Black Orpheus was cited by Jean-Michel Basquiat as one of his early musical influences.
President Barack Obama notes in his memoir “Dreams from My Father” (1995) that it was his mother’s favorite film. Obama, however, did not share his mother’s views upon first watching the film during his years at Columbia University: “I suddenly realized that the depiction of the childlike blacks I was now seeing on the screen, the reverse image of Conrad’s dark savages, was what my mother had carried with her to Hawaii all those years before, a reflection of the simple fantasies that had been forbidden to a white, middle-class girl from Kansas, the promise of another life: warm, sensual, exotic, different.”
A feast to the eyes and ears, the film’s soundtrack also inspired Vince Guaraldi’s 1962 album “Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus.”
As a boy, Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) watched the film on Korean TV and it made a big impact on him.
Directed by Marcel Camus
Produced by Sacha Gordine
Screenplay by Marcel Camus, Jacques Viot, based on Orfeu da Conceição by Vinicius de MoraesMusic by Luiz Bonfá, Antônio Carlos JobimCinematography Jean Bourgoin
Edited by Andrée FeixProduction companies: Dispat Films (France), Gemma (Italy), Tupan Filmes (Brazil)Distributed by Lopert PicturesRelease date: June 12, 1959 (France)
Running time: 107 minutes