The Past - Director´s comments

Born in Buenos Aires on February 7th 1946, Hector Babenco belongs to a generation that didn´t grew up watching television, but one that used cinema as a reference of how other cultures shared their stories.

By the age of 15, he discovers the French Nouvelle Vague, the films of Visconti, Antonioni, the American westerns and the films by the Polish Andrzej Wajda. At this moment, he decides to become one of them. "I grew up watching the American and European films without knowing the difference between commercial cinema and art cinema", says Babenco.

In 1964, at the young age of 17 and influenced by the American beatniks literature, Babenco leaves his home. His first stop is Brazil. Afterwards, he moves to Europe where he stays from 1966 until 1969. At that time, he gets by working different jobs, even participating as an extra in spaghetti westerns filmed in Spain.

Not allowed to return to Argentina for being considered a deserter to the mandatory military service, Babenco settles down in Sao Paulo -Brazil- where he works his way as a Polaroid photographer in several restaurants.

In 1975, he makes his first film, 'King of the Night' with Brazilian actors Paulo José and Marília Pêra. Two years later, he naturalizes a Brazilian citizen in order to make a film which, for the first time during the military dictatorship, reveals the impunity of the Brazilian Death Squad and the corrupted relationship between the police and the marginal: 'Lucio Flavio' captivates a large audience by telling a story of social nature in a simple and straight way. With a 5,4 million audience, the film becomes the fourth biggest box office of the Brazilian cinematographic history. However, it causes the director a series of conflicts. He is threatened and his house is shot; his family has to hide in friend's houses.

His next film 'Pixote - Survival of the Weakest' (1980) is screened at NY MoMA at the New Films, New Directors exhibition and it was well received by the American journalists. Vincent Canby (The New York Times) said: "The Performances are almost too good to be true. Da Silva, who plays Pixote, has one of the most eloquent faces ever seen on the screen. It' s a face full of life. Da Silva and Marília Pêra are splendid!". Judy Stone (San Francisco Chronicle): "An extraordinary haunting film! 'Pixote' takes its place alongside the great Classics of the childhood: Buñuel´s 'The Young and the Damned' and Truffaut´s
'400 Blows' ".

'Pixote' is considered the best foreign film of 1981 by the critics associations from Los Angeles and New York. The National Society of Cinema Critics (USA) awards Marília Pêra as Actress of the Year. By the end the 80s, ' Pixote' is chosen by Première magazine as the third best foreign film of the decade, following 'Fanny & Alexander', by Ingmar Bergman, and 'Ran', by Akira Kurosawa.

After reading 'Ironweed' in 1986, novel for which William Kennedy wins the Pulitzer Award, Babenco decides to adapt it to the big screen, and writes the script together with the author. Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson, both leading actors of the film, were nominated for an Oscar, respectively Best Actress and Best Actor, for their roles in the film.

Saul Zaentz, producer of 'Um Estranho no Ninho' and 'Amadeus', tried for 30 years to shoot 'Play at the Fields of the Lord', a novel by the American Peter Matthiessen about the occupation of the Amazons during the 50´s, by the American religious missionaries. Directors like John Huston, Arthur Penn, Marlon Brando and Milos Forman already tried to adapt the novel into a film, but without any success. Babenco writes the script with Jean-Claude Carrière, scriptwriter of 'La Bella de Jour' among other films by Buñuel. In the period between the pre-production and the shootings, Babenco spends three years in the Amazon Rain Forest; in the film, the natives' identity is based on his experience living with the ianomamis community. The director is able to bring together an international cast with Kathy Bates, Tom Waits, Tom Berenger, Daryl Hannah, John Lithgow and Aidan Quinn for 160 days of shooting.

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