Abstract

This article aims to analyze certain forms of extension of the Modernist movement in São Paulo. More specifically, this work seeks to observe the manifestation of Modernism in the trajectory of the film critic Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes between the 1960s and 1970s. Situated in a unique position vis-à-vis Modernism, the critic articulated, throughout his trajectory, several ways of dealing with the movement. On the one hand, it is possible to assess the extension of the theme in the critic’s formulations about the figure of the writer Oswald de Andrade, with whom he was close since the 1930s. On the other hand, a more comprehensive reflection on Modernism is crystallized in the early 1970s, in a document in which Paulo Emílio reflects on the Week of Modern Art of 1922. Through these two perspectives, we hope to reflect on the meaning of Modernism’s updating in the turbulent context that followed the 1964 Coup.

Keywords
Paulo Emílio; Modernism; heritage; Week of Modern Art; Oswald de Andrade

Resumo

Este artigo tem como objetivo analisar determinadas formas de prolongamento do Modernismo em São Paulo. Mais especificamente, trata-se de observar a manifestação desse movimento na trajetória do crítico de cinema Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes entre os anos 1960 e 1970. Situado numa posição singular ante o Modernismo, o crítico articulou, ao longo de sua trajetória, diversas maneiras de lidar com o movimento. Por um lado, é possível aferir o prolongamento do tema nas formulações do crítico sobre a figura de Oswald de Andrade, de quem foi próximo desde os anos 1930. Por outro lado, uma reflexão mais abrangente sobre o Modernismo se cristaliza no início dos anos 1970, num documento em que Paulo Emílio reflete sobre a Semana de 22. Por meio dessas duas perspectivas, espera-se refletir sobre o sentido da atualização do Modernismo no contexto turbulento que se seguiu ao Golpe de 1964.

Palavras-chave
Paulo Emílio; Modernismo; herança; Semana de Arte Moderna; Oswald de Andrade

Introduction

The most recent chapter of the Modern Art Week reports seems to have fueled the disagreement between two perspectives that are not, in themselves, excluding. After all, on the occasion of the centenary of the Week of 22, there was little movement between the recognition of the paulista³ 3 “Paulista” is the term used to refer to any person born in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. episode as a triggering or provocative event and the demarcation of the mismatch between the universality of the values articulated and the point of view of its articulation. In the current circumstances, the debate leans toward the latter position.

It is worth highlighting, then, that the present work conforms to a paulista development of Modernism: it involves observing the configuration of the subject in documents produced by critic Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes between the 1960s and 1970s. This scholar had direct relationships – sometimes assiduously – with 1922 veterans, being pinpointed on the most visible fringe of what can be called “long Modernism” (NAPOLITANO, 2014NAPOLITANO, Marcos. Arte e política no Brasil: história e historiografia. In: EGG, André; FREITAS, Artur; KAMINSKI, Rosane (org.). Arte e política no Brasil: modernidades. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2014, p. XV-XLVI., p. XXII-XXIX). An heir, therefore, as long as one can understand a specific modality of generational succession.⁴ 4 This work dialogues with the approach to the process of transmitting cultural, social and economic capital by Pierre Bourdieu (2007). Paulo Emílio’s modernist heritage is not indifferent to his family’s stature. In this sense, I refer to the encouraging study by José Inacio de Melo Souza (2002), and the study by Heloisa Pontes (1998), more similar to the theme of this investigation. That said, one of the objectives of this essay is to reflect, based on a case study, on the broader phenomenon of the persistence of Modernism in São Paulo.

On a first approximation, it can be noted that the inheritance is alluded to, at a key moment in Paulo Emílio’s intellectual affirmation, in the collective works Testamento de uma geração [Testament of a generation] (1944) and Plataforma da nova geração [Platform of the new generation] (1945). And the terms of the São Paulo critic’s participation in the second volume converge with the broader perception of an ongoing transition (MOTA, 2014MOTA, Carlos Guilherme. Ideologia da cultura brasileira (1933-1974): pontos de partida para uma revisão histórica. São Paulo: Editora 34, 2014 [1977]., p. 156-164), which would come to be registered in the literary field with the nickname “Geração de 45”. At the same time, the semantic proximity between “inheritance” and “testament”, referred to in the title of the first publication, suggests that the transition to the “new generation” would not be indifferent to the heritage of veterans.

However, the intergenerational construction of the perpetuation of Modernism in São Paulo did not occur without strain, since the terms of the inventory were partially disqualified by its beneficiaries.⁵ 5 And even by some veterans, such as Mário de Andrade, who at that point devalued the modernist heritage (MOTA, 2014, p. 143-148). As for Paulo Emílio, his intervention in Plataforma da nova geração reserved a not insignificant place for criticism from the “bohemians of 22” (SALLES GOMES, 1986SALLES GOMES, Paulo Emílio. Paulo Emilio: um intelectual na linha de frente. São Paulo: Brasiliense; Rio de Janeiro: Embrafilme, 1986., p. 82-95). Such position was analyzed in its nuances by Heloisa Pontes, who collected the variations of his and that of other critics stance gathered in Clima magazine before figures such as Oswald de Andrade, Mário de Andrade and Sérgio Milliet (PONTES, 1998PONTES, Heloisa. Destinos mistos: os críticos do Grupo Clima em São Paulo (1940-68). São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1998., p. 52-95).

Paulo Emílio’s heritage lies in a specific terrain, an ambiguous one, which was prefigured in his early entry into São Paulo’s cultural life. For the youngster who launched himself into the public arena of cultural and political debates in the turbulent year of 1935, did so under the sign of scandal. Enfant terrible, in short, but not one sans heritage – so that the search for a calibration between irreverence and seriousness constitutes one of the fundamental moves of the development of Paulo Emílio’s writing and public performance (MENDES, 2013MENDES, Adilson. Trajetória de Paulo Emilio. Cotia: Ateliê Editorial, 2013., p. 137-174).

Up to this point, I trail the comments of the scholars who dedicated themselves to understanding the situation of the critic in the context of São Paulo in the 1930s and 1940s. However, the social construction of his “destiny” did not end there, a fact that manifests itself in the renegotiation of the terms of the modernist heritage that happened decades later. Crucial in a period of generational affirmation, Modernism would be rescued as a kind of guarantee against the crisis experienced by the critic in the 1960s and 1970s, in parallel with profound changes in the forms used in his public interventions (PINTO, 2008PINTO, Pedro Plaza. Paulo Emilio e a emergência do Cinema Novo: débito, prudência e desajuste no diálogo com Glauber Rocha e David Neves. Tese de doutorado, Meios e Processos Audiovisuais, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2008., p. 107-144 ). The modernist heritage, therefore, is historically determined and this determination is itself variable over time. Now, in the period encased in this study, the Coups of 1964 and 1968 seem to be linked to a series of questions raised about the modernist experience and, in particular, the figure of Oswald de Andrade.

As I will try to demonstrate, the persistence of Modernism promotes, in Paulo Emílio’s writing, a rendezvous of temporalities through the mirroring between the modernist experience and the moment of its evocation. Thus, on one hand, remembrance reveals the updating of the terms of inheritance against the sunset of a certain modern project for the country.⁶ 6 I refer to the broad shift in the direction of modernization registered after the 1964 Coup (NOVAIS; MELLO, 1998, p. 605-618). At an individual sphere, the consequences of this shift were felt in the change of the terms of offer (and exclusion of) insertion in public space between the 1960s and 1970s. The case of the universities is emblematic regarding the link between the general movement and its individual determination (MOTTA, 2014). More than it, the assessment of Modernism seems to point to the up-to-dateness of its contradictions at a time when its fraying was, paradoxically, evident.⁷ 7 This change seems to converge with the darker perspective assumed then by another heir, Mário Pedrosa, in the 1970s (ALAMBERT, 2020, p. 16-29). It is worth remembering that the exhaustion of modern art is a phenomenon that concerns factors that cross, but do not deplete, the Brazilian chapter (ANDERSON, 1986). On the other, the evocation of the past provided a kind of retreat for the evaluation of the present, serving as a parameter for action, because the limited horizon of options available to Paulo Emílio in the 1960s and 1970s was also considered in light of his reflection on Modernism.

Within the critic’s documentation, this reflection was collected in two senses, which justify the division of the following items. Firstly, this essay analyzes the forms of return to Oswald de Andrade, with a strongly self-reflexive nature. Secondly, I analyze a study about the Week of 22⁸ 8 The Modern Art Week is sometimes referred to as the Week of 22. , in which Paulo Emílio outlined options for assessing the present based on the binomial “coup” and “revolution”. I believe that these two approaches to Modernism configure a “persistence of vision”, in a movement that tracks autonomy in relation to the aimed subject and configures a historiographic object located in its own space.

