WERE
THE BOYS REALLY CRYING?
Interview
with Katia Lund, co-director of City of God.London.
November 2002.
by
Rosangela Ribeiro, translated
by Vanessa Halipi
Rosangela
Ribeiro: I have not yet seen the film
but a friend of mine told me about a scene in
City of God where a little boy cries when he has
to kill another boy. I read some criticism regarding
the exposure of children at extreme levels of
violence.
Katia
Lund: The boy that was crying belongs
to a theatre group called “We of the Theatre”
(Nos do Teatro). Therefore he has a history, a
base and understanding of theatre and interpretation.
Because he is tiny, he appears to be younger than
he actually is, but at the time, he was five or
six. This scene is the reproduction of an event
that took place in real-life, which goes deeper
than what was shown in the film. |
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Katia
Lund |
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It’s just that we were unable to show the scene
until the end because no one could have handled it.
Paulo Lins, the writer of the book insisted: ‘No,
you have to show it right until the end!’ Because
in his life he saw it to the end and in the favela people
see this all the time. But the public don’t want
to see. The comfortable middle class get annoyed and
ask, what’s any of this got to do with me?
Only those that live in the favela see this everyday.
But why do they have to get used to it? I
was not able to show the scene until the end and neither
could Fernando…
Rosangela:
So how does it really end or can’t you
say?
Katia:
The story is the following: Little Zé, the head
of the ghetto, wants to teach a lesson to some orphaned
street kids, referred to as ‘caixabaixa’
(the empty pocketed), because they are all tiny and
homeless, hanging about in gangs and stealing what they
can. Little Zé plans to teach them a lesson because
the owner of the bakery complained that every week the
kids were stealing from him. He tried to warn them but
they would not stop. The law of the favela is that:
if you steal in the favela you get shot in the hand
or the foot. Police are only traffic in the favela.
That is to say that there is no such thing as prison,
if someone commits a serious crime, he dies. In other
words, he who hesitates dies. Even if it’s for
a small thing, or for being too good, you get shot in
the foot.
So
Little Zé goes to teach the boys a lesson.
When he finds them, the boys start to run, but
he catches two. Then he asks them: “Do you
want the bullet in the foot or the hand?”
The two boys start to cry, and one replies ‘in
the hand’, so Little Zé shoots him
in the foot. Then the little boy holds onto his
foot, of course there are loads of special effects,
blood and I don’t know what else. Little
Ze then picks on a little boy who looks up to
his gang and says to him. “If you are a
man then you teach the lesson.” Little Zé
puts the gun in the boy’s hand aged ten
or eleven and says ‘Now it’s your
turn. Choose who dies.’ |
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The little boy looks at the two boys crying, one who
has already been shot in the foot and he is trying to
decide. The gangsters say ‘Go on then. Aren’t
you a man? He is not able to shoot the boy already shot
in the foot, so he turns and shoots the other kid. Then
Little Zé tells the kid who got shot in the foot:
‘Now get up! Now go and tell everyone that Little
Zé rules! Go to your nest, little rat and don’t
limp!’ The boy walks away limping through an alley
whilst Little Zé continues to point the gun at
him and shouts: “And don’t look back”.
In the book and in real life the little boy turns the
corner and looks back. Little Zé knew he would
look back and shoots him. In the film he goes off walking,
limping and does not die, we did not have the courage
to put that in.
The boys in this scene were prepared during the course
of a year to improvise and act. Some of them belong
to a theatre group (Nos do Teatro) including this boy
Felipe Silva. During one week, he was
prepared by Fátima Toledo, an acting coach and
practised the cry technically everyday. Only that on
the day of the filming, we decided to film this scene
right at the start to get on with it and not let it
go stale.
On that day we were in the favela called City of God
shooting this scene. It was a very poor part of the
favela, everything was really cardboard, the smell and
the sun was so strong. We were going to have lunch somewhere
else. We got delayed and we were not able to finish
the scene. So, it was already two in the afternoon,
the sun beating down on us, the boys had not eaten,
none of the crew had, and we were trying to film with
the sound of guns shooting that was very loud. When
the little boy shot the other boy in the foot, the sound
was deafening. Therefore, in fourty degrees heat, loud
noise and to top it off Little Zé really frightened
the boy… there was a definite moment where this
all came together, the noise, the sun, hunger, the training,
the presence of Little Zé, causing the little
boy to really cry. But we spoke to him afterwards and
he was fine, we even spoke to his parents and he was
cool, he carries on with theatre till this day…
This
is an extract of an article originally published in
the newspaper Brazilian News, London, in December 2002.
We are sorry but only an extract of this interview is
available in English. Volunteers
urgently needed for helping out with the translation.
Please contact info@brazilianartists.net
for further info.
http://cidadededeus.globo.com
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