and he does everything. He engaged in all kinds of deception to escape. So there's a blurring of the boundaries between who are the savages and who are the civilized. I was just going to further that point, or the fact that even within the same camp, and even within the European campuses, the whole issue of is he French or is he Portuguese rather than after we understand he's French? Well, his own side finds it very convenient

as well. It would be difficult to convince them of this around here. I'll work with you. And so the situation becomes very complicated in a division like nationality. Yes, it doesn't mean anything. And going back to something that Alan said, which I think is very interesting, is the scene in which the woman describes their culture hero, begins to describe how he came and taught them to plant corn. And then the Frenchman's voice takes over with him imaged as the culture hero. And I think that's one point where maybe the perspective becomes very ironic, right? Yes. Because I think that the exactly continues the same ideas we were talking before, because the narrative actually begins with her telling it in two p. Yes. And then the voice over shifts to him speaking French. When he describes the typical colonial discourse, basically, what he does, he appropriates

their story about kind of a Promethean story, about a God bringing knowledge into the tribe. And he takes it over and what basically happening in terms of the narrative that he appropriates that myth into a colonial myth, which is the Promethean myth of the European, bringing light and knowledge and rescuing the colonial land from the natives. And I mean, actually, the classical Apologia for colonial appropriation of land was the fact that the colonized people were ignorant and therefore the European had to rescue them and bring them knowledge. And that's exactly what happens on the image track in terms of and the soundtrack, the point that it shifts into French.

And also, there is a typical narration, actually, of the colonizer describing themselves as perceived as gods by the Native Americans, or, for instance, yeah. And what the film does at the end, once again, it shifts perspective, at the end of this myth. Once again, she ends the story. She began the story and she ends this story and once again, it moves into two p. And she tells the story of their rebellion. And the film doesn't end with the narration of the French, it ends with her rebellion. And it's interesting in terms of gender, the intersection of gender and colonial discourses, because ultimately, it's the woman, it's her story and not history that ultimately wins. And that's why when we spoke about perspective in the film, we can say that it is the colonized and the woman perspective, which wins at the end and not the European male perspective. I'm not sure about that.

And I have a discrepancy there, because I think it's true that, well, she wounds him and prevents him from escaping and then takes him. But that's not the last shot, I mean, the last shot's an empty shore. And a quotation from memdissah, who was a governor of Brazil, saying that we left no savages alive on this shore. So what delights me about this film is precisely this, the viewer is kept uncertain all the way through. I mean, you can never sort of plant yourself in some comfortable perspective. And say, maybe emotionally, in terms of emotional identification, yes. But then it's true that they have to triumph of eating this Frenchman. But on the other hand, immediately afterwards, it's assumed that they will be wiped out or this Indian tribe is going to disappear. So there's a tremendous irony about that.

And part of the way it disappears is because they try and get gunpowder from the Portuguese. So there's all this transaction with the gunpowder. And of course, Hans Staden was a gunner and the Frenchman is a gunner. And one of the reasons that he's kept alive part of the time is so that they can get the technology from the white man, it's not just eating the white man to get his strength, but also gaining his strength as a symbol of the chronology, yes. Yeah. It's very interesting to me, though, that this twist at the end is one of these prospect title shifts. The prospective is a very slippery word, but it takes us from one time-ski to another time-skiing and makes us contextualize this very interesting story that has psychological identification in it as a biological role.

Absolutely. And put it in this much larger scheme of matters, historically, economically, in terms of power relations, all of that kind of stuff. Well, it leads you to ask why should the Europeans have survived and not the indigenous? I mean, I think probably that's one of the impacts that he has that, you know, we're the survivors in a way. We're the survivors, and this race who you can't judge morally as better or worse or anything because the film keeps you, I think, and then the film is not about moral issues. It's not about moral issues. It's not about moral issues. It's power relations. That's it. I mean, the fact of the matter is that they are wiped out at the end of the film. So I mean, you know, the viewer then asks, well, are we the survivors? And then in what relation do we have to this genocide, presumably? Yes. And by the fact that in that particular narrative, the Native American appropriate or it, the European, it's the way we're going to be massacre.

And there is tremendous disproportion between the genocide of millions of people, the cannibalism of one person. I mean, if we were to assume that there was ever cannibalism, as we know, I'm sure probably you refer to it in the discussion of Makunahima, that cannibalism is not, I mean, there are no actual historical testimony for the existence of cannibalism. But what it is, it becomes a cultural metaphor for those put in a position of certain kinds of power relations and it becomes a model for dealing and explaining those power relations. Particularly, as it was used in the Brazilian context of the late 60s, appropriating this metaphor from the modernist movement of the 20s, who appropriated from Hanstad and because Osvaldi Andraji, who initiated the Movimenta Porfaji, knew about this particular text.