Part I: Oswald, tertian fever

It can be said that Oswald de Andrade constitutes a marker in Paulo Emílio’s trajectory, since the writer’s oscillating presence in the critic’s documentation helps to understand the dynamics of his intellectual self-construction. This relationship does not render itself to a linear description, not only due to the ambiguous movement of the interaction between the two intellectuals – tempered by moments of altercation –, but also due to the movement specific to the writer’s symbolic posterity at the crossroads of the critic.

In the first half of the 1940s, Oswald de Andrade was a key player for the statement strategy of intellectuals linked to Clima magazine, which generally highlighted the dilettante character of the 1922 veterans (PONTES, 1998PONTES, Heloisa. Destinos mistos: os críticos do Grupo Clima em São Paulo (1940-68). São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1998., p. 74-89). It is visible, however, the decrease in references to Oswald in Paulo Emílio’s documentation in the following years. It would be necessary to wait until 1964 to find a broader commentary – the article “Um discípulo de Oswald em 1935” [A disciple of Oswald in 1935] (SALLES GOMES, 1981SALLES GOMES, Paulo Emílio. Crítica de cinema no Suplemento Literário. Rio de Janeiro: Paz & Terra, 1981. v. 2., v. 2, p. 440-446), which sets a turning point in Paulo Emílio’s stance in relation to the modernist writer.

The text has something extemporaneous, since it is the critic’s only contribution to the Suplemento Literário [Literary Supplement] of the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo in 1964, in October – at a time when Paulo Emílio had practically wrapped up his participation in the periodical.⁹ 9 The critic also published two articles at the end of 1965. Add to it the fact that it is one of the few public texts by Paulo Emílio not dedicated to cinema. In fact, this topic is mentioned in the article precisely by the denial, as a subject in which the critic had no interest in 1935. Finally, the motivation of the text is also unique in Paulo Emílio’s relationship with Suplemento, since it is a rare commission from Décio de Almeida Prado, responsible for the publication; the edition sought to take stock of the work of Oswald de Andrade, on the tenth anniversary of his death.¹⁰ 10 Texts by Haroldo de Campos, Geraldo Ferraz, Sérgio Milliet, João Marschner, Flávio de Carvalho, Décio Pignatari and Benedito Nunes were also published.

The handwritten version of the article contains an element that does not show up in the published text: the note, crossed-out “When I was 18, 25 and 38 years old” (APESG-CB PI 0595.01). Therefore, if the published article sticks to the circumstances of 1935, the author had originally suggested a larger temporal structure to account for his relationship with the writer. And the ages mentioned do not seem occasional. At the age of 25, that is, in 1941, Paulo Emílio would participate in the skirmishes between the critics from Clima and Oswald de Andrade. A few years later, Oswald would practically embody the harsh assessment of Modernism by Paulo Emílio in his collaboration on the Plataforma da nova geração (SALLES GOMES 1986SALLES GOMES, Paulo Emílio. Paulo Emilio: um intelectual na linha de frente. São Paulo: Brasiliense; Rio de Janeiro: Embrafilme, 1986., p. 82-95).

The 38 years of Paulo Emílio refer to 1954, the year of Oswald’s death. The moment was marked by a set of decisive circumstances for the critic, who returned, after almost ten years in Europe, to a country politically strained by the events that culminated in the suicide of Getúlio Vargas, months before Oswald’s death.¹¹ 11 In Europe, Paulo Emílio had received news from Oswald, mainly through Antonio Candido de Mello e Souza. In a letter from that period, Candido ironizes the “excavation” of a “resuscitated anthropophagy” by the writer regarding a contest for the University of São Paulo (APESG-CB CP 0726). In the same letter, Candido mentions Oswald’s “culinary” relationship with dialectics. The moment did not leave many traces of Paulo Emílio’s relationship with the writer, but it resurges in later consideration. In a debate about the Vera Cruz Cinematographic Company held in the 1970s (APESG-CB PI 0625), Paulo Emílio evokes Oswald’s performance in the 1950s, considering his comments about the São Paulo production company in Telefonema [Phone call], a column he maintained for many years in the newspaper Correio da Manhã from Rio de Janeiro (APESG-CB PI 0625, p. 17).¹² 12 Among the final drafts for Telefonema are texts about the Brazilian Film Festival, held in São Paulo in 1954 (ANDRADE, 2007, p. 658-661). Paulo Emílio – one of the organizers of the event – is mentioned on more than one occasion. At this point, Paulo Emílio relates with a certain sarcasm the chronicler’s interest in cinema with his desire to regain a social position in the paulista bourgeoisie.

But the scope of the article actually published in Suplemento Literário in 1964 falls on the year 1935. In a way, the hesitation expressed in the crossed-out section and the option for temporal restriction are aligned with an inversion present in the structure of the article, in which Oswald establishes a type of genitive (“Oswald’s”) relationship with the “disciple”, this being the effective subject of the title and object of the article. This perspective presides over the reevaluation of his other article “O moleque Ricardo e a Aliança Nacional Libertadora” [The brat Ricardo and the National Liberation Alliance] (SALLES GOMES, 1986SALLES GOMES, Paulo Emílio. Paulo Emilio: um intelectual na linha de frente. São Paulo: Brasiliense; Rio de Janeiro: Embrafilme, 1986., p. 35-37), which would have triggered the ire of Oswald in 1935, manifested in the “little note” published in response (ANDRADE, 1986ANDRADE, Oswald de. Bilhetinho a Paulo Emílio. In: SALLES GOMES, Paulo Emílio. Paulo Emilio: um intelectual na linha de frente. São Paulo: Brasiliense; Rio de Janeiro: Embrafilme, 1986 [1935], p. 37-40.). In short, in 1964 Paulo Emílio reviewed not so much Oswald’s position, but above all else that of his disciple, i.e., his own.

The disagreement discussed in the article shifts the theme of Oswald de Andrade’s political or aesthetic inconsistency.¹³ 13 Already mentioned in the letter from Antonio Candido to Paulo Emílio (ck. note 7). Inconsistency was the keynote of Candido’s criticism of the first volume of Marco zero (1943), in the articles later collected under the title “Estouro e liberação” (CANDIDO, 2017a, p. 11-27). The hesitancy regarding the political lightness of the book can be found in interviews in an undated letter from Candido to Paulo Emílio, in which he comments on the writer’s search for publicity around the novel (APESG-CB CP 0722). Because the focus of the inconsistency, now, would be placed on the narrator itself, highlighting in 1964 the fragility of his criticism of the play O homem e o cavalo [The man and the horse], in the article from 1935. On this occasion, more aligned with the perspective that predominated in the PCB,¹⁴ 14 The statement, as José Inacio de Melo Souza (2002, p. 17-45) has already demonstrated, lacks nuance, because although he was not seen with the same suspicion as Oswald, Paulo Emílio was not aligned with the general orientation of the party, to which he did not join. Adilson Mendes (2013, p. 137-148) analyzed the measures taken by Paulo Emílio in Movimento that differ from the PCB guidelines. PCB is the Brazilian Communist Party, founded in 1922. Paulo Emílio praised the production of José Lins do Rego and Jorge Amado, contrasting these authors with Oswald’s play, accused of containing bourgeois traits in its handling of eroticism.¹⁵ 15 Interestingly, Jorge Amado would write a text praising the play (AMADO, 2005), in which he insists, on the path opened by Oswald himself in his foreword to Serafim Ponte Grande (ANDRADE, 1989, p. 9-11), on breaking with a bourgeois position. Decades later, the critic would evaluate his intervention as superficial, to the point of confusing a decisive reference: at a certain point, the figure of Serguei Eisenstein appears in the text (ANDRADE, 2005ANDRADE, Oswald de. Panorama do fascismo/O homem e o cavalo/A morta. São Paulo: Globo, 2005., p. 104-105); in its place, however, Paulo Emílio read, in 1935, a reference to Albert Einstein, an indicative – he would affirm in 1964 – of his superficial position.¹⁶ 16 It seems to have gone unnoticed by Paulo Emílio that the scene referred to makes explicit reference to the famous cream separator sequence in The general line (1929, dir. Grigori Aleksandrov and Serguei Eisenstein). The film was analyzed by the critic in an article from 1958 that refers precisely to the erotic character of this passage (SALLES GOMES, 2015, p. 159-164).

