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FILM-BRAZIL: “An Artist Only Bows His Head to Thank the Audience”

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 4 2008 (IPS) - The first three times he saw the film he could not watch it through to the end; he was so overcome by emotion he burst into tears. The next five times he did manage to see the whole movie, but tears were constantly streaming down his cheeks. Brazilian Maestro Mozart Vieira was “extraordinarily” moved by seeing his own story on screen.

It was Creuza Vieira, the wife of the man who created the Banda Sinfónica do Agreste, a symphonic orchestra made up of low-income children in Sao Caetano, a small city in the northeastern state of Pernambuco, who told IPS about this moving experience.

The film “Orquestra dos Meninos” (Children’s Orchestra, 2008) was released commercially a month ago in Brazil’s state capitals. It tells the saga of how children with few or no prospects in a provincial municipality, some of them undernourished and some working on farms, became musicians able to play the works of classical composers like the one their maestro was named after.

The orchestra has become well-known since the mid-1980s through appearances on Brazilian television and performances as far afield as the capital cities of Europe. But Vieira’s project began in 1978, when as a 15-year-old musician, all his training was from his family or self-taught.

He trained as a teacher at a university in Recife, the state capital, 150 kilometres from Sao Caetano, to be able to teach music. His project took formal shape in 1993 as the Fundaçao Música e Vida (Music and Life Foundation), of which the orchestra is the most visible part.

Today the Foundation has 200 children in training, and is striving for recognition as a technical-professional school within the public education system, which would guarantee its long-term future.

The film was directed by Paulo Thiago, who himself studied music and made a documentary about Bossa Nova, the music movement that was enormously popular in the 1950s and 1960s. In his film, Thiago condenses the long labour of building up Vieira’s project into the space of about a year, for production reasons.

It shows Vieira’s childhood and the decisive influence of his grandfather, a musician who conducted his own band and trained his followers in the unusual environment of the “agreste”, an area with a climate intermediate between that of the coast, with regular rainfall, and the semi-arid interior of Brazil’s impoverished northeast.

But it would be impossible, or very difficult, for the film to show how the children evolved over several years to the point where they were able to interpret classical music and make their dream a reality, overcoming obstacles like the prejudice and resistance of their parents against devoting themselves to music, which “doesn’t put food on the table.”

It took Thiago two years to write the screenplay, with the assistance of two other colleagues. He decided the film would highlight an intrigue against Vieira that almost destroyed the project, and his entire life. It all began when one of his pupils was kidnapped and tortured, and local political leaders, aided by a police chief and a prosecutor, blamed him for the crime.

Their motive was to prevent the popular maestro from running for mayor, as he would apparently be an unbeatable candidate, even though Vieira has always denied any intention to get into politics.

He was accused of planning the kidnapping, committing sexual abuse, and turning his pupils into a perverted sect.

A large Sao Paulo newspaper printed a story touting his project, and Helder Camara (1909-1999), the well-known “bishop of the poor” who for many years was the Catholic archbishop of Olinda and Recife, started a movement in Vieira’s favour that was joined by famous singers, to clear his name and keep him out of jail.

The prosecution was shelved, but the maestro’s personal drama continued as he had been branded as a paedophile suspect, to the detriment of his reputation especially among people not acquainted with the facts, and of the Music and Life Foundation, which is experiencing severe financial difficulties.

This “stain” continues to shadow him, and to seriously affect the life of the kidnapped child, Creuza Vieira said. The film serves to vindicate the maestro in the eyes of the public, so that a new stage of his life can begin, she said.

Although the film is based on a true story, it adds fictional elements for dramatic purposes. It shows Vieira attempting suicide when the defamation campaign threatened to crush his dream and his Foundation was shut down by the justice system, something that did not happen in real life, his wife said.

The film portrays the conflicts that arose in the families of the pupils and Vieira’s family itself because of the project, and the struggle to set up the Foundation in the building donated by the state government amid the boycott organised by local politicians.

“An artist only bows his head to thank the audience,” one of the characters says in encouragement, at a low point in the fight against the defamation.

The music project is having unexpected repercussions as the film is discussed in newspapers and television, widening the debate. But it is possible that so much publicity may have contributed to the emergence of other children’s orchestras, making all the suffering worthwhile, said Creuza Vieira, one of the first students of the maestro who was to become her husband.