So, you know, there's a very beautiful relationship that we can share, this is cannibalizing of technology. Well, I mean, that's what Osvaldi Andraji basically, one of his cannibalism, the relationship of the periphery to the metropolis, should be one of cannibalization. We are going to eat them and we are going to acquire their power and the centre of cultural power is going to shift to the periphery and so that was against the purest idea of not having anything to do with the metropolis. Definitely, you can see it in the history also of the Brazilian cinema novel in terms of changing and actually, you can see it really in the history of the Santos himself beginning in the mid-50s, making a film called Reo-40 Degrees, which was a kind of an irrealist film and moving into a film called Vida Seca, Bear in Lies, which actually it's interesting because it was the first phase of cinema novel was also called, was part

of this aesthetic of hunger. Right. Right. If you're hungry or you end up being cannibalistic, you know, because you cannot actually afford once you're on the margins, afford to be, you have to choose almost a question of either or because aesthetic of hunger, the first phase of cinema novel, which you see very well in the early work of the Santos, is a completely different style of filmmaking in terms of methods of production, low budget in terms of style of shooting, which is very harsh, short in the northeast of Brazil, and the theme of it, not only the style and the methods of production, but the themes are about people literally going hungry. And then at the end of the 60s, there is a movement, the tropicalist movement, which the Santos already shifted his kind, his style of filmmaking, his methods of production

into more, you can see it even shift into color, whereas the early cinema novel films were black and white, the later films like Macuna Iman, how testy my Frenchmen. By the way, it's in Brazilian, in Portuguese, it's how testy was my Frenchmen. Yeah. How little is it, right, right, right, right, right, the bigger the better. So there is this evolution in terms of the strategy of filmmaking, and in terms of the cultural thinking that was happening in Brazil, and you can see it actually in the evolution of the work of the Santos himself. This is very interesting to me in terms of the responses of various national cinemas to the dominant style of Hollywood filmmaking. There are a couple of positions, but what's really interesting to me is this does not come out of two of the more obvious positions. One of them, which you talked about a little bit, is cinema novo sees a lot of its origins

in neo-realism, showing the social and economic conditions as they are and doing so, not with the same kinds of strong plotting, et cetera, that Hollywood has. But also it means showing suffering, and it means that we may have to see things that are displeasurable in a certain kind of way. Now, the second thing is that there has been a number of avant-garde traditions of filmmaking a anti-pleasure aesthetic that says, you know, that we must break all the codes of pleasure that Hollywood has set up, but somehow that must give us codes of displeasure that's the only way to confront this. But this is neither of those at all, that's very interesting, because I think you're right to point it out, because in the evolution of cinema novo and the Santos work, you see that the early films, exactly, are this kind of idea of displeasure. We live a situation, and actually, global Russia in its manifesto of hunger, speaks about

this idea that we live a situation of displeasure would be a euphemism, a hunger of violence, of oppression, there is no reason why we should adopt a Hollywoodian model of aesthetics. We should adopt an aesthetic that is appropriate to our reality, an aesthetic of hunger is the one which is appropriate to our reality. But at the same time, the intellectuals and the filmmakers have realized that they cannot actually communicate with the very people that the film talk about, and in the third phase of cinema novo, in the tropicalest phase, there is an attempt also to create a truly popular cinema, not only cinema that we touch on popular theme in terms of the theme that belong to the people, but rather will be also commercial, that people will come and see them. Popular in box office, popular in theme, and popular in terms of representing the people. But how does that relate to the military government, because the other aspect of tropicalism was that it comes when the military government was in power, this film is 1970, 1969,

1970, were years of intense repression in Brazil. And obviously it's interesting that Mokanaima and this film date from that particular really repressive period, unshow societies in which repression is either non-existent or in which, you know, there's some sort of... Listen, no. I mean, I think we can read this film, of course, allegorically, yes, you know, in the case of how tasty, obviously it's set in the past, but at the same time, it could be read to a certain extent as essay about the present day Brazil. First of all, I think there is maybe a direct reference to that, quite early in the film, when the Frenchman is met to drone. Yes, when he's thrown in the water with the water, he was trying to escape, which is what happened to a lot of prisoners in Latin America from one time to the other.