Perhaps it is inaccurate to attribute this reassessment simply to the passage of time, because in June 1936, in prison, Paulo Emílio asked his mother to send him O homem e o cavalo, among other pieces, to assist him in his writing and production of a show at the so-called Maria Zélia Prison Popular Theater (APESG-CB CA 0052). It was not yet the production of the play Destinos [Fates], written shortly afterwards, but a project to adapt existing works.¹⁷ 17 In another letter, Paulo Emílio confirms receiving O homem e o cavalo (APESG-CB CA 0055). As a hypothesis, the inclusion of Oswald de Andrade’s work among the pieces requested for use in a “popular theater” may suggest a sustained interest or even a reflection on the criticism made months prior.¹⁸ 18 It is important to remember that at this point the other plays by Oswald de Andrade – A Morta [The dead woman] and O rei da vela – had not yet been published, which would only happen in 1937. Furthermore, if in 1964 Paulo Emílio would recognize that the criticism of Oswald provided a certain reinforcement of the emotional bond that united him with the writer, this fact could already be observed in early 1940s in the scope of the Clima magazine (PONTES, 1998PONTES, Heloisa. Destinos mistos: os críticos do Grupo Clima em São Paulo (1940-68). São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1998., p. 74 -79).

In any case, Oswald de Andrade functions as a qualifying element in the trajectory described by the 1964 article – in accordance with its syntactic function as genitive in the text’s title. At the beginning of the article, before even getting in touch with the writer, Paulo Emílio characterizes the dispersion of his interests around 1935 as follows:

Shortly after, Paulo Emílio personalized this dispersion: “In 1935, therefore, I adhered to everything that seemed modern to me: communism, Apristas, Flávio de Carvalho, Mário de Andrade, Lasar Segall, Gilberto Freyre, Anita Malfatti, André Dreyfus, Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky, Meyerhold and Renato Vianna”.

The list reproduces a good part of the subjects covered in the only issue of Movimento [Movement] magazine, edited by Paulo Emílio and Décio de Almeida Prado and to which the former contributed a good part of the articles (TELLES, 2012TELLES, Lúcia. Movimento em construção. Correspondência entre Paulo Emílio Sales Gomes e Décio de Almeida Prado, de junho a agosto de 1935. Dissertação de mestrado, Literatura Brasileira, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2012.). The magazine created a small fuss for containing a “worker” poem (written under a pseudonym by Paulo Emílio) with scatological allusions, which led to its rejection by the Dramatic and Musical Conservatory, whose librarian was challenged to a slap duel by the author. It is significant that this was the first link with Oswald de Andrade, alongside the mediation of the son of the writer, Nonê de Andrade.²⁰ 20 Paulo Emílio then received a note of solidarity from Oswald de Andrade (APESG-CB CP 0053). The meeting between apprentice and master, therefore, is associated with scandal.

It is up to Oswald de Andrade to qualify this initial dispersion, which does not imply an encounter with a more cohesive set of references, but an even broader opening. Because the modernist writer would be responsible for his apprentice’s contact with elements that were outside his political horizon – the integralists linked to Roland Corbisier, with whom he debates in São Paulo’s Center area²¹ 21 The debate would find a fictional outcome in the publication of the second volume of Marco Zero (ANDRADE, 2008). The book is in Paulo Emílio’s library, with a dedication from the author. – and cultural – Abelardo Pinto, the clown Piolin. In fact, the reference to Piolin establishes, in 1964, the motto for the differentiation of the self in Clima magazine’s group, which vetoed the publication of Paulo Emílio’s article about the artist. Oswald de Andrade was also responsible for Paulo Emílio’s first contacts in Rio de Janeiro, expanding his sphere of activity, in a movement that years later would gain national ambition, as evidenced in the scope intended by his text in Plataforma da nova geração. The contrast between the range achieved in dealing with the modernist writer and the closure of the narrative, precipitated by the arrest of Paulo Emílio at the end of 1935, is striking in the 1964 article.²² 22 It is important to note another mark of Paulo Emílio’s bond with Oswald de Andrade, even at a time when the most acute tensions were occurring: the critic’s library contains two signed editions by the writer. The first of them, already mentioned, is the second volume of Marco Zero. There is also a 1945 edition of Collected poems, with the following dedication by Oswald de Andrade: “From the heart, by Oswald”, with the word “heart” replaced by a drawing.

Considering what we analyzed so far, it is possible to say that Paulo Emílio’s relationship with Oswald de Andrade oscillates around two parameters. On one hand, the modernist writer represents an intellectual model to be surpassed, given his undisciplined, dilettante character and his merely destructive vocation. On the other, Oswald’s deviant character in relation to the relatively narrow horizon of the young Paulo Emílio seems to exert an attraction that now and then prevails in the critic’s observations about the writer.

And Mário and Oswald

There are other variations. When interviewing Gilda de Mello e Souza in the early 1990s, Carlos Augusto Calil would evoke his impression regarding the relationship between Paulo Emílio and Mário de Andrade (MIS 00031PSG00013AD). According to Calil, there seemed to be a certain niggling on the part of the critic towards the writer, who would always have avoided surrounding himself with intellectuals of great expression. Gilda’s reaction relativizes the value of intelligence when establishing relationships, disagrees with Paulo Emílio’s reading – thus confirming its content – and draws attention to the similarity in the personalities of Mário de Andrade and Paulo Emílio, moderated by his similarity to Oswald. In the end, the difference is marked by the shy, office-like personality of Mário de Andrade.²³ 23 Lygia Fagundes Telles (2010, p. 17-23), Paulo Emílio’s partner, has a chronicle of her own meeting with Mário de Andrade that converges with the impression of the writer’s reserved character.

Paulo Emílio’s relationship with Mário de Andrade is marked by an oscillating dynamic, analogous to that seen in the case of Oswald. Closeness and distance, sometimes combined at the same moment, seem to characterize his relationship with important figures of Modernism.²⁴ 24 The case of Paulo Emílio seems to miniaturize the broader fluctuation in the appropriation of the Week of 22 (ALAMBERT, 2020, p. 11-29). In the case of Mário, it is worth noting that he is practically absent from Paulo Emílio’s further account of 1935 – perhaps due to his distance from Oswald. Be that as it may, he was a relevant figure in the development of Clima magazine, with which he collaborated on an article of great importance for his own career, “Elegia de abril” [April elegy].²⁵ 25 There is also a book by Mário de Andrade with a dedication to Paulo Emílio, the 1941 edition of his Poetry. The dedication is more formal than Oswald’s. A poem by Mário about the critic also dates from this time (ANDRADE, 2013, p. 508). Despite the relative formality of the relationships between Paulo Emílio and Mário, it is clear that the work of the modernist writer would remain a central reference for the critic’s trajectory.²⁶ 26 However, Paulo Emílio does not deal with Mário de Andrade’s reflections on cinema, which is an indication of the limited circulation of the modernist’s reflections on the subject (XAVIER, 2017, p. 162-175).

Paulo Emílio even prepared a film adaptation of the novel Amar, verbo intransitivo [To love, intransitive verb] (1927), between 1968 and 1969, material that played an important role in reorienting the critic’s writing in the late 1960s (VIGNERON, 2021VIGNERON, Victor Santos. Do dois ao três, ou A reprodução da burrice paulista. In: Revista do Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros, São Paulo, n. 80, p. 68-87, 2021.). And the figure of Mário de Andrade, now transformed, reflexively, into a character, is a decisive element in this process. One can note that the development of the plot between Oswald and Raul Morais (that is, Mário de Andrade) does not involve the problem of choosing one of the models. There is a clear tension, it is true, expressed when Oswald directly criticizes Raul Morais’ project, but it is a constructive tension, pointing to a purification of the novel in production, capable of being accepted by the “futurist” writer.²⁷ 27 The designation of Mário as a “futurist” poet in the script perhaps echoes Oswald’s first reading of Paulicéia desvairada. His comment, “My futurist poet”, would be received with distance by his colleague.

The non-exclusive tangling of these parameters is an indication of a permanent variation between them, a position that is not foreign to Antonio Candido’s comment, a few years later, about the existence of a dialectic between Mário and Oswald de Andrade (CANDIDO, 1974CANDIDO, Antonio. Sobre o trabalho teórico. In: TRANS/FORM/AÇÃO, Marília, n. 1, p. 9-23, 1974.); Encouraged to respond in an interview about the opposition between these authors, Candido prefers to mention their openness to a horizon of productive variation, which would mark a richer intellectual conduct to be incorporated by their successors.

