Cannes Film Fest 1959: Marcel Camus’ ‘Black Orpheus’ Over François Truffaut’s ‘The 400 Blows’
At the 1959 Cannes Film Fest, Black Orpheus, Marcel Camus’ retelling of the classic tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice felt innovative.
Camus staged the tale as a musical during Carnaval in 1950s Rio de Janeiro, featuring an all-Afro-Brazilian cast, and benefiting from a lush color cinematography.
How else to explain why this film snatched the Palme d’Or away from such iconic French classics as Francois Truffaut’s but, The 400 Blows and Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour?
The Cannes Fest jury wasn’t the only one group swept up by the picture.
Black Orpheus went on to win the best Foreign Language Film Oscar
Critic Jean-Luc Godard, who would make his splashy debut the following year with Breathless, noted in his Cannes review. “What offends me about this adventurer’s film is that it contains no adventure, or this poet’s film, that it contains no poetry.”
For the film’s other detractors, Camus’ depiction of Rio’s lush beaches and sensual, colorful favelas felt like exotic Euro-tourism and postcard romance.