Right. And in Mokanaima, you actually see also direct references to that in terms of the character of sea, the gorilla, who actually fights in the city, or the repression when they run in the city, they escape the police or they give speeches and the police is after them. So there are constant references, although they are indirect and relatively subtle because censorship was very strong during this period. So I feel like the question of allegory becomes a way of avoiding dealing directly with the expression because of censorship. But don't you always see the, for instance, the idea of sexual pleasure in the film, the bodily, the pleasure of the body, the body that's absolutely without clothes, which is sort of free to be without clothes. I started, think of 1970 and wonder how other films in which is so much, and which nudity is taking so for granted, for instance, as in this particular film.

And there's obviously, I mean, you talk about pleasure, but as opposed to Vida Sekaz. I mean, here's a film where there's obviously the pleasurable of the body, I share a pleasure of all of you. But that also brings up a lot of film scholarly work that's been done on the gaze and the look and how Hollywood film, in particular, positions the gaze and therefore, I mean, ideologically positions the spectator to look. And one of the things that I find, the sort of visual about is that this film does not do that. Exactly. I think it's a versatile question of gaze, because you see people walking naked and without any moralistic judgment, in fact, it's treated very naturally, scope-pake or a voyeuristic idea. I mean, you know, right. And there is no distinction between male nudity and that sense is pretty egalitarian in terms of its representation of nudity, it doesn't simply capitalize the kind of a pornographic image. Even though it has the pleasure of nudity, but it has a distant look.

Usually you have kind of long-shot, which is very different from the way Hollywood would frame parts of the body. I mean, the way Hollywood can frame not just a simple leg or hand would be much more erotic in a sense than doing the work with that body. I mean, that's the other thing. They're naked and they're doing things like carrying things or planting or whatever. I mean, it's not just the erotic body. Exactly. It's the body that's worked. And actually, the actors and actresses, the film was filmed during three months in Palette, Palette, and where they constructed a two-pinamba village. And what's interesting about it, that the actors and actresses were wearing nothing during three months of the shooting. So they actually reproduced in terms of the way they shot the film, the very lives that they were portraying in the film.

Well, it's interesting that they would be there so long in doing this, because obviously there's a double shedding process. And there's literally the shedding of his clothing, but it's also the shedding of all the assumptions that go along with that, both from particular kinds of societies, but also from film itself. The notion of you're doing a nude scene. There's a famous instance in the French film, Les Giuselev, which is one of the first films in a very, very distinguished film. The actress Arleti was to have a very brief nude scene, and of course it had to be handled with everyone leaving the set with contractual obligations about this and that, you know, no photographers on the set, et cetera, and you know, what do you do here when you've got an entire village? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's interesting what Jane mentioned before also about the fact that the film is made during the late 60s and 70s in terms of, also it's a period, I think, generally of cultural revolution, not only in Brazil, but generally throughout the world.

And I think there's a general tendency during that period because of the questioning of capitalist society. There is a general attempt either toward nostalgia, in this case it's not simply nostalgia where an attempt to look for the roots, other kind of roots for civilizations. And the question of nudity becomes very important just because it symbolizes alternative culture, the cultures which are not mainstream. And maybe you can see the film also as a counter-culture, well, also it begins with the Puritans. Right. That's a very important point. Which is very interesting, it begins with the Puritans and ends, you know, with the girl eating the little neck, which is, there's a pleasure with it. There's also some text in the film, isn't she getting revenge for her dead husband? Right. Yes, but she can have pleasure and have revenge at the same time, which is not the two things.

So there's this revenge, but without a certain kind of anger, well, I'll have this pleasure, I'll instruct you in this and then I'll have your little neck. And so then I will have pleasure and revenge my husband, and that works out better for me. My community, yeah. So just my husband, because actually what's interesting about the film, that you see them collectively mourning about the death of their dead, of their death. And that wonderful scene at the end where they rehearse the girl and the man rehearse his death. And she teaches him what he has to say at particular moments. And then he wants to escape from the ritual to a certain moment. He pushes her back when she prompts him. And then he acts real. I mean, you know, there's a difference, he's not acting the ritual. He's saying those words, I am here, my friends will avenge me. And they actually do, you know, I mean, it's a very remarkable scene that I think. Well, I don't know if it's revenge on the two of you for such a big discussion, but we have to end our discussion now, because we're, we're really out of time on this.

If you'd like more information about this series, or about cinema studies, graduate or undergraduate, drop us a line, drop it to cinema then, cinema now, the college of Staten Island, Staten Island, New York, 10301. Let me give you that information again, okay? Step it to cinema then, cinema now, the college of Staten Island, Staten Island, New York, 10301. Well, Ella, thank you for bringing your anti-colonialist perspective, Jean for your perspective, anti-colonialist, and well informed about all these matters. I hope that our discussion here leads you to thought and discussion at home that you enjoy. Thanks for joining us. Thank you.

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