Interview: Paolo Morelli (City of Men)

Don’t go into Paulo Morelli’s new film City of Men expecting it to be like Fernando Meirelles’ hyper violent, kinetic hit City of God. The film scales down the epic scope of its predecessor by focusing on the friendship of two boys Acerola and Laranjinha, who are about to turn 18. One already a young father they are about to discover things about their own fathers’ pasts which will shatter their solid friendship, in the middle of a war between rival drug gangs from Rio’s favelas.

The film is violent to be sure, but it’s the more intimate moments that were explored in the TV series City of Men that take center stage in this film. To recap the filming of the gang wars in Rio’s infamous favelas caught the attention of the film industry when a documentary was released concerning an ex-favela boy who had escaped to become a photographer. This was the basis for Merilles’ hit City of God which was in tune the inspiration for the TV series City of Men of which director Paulo Morelli directed several episodes. The film picks up where the TV series left off and the friendship between two young boys that was explored in the series is brought to the test with the film.

I met with director Paulo Morelli in New York.

Paolo Morelli

Question: Is it harder or easier to adapt story characters that have already been created?
Paulo Morelli: It’s easier in some ways because the characters were already there, but difficult because you have to push forward and flesh out their identities. That’s why we choose two different themes to develop in City of Men: fatherhood and friendship. Through this we could work with a large story are as opposed to the short stories that were presented in the TV series. The two main characters Acerola and Laranjinha have been friends since the beginning of the series and this film really begins to test that friendship.

Q: How did the actors adjust from working on the TV series to the film?
PM: For the film I had one read-through with the cast and crew and then I took the screenplay away and wouldn’t let them look at it throughout the rest of the shoot. In the series they would never be allowed to read the screenplay, but this time I felt that I was no longer dealing with children, but with real actors. I would tell them what the scene was about and then let them improvise freely. Then I was able to shape the scene on the set. They are becoming better actors and it’s been interesting to watch their progress as they grow from children into adults.

Q: What directing styles did you employ in City of Men that were different from Fernando Meirelles’ City of God?
PM: Well some aspects I feel were very similar and I tried to maintain some continuity because it’s all one big project. The “documentary” type aspects are similar: hand-held cameras, the method of rehearsing, the actors, the locations etc. But I decided that City of Men should be a more humane story than its predecessors. Thus, the aesthetics of the film are a little more controlled. We have a curve of colors for example. In the beginning of the film the colors are more bright, sunshiny and saturated. At the exact mid-point the colors become darker, more washed out and it becomes a different style than City of Men. This film is not an epic about violence, but about these two characters growing up in the favelas and trying to survive. I didn’t want to make City of God II. My film is not about the drug dealers; it’s about the community.

Q: Can you talk about composer Antonio Pinto’s contribution to the film?
PM:  Pinto’s one of the strongest collaborators on this film and I believe he is a very intuitive musician. He’s self-taught; he was never classically trained in any specific instrument. I was very happy with his score because I felt that he could express the themes of the film and bolster them with his score.

Q: Do you feel that Brazil’s current government, working in conjunction with the films that have been made that the favelas are finally improving?
PM: I used to say that art doesn’t have that power. But Douglas Silva (Acerola) went to the Berlin Film Festival with me last week and he told me that after the films a number of programs have started up in the favelas and he felt that Brazil’s middle class were becoming less discriminatory to the people that lived in the favelas. But I don’t t believe that Brazil’s government has done anything.

Q: Do you think the citizens of Brazil that see this film will react against the astronomical murder rate which is depicted very truthfully in the film?
PM: Yes but you see the citizens of the favelas live under a dictatorship. The drug lords are very hard cruel people and then you have the police who are also very cruel in their own way. When they’re not at war with each other you have rival gangs at war. The people who live under this war are very poor, but generally good people and it’s very difficult to know how to get a handle on this situation. The one thing I think City of God did was bring a realization to the rest of Brazil’s citizens that this intense violence was going on in their own country.

Q: What sort of logistical complications did you run into while shooting such violent scenes on location?
PM: It was incredibly easy to shoot there; we really didn’t run into any problems because the community was so cooperative with us. We asked permission from the “Association of Neighborhoods” who would, in turn, ask permission from the drug lords. The drug lords are really the “Kings of the Hill” they are the ones who have control over the life and death of their citizens. But they allowed us to shoot there and the whole community was very cooperative with us and we hired as many as we could to be extras or part of the crew. We were very well received but at the same time it’s still very dangerous because you can see people walking around with automatic weapons and grenades with kids walking around right in front of them! One day we were shooting in a community (not a favela but a community ruled by the drug lords none-the-less) where Acerola’s father lives and shots rang out. Everybody disappeared for about one minuet and then normality resumed. That’s just the way of life.

Q: How has your relationship evolved with the two main actors, do you feel like they view you as a “father figure”?
PM: Maybe a little bit, we’ve spent a lot of time together over the last few years. Like I said I was just in Berlin with Douglas and it was a very pleasant experience. He’s a young boy that came from the favelas and now I can show him a museum in Berlin and he’s at the age where he can appreciate it. He had never really had a relationship with an older person that could open his mind to the rest of the world. It’s been great for me to see him grow and mature in to the person he now is. Unfortunately, in the favelas there are no real figures like that and when the sons become fathers they have no example to follow. That’s why so many children in the favelas look up to the drug lords because they are the ones with the power.

Q: What do you think the actor’s lives will be like now that these films are over?
PM: Douglas Silva and Darlan Cunha are great actors, Silva has been hired by Global TV and now they are both doing soap operas and feature films. I’m sure they will both have careers in cinema and television. Silva started his English lessons a week ago so maybe he’ll cross over to American media but I don’t know. Both of them love to be actors.

Q: Have you met people in the favelas that were interested in working behind the camera?
PM: Yes in fact we’ve already started a small film school, in fact it’s part of an acting school that has been around for about fifteen years called “We from the Hills.” Most of the actors of the film and the series came from that school. Fernando Meirelles started a branch called “We from the Cinema” and it’s school for filmmakers.

Q: How would you describe the state of Brazilian cinema today, in contrast to what it was fifteen years ago or even the Cinema Novo of the sixties?
PM: I believe that in the sixties and seventies Brazil had a cinema that was very intellectual and cerebral. This cinema was based on based on “breaking the rules” and ideas. Those films were very difficult for the audience because there was no story to follow. Those films weren’t about storytelling they were about esoteric ideas and socio-political ideas. In my opinion most of those films are actually quite boring. Some of them are genius films, but they’re still boring. A new generation of films are appearing now which are more based in telling stories. It’s less cerebral and more emotional. I like the storytelling method because instead of the idea being told to you, the audience finds meaning through the story.

Q: Has there been any thought to revisiting these characters ten or fifteen years down the line?
PM: That’s exactly the idea. Ten years from now I think we could make a good film about how the favelas have changed and how the main characters are doing as father figures. It will be interesting because their kids will be around the same age that they were when we started this whole process.      

Q: What’s next for you?
PM: I am considering some screenplays from the American film industry. Nothing we can talk about yet, but I’d like to work in both my native country as well as America. If I can find a good story, I’d like to make a more international film.

Miramax films releases City of Men in theaters tomorrow.