In the mirror of Antonio Candido

In the same interview, Candido adds a somewhat unexpected reference to Paulo Emílio. He mentions that the mythology surrounding the figure of Oswald de Andrade, which would configure one of the author’s interpretative layers, had already been previously analyzed by his colleague. Evidently, the reference is to the 1964 article, the only writing that Paulo Emílio published on the subject.²⁸ 28 Judging by Candido’s surprise, years later, with the publication of Três Mulheres de Três PPPês (MIS 00031PSG00028AD), it is unlikely that he had access to the screenplay “Amar, verbo intransitivo”. Curious observation, since the mythology surrounding the modernist writer was mentioned, back in the 1940s, at the beginning of the essay “Estouro e libertação” [Burst and liberation] (CANDIDO, 2017aCANDIDO, Antonio. Brigada ligeira. Rio de Janeiro: Ouro sobre Azul, 2017a [1945]., p. 11-27). To address the mythologies fuelled by the writer would be a prior step to the analysis of his work, he stated at the time. But Candido’s reference to Paulo Emílio testifies perhaps to something different, the mirroring of his own intellectual and emotional relationship with the modernist writer.

Both critics harbored an attitude of controversy and distrust towards Oswald at the beginning of their intellectual trajectories. And when it comes to the thoughtful look at this attitude, something similar occurs. Because the article published by Paulo Emílio in 1964 has a counterpart in Candido’s production. In 1970, shortly before the interview mentioned above, the literary critic wrote “Digressão sentimental sobre Oswald de Andrade” [Sentimental digression on Oswald de Andrade] (CANDIDO, 2013CANDIDO, Antonio. Vários escritos. Rio de Janeiro: Ouro sobre Azul, 2013 [1970]., p. 35-63), a text in which he reviewed his own position – and that of his group – regarding the modernist writer, in a way somewhat similar to what Paulo Emílio had done years before.

Candido’s case is more complex, however. On the eve of Oswald’s death, the critic had written “Prefácio inútil” [Useless foreword] to the first volume of his memoirs, Um homem sem profissão [A man without a profession] (CANDIDO, 2002bCANDIDO, Antonio. Prefácio inútil. In: ANDRADE, Oswald de. Um homem sem profissão. Memórias e confissões. Sob as ordens de mamãe. São Paulo: Globo, 2002b [1954], p. 11-16.). At the time, the theme – later attributed to Paulo Emílio – of attributing mythological traces as an element specific to Oswald de Andrade’s trajectory already appeared, given the thin distinction between life and novel, updated in the publication of the memoirs, in which people become characters.²⁹ 29 Candido observes that the characters in the fictional production become supportive of people. Involuntary rapprochement with the presence of the two modernist writers in Paulo Emílio’s script. In the midst of this process, Oswald himself becomes his great character. At this moment, however, the insistence on the writer’s unsystematic and “impressionist” character still sets the tone for a criticism that places Oswald’s working method outside the academic norm, which is echoed, as we saw, in Candido’s contemporary letters to Paulo Emílio.

With “Digressão sentimental”, in 1970, Oswald is approached in a different manner, as then Candido places himself as a character in the relationship with the writer, reviewing not only himself, but the group from Clima magazine, including Paulo Emílio. The movement of this text did not go unnoticed by Rudá de Andrade, who sent a letter of thanks to Candido (ANDRADE, 2013ANDRADE, Rudá de. Carta de Rudá de Andrade. In: CANDIDO, Antonio. Vários escritos. Rio de Janeiro: Ouro sobre Azul, 2013 [1970], p. 65-68.), coping with Oswald’s anguish in his last years, in the face of a triumph of modernization within the cultural area, which did not require his presence.³⁰ 30 Candido’s process of reflection on Oswald’s work also includes the article “Oswáld, Oswaldo, Ôswald” (CANDIDO, 2002a), whose initial motif is, once again, Paulo Emílio’s comment on the writer’s transformation into myth. The writer’s son, Rudá, was a key figure at Cinemateca Brasileira since his return to Brazil in 1954, working alongside Paulo Emílio.

There is another observation by Candido, in the 1974 interview, which concerns a topic that was impossible to predict when Paulo Emílio was writing about the critic, ten years earlier. When dealing with the variation between Mário and Oswald de Andrade, Candido takes as an example the recent case of Tropicalism, which leans towards the latter. From Paulo Emílio’s article all the way to Candido’s interview, there is a huge change in the writer’s reception.³¹ 31 And yet, 1964 constitutes a milestone: in December of that year an edition of Invenção magazine turned up, edited by the paulista concretist group, dedicated to Oswald de Andrade. The path of his new tendency at the end of the 1960s is known due to the appropriation of the writer by fractions of the Brazilian intellectual class – Candido’s new approach, as we have seen, but also the intellectuals linked to Concretism, to just mention paulista examples – , in addition to his dramaturgic presence through the staging of O rei da vela [The king of the candle], in 1967, by Teatro Oficina. When mentioning Tropicalism, Candido refers to the relative convergence between the reflections by Oficina and other fields of cultural production, like visual arts, music and cinema (NAPOLITANO, 2017NAPOLITANO, Marcos. Coração civil: a vida cultural brasileira sob o regime militar (1964-1985). São Paulo: Intermeios; Programa de Pós-Graduação em História Social da Universidade de São Paulo, 2017., p. 140-149).

The tropicalist turn seems to have been felt by Paulo Emílio, although the critic does not address the topic directly. It is possible to observe an allusion to this passage in the material associated with the arguments in Décio Pignatari’s board of doctorate degree in 1973 (APESG-CB PI 0343). At the beginning of his argument, Paulo Emílio mentions the script produced by the candidate, likely a reference to the movie Dez jingles para Oswald de Andrade [Ten jingles to Oswald de Andrade] (1971, dir. Rolf de Luna Fonseca). The approach with Pignatari – notwithstanding the differences then marked in the examiner’s irony in relation to Charles Peirce – nevertheless indicates Paulo Emílio’s attention to the fluctuation in the appropriation of the modernist writer at that time.³² 32 Paulo Emílio attended the production of O rei da vela by Teatro Oficina, mentioned in a 1972 interview (SALLES GOMES, 2014, p. 172-181). In the same year, Paulo Emílio would lend his voice to Oswald de Andrade’s texts in the film Acaba de chegar ao Brasil o bello poeta francez Blaise Cendrars [The beautiful Frenchy poet Blaise Cendrars has just arrived in Brazil] (1972, dir. Carlos Augusto Calil).

On the comical

At this point, Paulo Emílio was about to produce one of his most well-known essays, “Cinema: trajetória no subdesenvolvimento” [Trajectories in underdevelopment], from 1973 (SALLES GOMES, 2016SALLES GOMES, Paulo Emílio. Uma situação colonial? São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2016., p. 186-205). The performative data is not indifferent to this text, marked on the last lines by the definition and the implicit insult to the interlocutors (“aristocracy of nothing”), situated at one of the most premature points of convergence with Oswald de Andrade, mockery. It is evident that insult and provocation are not exclusive attributes of Oswald, as is evident in the choice by Mário de Andrade-Raul Morais as the swearer in “Amar, verbo intransitivo”, when stating that São Paulo is “a big pile of... SHIT” (APESG-CB PI 0117.01). There is a larger set of references in this sense, like the presence of Alfred Jarry in the writings of Paulo Emílio. It is worth remembering that the play Ubu rei [King Ubu] is mentioned in the screenplay “Em memória de Helena” [In memory of Helena], written around 1967, when the word “merdre” – the motif of Jarry’s play – appears inscribed in an elevator in a middle-class building of Rio de Janeiro, shocking the residents (APESG-CB PI 0268.01, p. 27).³³ 33 The closeness of Paulo Emílio’s first dramaturgical exercises with Jarry is mentioned to an unknown interlocutor in an undated letter (APESG-CB CA 0319).

Still, Oswald de Andrade plays a fundamental role in the exercise of mockery and the use of profanity. Gilda de Mello e Souza attributes this role to Paulo Emílio within group Clima (MIS 00031PSG00013AD), while he attributes, on another occasion, an analogous role to Oswald (APESG-CB PI 0266, p. 15). It is worth noting the chronological difference, as Paulo Emílio makes this statement referring to the 1930s, while Gilda refers to the 1940s, as if the young critic had, at that point, incorporated Oswald’s modulation. Paulo Emílio effectively accused the shock, in the 1930s, by questioning the presence of a gruesome language and theme in O homem e o cavalo. In fact, it is curious to notice that, in his response, Oswald replied that obscenity also appears in Jorge Amado and in Soviet writers, such as Feodor Gladkov and Ilya Ehrenburg, then admired by Paulo Emílio (ANDRADE, 1986ANDRADE, Oswald de. Bilhetinho a Paulo Emílio. In: SALLES GOMES, Paulo Emílio. Paulo Emilio: um intelectual na linha de frente. São Paulo: Brasiliense; Rio de Janeiro: Embrafilme, 1986 [1935], p. 37-40.).³⁴ 34 The quarrel took place at the time of the publication of Jubiabá (1935). Shortly afterwards, in 1937, the writer from Bahia would publish Capitães da areia [Captains of the sand], an equally obscene work by the standards of the era.

Paulo Emílio’s observation about the impact of Oswald’s obscenity and swearing was made on the occasion of Flávio Aguiar’s board of doctorate degree, in 1973. A year earlier, Paulo Emílio would approach the comical element more systematically, in an interview in which he evokes the modernist writer (SALLES GOMES, 2014SALLES GOMES, Paulo Emílio. Encontros: Paulo Emílio Sales Gomes. Rio de Janeiro: Beco do Azougue, 2014., p. 172-181). In fact, the comical vein has a long trajectory within Paulo Emílio’s writing. As Rafael Zanatto (2018, p. 205-224) indicated, the genre appears in several materials, yet in the 1940s and 1950s, composed with the goal of presenting the history of cinema to paulistas. There are several moments in which the critic displays thoughts on main references of the genre, commenting on its canon: Charles Chaplin, Mack Sennett, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, the Marx brothers, Max Linder etc.

Such references reappear in the 1972 interview. But at that moment the thoughts on comedy ceases to be part of a specific discussion on the cinematographic genre and spreads to other domains. It is worth remembering that the beginning of the 1970s marks the critic’s reconnection with the work of Amácio Mazzaropi and the return of the long-suppressed interest in Piolin, the clown. With Mazzaropi, the reconnection is manifested in the article “Mazzaropi no Largo do Paiçandu” [Mazzaropi at Paiçandu Lake] (SALLES GOMES, 2016SALLES GOMES, Paulo Emílio. Uma situação colonial? São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2016., p. 351-354), published in 1973 in Jornal da Tarde. As for Piolin, it is worth remembering that his entry into Paulo Emílio’s interests was mediated precisely by Oswald de Andrade, a notorious clown enthusiast. As we have seen, the critic mentions this fact in the 1964 article, also remembering the rejection of the text about Piolin by Clima magazine (SALLES GOMES, 1981SALLES GOMES, Paulo Emílio. Crítica de cinema no Suplemento Literário. Rio de Janeiro: Paz & Terra, 1981. v. 2., v. 2, p. 442). This sanction of politeness ended up being ratified by Paulo Emílio himself, as part of the setbacks suffered in his production in the first half of the 1940s.

The return to Piolin, at the turn of the 1970s, takes place systematically. In the screenplay “Amar verbo intransitivo”, there is a reference to the clown, when the children comment on their trip to Piolin Circus (PI 0117.01). But here this mention is operational, to demarcate the historical circumstances of the plot. The interest became more direct in the early 1970s. In May 1971, Paulo Emílio organized an interview for the newly created Sound and Image Museum of São Paulo (MIS-SP), held at Piolin’s house, with the presence of other famous clowns, Arrelia (Waldemar Seyssel) and Chicharrão (José Carlos Queirolo) (MIS 00010CIR00001AD; 00010CIR00002AD).³⁵ 35 Arrelia would be mentioned in the undated script “Possibilidade de um filme de longa-metragem em torno do cinema paulista de 1934 a 1949” (APESG-CB PI 0614). The mention highlights the potential interview about the lost film he starred in, Palhaço atormentado [Tormented clown] (1946, dir. Rafael Falco Filho). On the episode, the critic invited some experts on the subject, such as director Suzana Amaral, who at the time was making the movie Sua majestade Piolin (1971) [Your majesty Piolin]. The interview is connected to two other works: a preliminary draft for the conversation, which alludes to the interviewer’s experience with the clown (APESG-CB PI 0324), and a record made at the time or shortly after the interview, material related to the subsidiary doctoral dissertation of Paulo Emílio, even though the circus theme was not exploited (APESG-CB PI 0845).

One of Paulo Emílio’s last documentary ensemble also deals with the subject. In his work at the Department of Artistic Information and Documentation (Idart), the critic addressed several topics of interest, including the circus, which appears in notes for the research guideline of the institution’s team between 1976 and 1977 (APESG-CB PI 0686). The dispersion of the focus of interest at this moment allows the expert to combine research on complementary themes, seeking to take different perspectives on the urban fabric of the city of São Paulo. This is the case of a work from 1977 (APESG-CB PI 0693), in which a research is carried out on the architecture of the circus alongside other elements of the city, such as the subway (opened in 1974) and the “Minhocão” Viaduct (opened in 1971). The relationship becomes more explicit in a document on architectural manifestations in different areas of the city, such as the circus and Anhembi Convention Center (APESG-CB PI 0695). The circus theme is also revisited in a document that reviews research activities from Idart (APESG-CB PI 0696).

This set of works reinforces the proposition by Theodoro Rennó Assunção (2008ASSUNÇÃO, Teodoro. Relações oblíquas com a pornochanchada em ‘P III: duas vezes com Ela’ de Paulo Emílio Sales Gomes. In: Revista do Centro de Estudos Portugueses, Belo Horizonte, v. 28, n. 39, p. 177-203, 2008.; 2017)ASSUNÇÃO, Teodoro. O cômico popular em Três mulheres de três PPPês. In: ALMEIDA, Thiago; XAVIER, Nayara (org.). Paulo Emílio: legado crítico. São Paulo: Pró-Reitoria de Cultura e Extensão Universitária da Universidade de São Paulo; Cinemateca Brasileira, 2017, p. 233-256., according to which there is a structural link between Paulo Emílio’s interaction with a certain Brazilian comedy tradition and the writing of Três mulheres de três PPPês [Three women of three PPPs], from 1973. Adding that the beginning of the 1970s is central to this passage, which is not indifferent to a new approach to Oswald de Andrade, Mazzaropi and the circus. A more structured core of reflections on popular culture emerges then, even though this interest is crossed by a certain hierarchy between “traditional” popular culture and mass culture, a common hierarchy in Brazilian intellectual class (NAPOLITANO, 2020NAPOLITANO, Marcos. Cultura brasileira: utopia e massificação (1950-1980). São Paulo: Contexto, 2020., p. 112-114). Be that as it may, it is quite simplistic to characterize Paulo Emílio’s relationship with comedy in general and with chanchada in particular as one of outspoken hostility (RAMOS, 2005RAMOS, Alcides. Historiografia do cinema brasileiro diante das fronteiras entre o trágico e o cômico: redescobrindo a ‘>chanchada’. In: Fênix – Revista de História e Estudos Culturais, Uberlândia, v. 2, n. 4, n.p., 2005.). It is worth pointing out, rather, that chanchada and the Brazilian comical tradition play a changing role in Paulo Emílio’s trajectory, which continues to dialogue with the refunctionalization of the genre in the context of the theater in late 1960s, where, in fact, we find Oswald de Andrade again, through the production of O rei da vela (DOURADO, 2013DOURADO, Ana Karícia. Chanchada: performance do insólito e paradoxo do comediante. Tese (doutorado em História Social) – Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2013., p. 153-200).

The 1972 interview, therefore, arranges a larger set of thoughts on the comedy universe. It is not surprising, therefore, that the critic establishes a link between the circus and the film industry then,³⁶ 36 In 1959, the critic had already emphasized the relationship between circus and cinema when citing the importance of the conjuror Harry Houdini in the career of Georges Méliès (SALLES GOMES, 2015, p. 63-69). a connection made possible by the succinct nature of the script in the early days of cinema, maintained in part until Chaplin.³⁷ 37 In 1965, Paulo Emílio comments on Chaplin’s participation in a pantomime troupe (SALLES GOMES, 2015, p. 39-48). The circus was also related to Eisenstein’s training in 1958 (SALLES GOMES, 2015, p. 147-152). He also notes that improvisation would make a comeback to modern cinema, in films by Rossellini, Godard, Glauber Rocha and João Batista de Andrade.³⁸ 38 It is difficult to specify which of Glauber Rocha’s films he is referring to. As for João Batista de Andrade, it is probably Gamal – o delírio do sexo [Gamal – the delirium of sex] (1969). It has already been observed that Andrade’s documentary production is also marked by improvisation (BERNARDET, 2003, p. 64-69). But, in general, cinema was establishing types that gradually replaced those chosen on the streets, structuring themselves around precision.

Once having made these considerations more linked to cinema as a whole, the interview turns to the “impurity” of the comedy genre, emphasizing its relationship with theater. Furthermore, the critic observes a change in the pattern of humor, which becomes more acid with Chaplin, a fact revealed in contemporary films such as Dr. Strangelove or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb (1964, dir. Stanley Kubrick) and MASH (1970, dir. Robert Altman)MASH. Dir. Robert Altman, Estados Unidos, 1970.. From these considerations about the nature of humor in American films, the interview centers on the problem in the underdeveloped context. At this point, Paulo Emílio highlights melancholy as the central expression of this condition. He mentions the movies by Mexican comedian Cantinflas, and later the “lack of fun” of Brazilians.³⁹ 39 Paulo Emílio mentioned Cantinflas in an article about the European film festivals of 1949 (SALLES GOMES, 1950). The comedian had already been mentioned in 1946, when Paulo Emílio wrote to Décio de Almeida Prado (APESG-CB CA 0485) commenting on the actor’s arrival in Cannes and his desire to see his film The three musketeers (1942, dir. Miguel M. Slender). The emphasis here is not on the differential gap, but on a very particular mood, marked by the melancholy associated with the underdeveloped condition.⁴⁰ 40 Melancholy can also result from development, as can be seen from Paulo Emílio’s comment about the modern comedy crushed by progress in the character Monsieur Hulot, played by Jacques Tati, particularly in the film My uncle (1958, dir. Jacques Tati) (SALLES GOMES, 1959a). The article remembers Tati’s career in the circus and music hall.

From then on, the critic addresses the formation of chanchada, bringing it closer to the trajectory previously described, since it would have some foreign traits, like improvisation. Paulo Emílio then goes on to analyze reference figures of the genre, such as Zé Trindade, Genésio Arruda and Mazzaropi; He criticizes the idea that the chanchada was successful due to its poor quality and supports that it carries a good popular humor. There would, however, be a poorness in Brazilian humorous tradition, which is evident in the predominance of the tragic element, exemplified in the book and film Macunaíma (1969, dir. Joaquim Pedro de Andrade). At this point, the interview returns to Oswald de Andrade, whose relationship with the grotesque would be the basis of a humorous tendency present, later, in O Pasquim and in songs by Juca Chaves. Hence the value of the staging of the play O rei da vela – once observed that the staging would not have conveyed the author’s crystalline joy.⁴¹ 41 Ronald Golias is mentioned in the interview as the only national comedian. An echo, perhaps, of Paulo Emílio’s experience with TV, since he comments, in Sônia Barros’ argument in 1974, that he keeps up with some television programs linked to popular tradition, such as the program “Alegríssimo” (TV Tupi) and Moacyr Franco (APESG-CB PI 0779, p. 2). The mention of Ronald Golias perhaps demarcates an appreciation of popular humor to the detriment of the intellectualized experience of Teatro Oficina. Roberto Schwarz (2008, p. 70-111), during those years, emphasized the very limited social circuit of this staging.

And yet, Paulo Emílio states in his notes from the 1971 interview (APESG-CB PI 0845) a comment from Piolin: Oswald had tried to learn his playfulness, without much success.

Part II: A subsidiary thesis

The manuscript “Exposição sobre a participação das artes visuais na Semana de Arte Moderna de 1922” [Exhibition on the participation of visual arts in the 1922 Modern Art Week] (APESG-CB PI 0840) is part of a group of works prepared by Paulo Emílio around Modernism. In addition to the aforementioned document, the set includes the items “Paim”, “K”, “Wilson Martins”, “Di” and “D. Olivia” (APESG-CB PI 0841, 0842, 0843, 0844 and 0845). The “Exposition” corresponds to a more advanced stage of this thoughts, while the other documents form a set of preliminary notes. “K”, for example, is a listing for Klaxon and other modernist magazines; “Di” records a visit to an exhibition by Di Cavalcanti at the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art.⁴² 42 Perhaps the visit was anticipated by a direct conversation. In a photograph from April 1971, at the house of Guiomar Novaes, Menotti Del Picchia and Di Cavalcanti (MIS 00135CMS002935FTa) appear alongside Paulo Emílio. Critic and painter had known each other personally since the 1930s. Other materials do not have the same formal and thematic homogeneity, such as “D. Olivia”, composed of a recording of an interview with Carolina Penteado da Silva Teles about Olívia Guedes Penteado, followed by notes about Tarsila do Amaral and clowns Piolin, Chicharrão and Arrelia.

The formal aspect of the text also distinguishes the “Exhibition” from the preliminary documents. The use of topics and a language closer to the oral record responds to a very precise need: to serve as a basis for the presentation of a “subsidiary subject for the doctorate degree”, as indicated at the beginning of the document. This indication allows us to establish a first temporal parameter, since the material is linked to the thesis on the filmmaker Humberto Mauro that Paulo Emílio defended in 1972. His late doctorate degree was a response to bureaucratic pressure to renew faculty contracts opened by the University Reform of 1968 (MOTTA, 2014MOTTA, Rodrigo Patto Sá. As universidades e o Regime Militar: cultura política brasileira e modernização autoritária. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2014., p. 65-109) and was guided by Gilda de Mello e Souza, another personality linked with Clima magazine.

Although no mention of circumstantial dates appears in the “Exhibition”, it appears that the interview present in “D. Olivia” occurred in May 1971 and the record “Di” dates from November of the same year.⁴³ 43 The document “S/ref: Qf. CTR/129/71” (APESG-CB PI 0582), report on Paulo Emílio’s activities at USP in October 1971, is a reference to the “Entrevista para Semana de Arte Moderna” [Interview for the Modern Art Week]. There is also an interview between Paulo Emílio and the artist Antônio Paim Vieira, held at MIS-SP in May 1971, which is the source of the material entitled “Paim” (MIS 00133MOD00007AD). Finally, the reference made in “Exhibition” to Serbian painting refers to a trip to Belgrade in May 1972, the month in which the “Motive” of the thesis on Humberto Mauro was also written (SALLES GOMES, 1974SALLES GOMES, Paulo Emílio. Humberto Mauro, Cataguases, Cinearte. São Paulo: Perspectiva; Edusp, 1974., p. 1- 4). This information allows us to restrict the construction of the text to the first two years of the decade.

It is worth observing, therefore, that this is a set of documents that is very different from the material analyzed so far. Because, while the recapitulation previously made about Oswald de Andrade involves a published article and an interview, the material associated with Paulo Emílio’s subsidiary doctoral thesis is made up of working notes. Even the “Exhibition” tends – and perhaps this is the meaning of the evaluation board’s resistance to the ideas contained in the text – towards schematism. However, this material has a unique characteristic in Paulo Emílio’s documentation, for constitutes one of his rare elaborations on the modernist movement. Furthermore, schematism has the potential to explain the circumstantial trace of the critic’s perspectives of action in early 1970s.

Cultural action scheme

Unlike the thesis, modified with a view for publication in 1974, it is not possible to find a version of the “Exhibition” with a formal treatment that suggests a similar intention. In an later interview (MIS 00257ATP00027AD), regarding Lasar Segall’s career, Paulo Emílio recalled the presentation of the subsidiary material to the board composed of Gilda de Mello e Souza and Walter Zanini.⁴⁴ 44 At this point, Paulo Emílio had already interacted with Zanini on a few occasions, like in the course “Consciente e inconsciente na arte contemporânea” [Conscious and unconscious in contemporary art]. (FMACUSP 0029/025), held at the USP Museum of Contemporary Art in 1969. At the time of drafting the “Exhibition”, there are negotiations for Paulo Emílio’s participation in another MAC-USP event (FMACUSP 0001/009). According to Paulo Emílio, the reception of the thesis was not positive, although it is not possible to find records made at the time by the board members.⁴⁵ 45 Gilda does not even mention the thesis in her statement about Paulo Emílio, in the 1990s. However, Gilda de Mello e Souza’s argument for the thesis about Mauro provides some parameters in this regard. What sparks the attention is the use of the notion of “expertise” to refer to the author’s method (MELLO E SOUZA, 2008MELLO E SOUZA, Gilda de. Exercícios de leitura. São Paulo: Duas Cidades; Editora 34, 2008 [1980]., p. 259-270), thus characterized by reference to a concept that has a certain tradition in plastic arts, being linked explicitly by the candidate to Giovanni Morelli and Giovanni Cavalcaselle. And although the concept has its own trajectory in Art History, Gilda individualizes Paulo Emílio’s trajectory by linking his “passion for concrete” to the generation of critics from Clima magazine.

Although the discrepancy in the development of the “Exhibition” and the thesis about Mauro is evident, it is possible to identify certain familiar methodological trends. The main one perhaps being the evocation of a sociocultural fabric, suggested, in Humberto Mauro, by the long description of the formation of the Zona da Mata Mineira, and, in the “Exhibition”, by the indication of the social connections of the several characters involved in the expansion of modern art in Brazil. In view of this, the exploration of the author’s contemporary texts can help to understand the meaning of this evocation of a sociocultural fabric at the crossroads experienced at that time by Paulo Emílio.

We have already seen that the publication of Testamento de uma geração and Plataforma da nova geração suggests a sense of intellectual change. Such feeling, based on the notion of “generation”, would be accepted by the “young men” Paulo Emílio and Antonio Candido, both published on Plataforma.⁴⁶ 46 Gilda de Mello e Souza would also use the concept of “generation” in the 1972 argument. Regarding these and other critics linked to Clima magazine, Heloisa Pontes noted that her relationship with figures such as Mário de Andrade, Sérgio Milliet and Oswald de Andrade would be central in the formulation of this idea of “generational passage” (1998, p. 65-89).⁴⁷ 47 Idea that would be denied, at the time, by Oswald de Andrade: “because the group soon came – the group and not Mr. Antonio Candido’s generation, heavy flying like Santa Rita Durão, normative and pregnant as if he were descending from Bulhão Pato” (ANDRADE, 2004, p. 100). Years later, at the beginning of Formação da literatura brasileira [Formation of Brazilian literature], Antonio Candido would restrict the notion of “generation” (CANDIDO, 2017c, p. 38). However, apart from comments made around specific figures of Modernism, Paulo Emílio barely addressed the movement as a whole throughout his career.⁴⁸ 48 In addition to the “Exhibition”, the debate about the Vera Cruz Cinematographic Company, in the 1970s, is followed by another work, which addresses the relationship between Clima critics and Modernism (APESG-CB PI 0625, p. 26-28).

This apparent lack of interest for the history of Modernism is perhaps the result of a different approach to the movement, which is manifested in the screenplay “Amar, verbo intransitivo”, in the “Exhibition” and in the interview about Lasar Segall. More than the artistic movement itself, what seems to interest Paulo Emílio since the late 1960s is the sociocultural fabric in which “intelligence” is inserted, but also what he calls the “unique paulista stupidity”. The articulation between these two aspects of the local elite is enunciated in the screenplay “Possibilidade de um filme de longa-metragem em torno do cinema paulista de 1934 a 1949” [Possibility of a feature-length film about paulista cinema from 1934 to 1949] (APESG-CB PI 0614). Just like in “Exhibition”, the author seeks to describe in this script the scarce paulista cinematographic production at the time, through the characterization and evocation of a web of social relationships, ranging from the singer Alzirinha Camargo to Paulo Emílio himself.

Through evocation, hypotheses introduced abruptly in the text of the “Exhibition” – the predominance of women at the piano and painting at the beginning of the 20th century – acquire a central importance in the argument – it is in the male space of literature that the modern “revolution” takes place. do without major obstacles. To do so, the author resorts to details that seem revealing, evoking, for example, the trajectory of pianist Guiomar Novaes, also mentioned in “Amar, verb intransitivo”. It would constitute a sign of the ambiguity between modern and academic that would limit a revolutionary perspective in its field of activity. And the counterpart to this cultural action scheme would be the coup, path of the institution of modern painting in Brazil.

Trajectory (of class) in underdevelopment

The problem of the relevance (or schematism) of reading Paulo Emílio on Modernism is crossed by the circumstance of preparing this material. I believe that this intersection can serve as a bridge to understanding the perspective of the critic’s intellectual performance at this moment, reflected in the modernist mirror. A situation that directly touches on the problem of underdevelopment. So, the comparison made at the “Exhibition” of Brazilian Modernism with the works of art seen by Paulo Emílio at the National Museum in Belgrade is not untimely. The critic had just returned from a trip to Yugoslavia and Iran and the preparation of the subsidiary thesis was sketched in the working notes. Although brief, the comparison has a decisive weight in rejecting the first working hypothesis, realizing the diminished value of the Week of 22 in the face of contemporary European trends.

More than the analogy, the kinship of the Yugoslav and Brazilian situations is established through the concept of “underdevelopment”. And although the author does not make rigorous use, throughout his work, of expressions such as “underdevelopment”, “colonization” and “dependence”, it is significant that the expression reappears, in 1973, in “Cinema: trajetória no subdesenvolvimento” (SALLES GOMES, 2016SALLES GOMES, Paulo Emílio. Uma situação colonial? São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2016., p. 186). What matters here is the thematic affinity between this article and the “Exhibition”. Because “Trajetória no subdesenvolvimento” starts from a digression in which the situation of Brazilian cinema is presented by reference to developed (Japanese) and underdeveloped (Indian and Arab) cinema.

The conceptual and formal proximity between texts produced in a short period of time suggests the same perspective: a class approach and for a class. Although the 1973 essay seeks to outline a panorama that differentiates “occupiers” and “occupied”, the panoramic approach is disregarded at the end of the text, at the moment when Paulo Emílio turns to the “aristocracy of nothing”, which would have defected national cinema (SALLES GOMES, 2016SALLES GOMES, Paulo Emílio. Uma situação colonial? São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2016., p. 205). And the hypothesis of the additional alienation of the local elite would be the core of other interventions carried out by the critic in the following years, such as the interview “Eu só gostava de cinema estrangeiro” [I only liked foreign films] (SALLES GOMES, 2014SALLES GOMES, Paulo Emílio. Encontros: Paulo Emílio Sales Gomes. Rio de Janeiro: Beco do Azougue, 2014., p. 78-105), the film Tem coca cola no vatapá [There’s Coke in the vatapá] (1974, dir. Rogério Corrêa and Pedro Farkas) and the essay “Festejo muito pessoal” [A very personal celebration] (SALLES GOMES, 2016SALLES GOMES, Paulo Emílio. Uma situação colonial? São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2016., p. 491-496).⁴⁹ 49 Brasil em tempo de cinema [Brazil in time of cinema], a dissertation by Jean Claude Bernardet advised and prefaced by Paulo Emílio, is based on the analysis of class commitments of productions of the 1960s (BERNARDET, 2007). A similar attitude would appear in Burguesia e cinema [Bourgeoisie and cinema], by Maria Rita Galvão (1981), a research also advised by the critic.

It is worth remembering that at that time literature – or the “literary metaphor”, as suggested by Bernardet (2008, p. 117-133)BERNARDET, Jean-Claude. Historiografia clássica do cinema brasileiro: metodologia e pedagogia. São Paulo: Annablume, 2008 [1995]. – played a regulative role in Paulo Emílio’s understanding of the cinematic phenomenon and the position of the Brazilian intellectual. The literary parameter becomes more intense in the critic’s documentation in the second half of the 1960s, with the creation of the screenplays “Capitu”, “In memory of Helena” and “Amar, verbo intransitivo”. In a way, the trend is incorporated in the “Exhibition” ending, when Modernism receives a last look, in the form of an inventory: “I just wanted to confirm, to conclude that we find ourselves much more comfortable within the language that refer [?] to the literary revolution than within the buildings of our modern architecture” (APESG-CB PI 0840).

In short, what arises as a problem in this material are the limits of the intellectual experience of the 1920s and 1930s, in an approach to the modernist process that is different from the laudatory mode that marked Oswald de Andrade’s interventions, like in the conference “O caminho percorrido” [The path traveled], from 1944 (ANDRADE, 2004ANDRADE, Oswald de. Ponta de lança. São Paulo: Globo, 2004 [1948]., p. 162-175). To this end, Paulo Emílio makes two movements in the “Exhibition”. Firstly, throughout the text, he indicates the different forms of institutionalization of modernization, the literary revolution and the pictorial coup. Secondly, in the conclusion, he indicates that the results of this last path, with reference to the analogous case of modern architecture, are questionable.⁵⁰ 50 In 1959, in an article about the film Ravina [Ravine] (1959, dir. Rubem Biáfora), Paulo Emílio compared Oscar Niemeyer’s personality with that of the director (SALLES GOMES, 1959b). Considering the limitations highlighted in the film, I wonder if the comparison does not imply a criticism of the architect. Observe that the positive parameter is not exactly the literary revolution, but the language it entrusted, which suggests a larger definition of modernist consequences. But how would it be possible to define the process of artistic and social modernization in Paulo Emílio?

The document in relation to which the “Exhibition” gravitated, the thesis about Mauro, addresses the filmmaker’s relationship with three centers of modernization. The most commented on, due to the structuring role it plays in the study, appears in Cinearte magazine. His “modern conservatism” would be compared, in a document from the same time, entitled “To Curitiba” (APESG-CB PI 0455), to that of contemporary critics such as Flávio Tambellini and Antonio Moniz Vianna. The interest of the connection between these two ends of conservative modernization is their common opposition to Mauro’s “hillbilly conservatism”, which would lay root in his society.

The modernization of Zona da Mata Mineira would be the second pole of tension in Mauro’s study, whether due to his personal engagement with the growth of electricity companies in the region, or due to the destabilization of his society, to which new forms of social struggle are not indifferent. (SALLES GOMES, 1974SALLES GOMES, Paulo Emílio. Humberto Mauro, Cataguases, Cinearte. São Paulo: Perspectiva; Edusp, 1974., p. 59-64). Regarding the third center, it is interesting to observe a small indication regarding the relations, or rather, the absence of relations, between the modernist movement in Cataguases and the release of films such as Tesouro perdido [Lost treasure] (1927, dir. Humberto Mauro) and Sangue Mineiro [Mineiro blood] (1929, dir. Humberto Mauro) (SALLES GOMES, 1974SALLES GOMES, Paulo Emílio. Humberto Mauro, Cataguases, Cinearte. São Paulo: Perspectiva; Edusp, 1974., p. 168-178 and 424-429).⁵¹ 51 Ismail Xavier (2017, p. 149-175) studied this divorce in a more nuanced way, which is still traversed by approximations, as suggested by the figures of Mário de Andrade and Menotti Del Picchia.

It is worth noting that, in the latter case, the relationship between literature and cinema appears as a criterion for measuring the modern process. And it is worth remembering, at this point, the transit of elements of erotic comedy in Paulo Emílio’s fictional production in Três Mulheres de Três PPPês (ASSUNÇÃO, 2008ASSUNÇÃO, Teodoro. Relações oblíquas com a pornochanchada em ‘P III: duas vezes com Ela’ de Paulo Emílio Sales Gomes. In: Revista do Centro de Estudos Portugueses, Belo Horizonte, v. 28, n. 39, p. 177-203, 2008.; ASSUNÇÃO, 2017ASSUNÇÃO, Teodoro. O cômico popular em Três mulheres de três PPPês. In: ALMEIDA, Thiago; XAVIER, Nayara (org.). Paulo Emílio: legado crítico. São Paulo: Pró-Reitoria de Cultura e Extensão Universitária da Universidade de São Paulo; Cinemateca Brasileira, 2017, p. 233-256.). These and other signs gathered so far allow us to identify, in this more demarcated production in terms of class inaugurated at the end of the 1960s, the porousness of the relations between the “high” and the “low” in the culture of the paulista elite. This is evident in the preliminary material for the “Exhibition”, when a note about clowns is included, where reference is made to the connection between the best-known representatives of the profession and Modernism and from high figures of national politics (APESG – CB PI 0845). Such articulation would be able to evoke the atmosphere of a certain fraction of class in underdevelopment.

Conclusion: between the coup and the revolution

If Oswald de Andrade (and, to a lesser extent, Guilherme de Almeida)⁵² 52 In the debate about Vera Cruz (APESG-CB PI 0625), Paulo Emílio refers to the almost official place occupied by Guilherme de Almeida, which would later be ironized in Paulo Emílio’s last fictional text, Cemitério (SALLES GOMES, 2007a). The distance taken in relation to the writer goes back to the 1940s, when the criticism from Clima out parallel to the modernist’s “mundane” writing about cinema. Décio de Almeida Prado refers to this distance in a later statement, mentioning the “Hino à Mulher Paulista” [Hymn to the paulista woman], a poem produced by the protagonist of Três Mulheres de Três PPPês, as a parody of the poet (MIS 00031PSG00004AD). would serve as models of intellectual trajectories moving within this bourgeois atmosphere, Mário de Andrade appears as the main intellectual alternative around which Paulo Emílio’s own place is referenced in the screenplay “Amar, verbo intransitivo” (KINZO, 2014KINZO, Carla. Amar, verbo intransitivo: conjugações. Dissertação de Mestrado, Estudos Comparados de Literaturas de Língua Portuguesa, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2014.). As we saw, the self-criticism made by the writer in the following decades took place in the context of the editing of Clima magazine, a moment in which the writer can be considered a kind of “border consciousness” of the relations of intellectuals with the State and with their own social roots (MOTA, 2014MOTA, Carlos Guilherme. Ideologia da cultura brasileira (1933-1974): pontos de partida para uma revisão histórica. São Paulo: Editora 34, 2014 [1977]., p. 143-148).⁵³ 53 In turn, Cassiano Ricardo would be approached by Paulo Emílio with reference to his contradictory commitments to the State. In “Possibilidade de um filme de longa-metragem em torno do cinema paulista de 1934 a 1949” (APESG-CB PI 0614), the critic observes that the writer, employed at the São Paulo Press and Propaganda Department, did nothing to prevent the incineration of the film O canto da raça [The chant of the race] (1941-1943, dir. José Medina), based on his screenplay.

The choice to adapt the novel Amar, verbo intransitivo happened at a time of reorientation in Paulo Emílio’s intellectual performance. There is even an element that brings this script closer to the “Exhibition”, composed a few years later: the expression of a focus on current affairs, explicited in the subsidiary thesis, in the final comment on the architecture and language entrusted by Modernism. In a similar way, the character Raul Morais hesitates but reaches a conclusion about the future of São Paulo at a moment that coincides with the writing of the script (“BOSTA” [SHIT]). The updating of the modernist judgment on the reality of São Paulo in the context of accelerated growth of the metropolis, in a kind of “prospective withdrawal”, expects a recovery of Modernism that seeks to overcome the limits of an internal history of the artistic movement and influence current circumstances.

The ending of the screenplay does not fail to add to Raul Morais’ hesitation and the horizon of possibilities of the 1920s, the closing of the late 1960s. Between one period and another, the 1930s seem to play a central role in Paulo Emílio’s reflection. This is a period that takes a large part of the “Exhibition”, despite its title suggesting a circumscription to the Week of 22. Now, Mário de Andrade’s self-criticism in the 1940s, endorsed at that time by Paulo Emílio in Plataforma da nova geração, refers precisely to this period (BARBATO JR., 2004BARBATO JR., Roberto. Missionários de uma utopia nacional-popular: os intelectuais e o Departamento de Cultura de São Paulo. São Paulo: Annablume; FAPESP, 2004.). And the use of the coup-revolution scheme seems to fulfill, in the “Exhibition”, the function of reflecting on the different forms of implementing the modern program throughout the 1930s.

More than that, such alternatives would articulate the limitations (in the plastic arts and architecture, the lack of a revolutionary horizon), the previous trajectories (the symbolist preparation for the literary revolution) and the results (the authoritarian turn of modern architecture). A similar reflection on the “routinization” of the modern program would appear years later in the conference “A Revolução de 30 e a cultura” [The Revolution of 1930 and culture], by Antonio Candido, who does not shy from making an ironic note about architecture: “The ‘futurist style’ would not only disseminate, but would receive the consecration of poor taste in the countless square houses, shiny with mica, that spread throughout the country” (CANDIDO, 2017bCANDIDO, Antonio. A educação pela noite. Rio de Janeiro: Ouro sobre Azul, 2017b [1987]., p. 224).⁵⁴ 54 The catalog “Vanguarda e nacionalismo na década de 20” [Avant-garde and nationalism in the 1920s], published in 1975 by Gilda de Mello e Souza (2008, 305-344), does not shy away from discussing these issues.

All in all, the exploration of the limits and possibilities of Modernism is anchored in an internal point of view, but aims at the circumstantial horizon of its enunciation. Thus, the demarcation of the social place of intellectuals takes on a self-reflexive air as Paulo Emílio connects himself directly to the modernist process (“a disciple”, as the 1964 article says), expanded, extended and finally frayed. Hence the curious convergence of the hypothesis about the gender division in the Week off 22, with the configuration of the intellectual fates of the young organizers of Clima magazine – male critics, female writers. As a final way out of the impasses gradually evidenced, Paulo Emílio seems to bet on a personalization strategy, which starts from an autobiographical record – “Um discípulo de Oswald de Andrade em 1935” [A disciple of Oswald de Andrade in 1935] – and ends a decade later with the use of first person in the unfinished fiction text Cemitério [Cemetery] (SALLES GOMES, 2007SALLES GOMES, Paulo Emílio. