SYNOPSIS: Winner of both the Academy Award for best foreign-language film and the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or, Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus (Orfeu negro) brings the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to the twentieth-century madness of Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. With its eye-popping photography and ravishing, epochal soundtrack, Black Orpheus was an international cultural event, and it kicked off the bossa nova craze that set hi-fis across America spinning.
| Orfeu | Breno Mello |
| Eurídice | Marpessa Dawn |
| Mira | Lourdes de Oliveira |
| Serafina | Léa Garcia |
| Death | Adhemar Feirrera da Silva |
| Chico | Waldetar de Souza |
| Hermes | Alexandre Constantino |
| Benedito | Jorge dos Santos |
| Zeca | Aurino Cassiano |
| Little Girl | Maria Alice |
| Director | Marcel Camus |
| Producer | Sacha Gordine |
| Inspired by the play by | Vinicius de Moraes |
| Adaptation and dialogue | Jacques Viot and Marcel Camus |
| Music | Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luis Bonfá |
| Director of photography | Jean Bourgoin |
| Editing | Andrée Feix |
| Cameramen | Louis Stein and René Persin |
| Sound engineer | Amaury Leenhardt |
| Assistant director | Robert Mazoyer |
| Costume design | Isabel Pons |
| Production manager | Jacques Gibault |
| Production assistance | Silvio Autuori and Roger Blache |
By August 18, 2010
Before Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus showed up on American and European screens in 1959, what would later be known as the “art film” came in only a few shades of glum: Bergmanesque existentialism . . . Read more »
By June 07, 1999
From the moment of its first appearance, at the Cannes Film Festival in 1959—where it won the Palme d’Or—it was clear that Black Orpheus was a very special film. Taking the ancient Greek myth of . . . Read more »
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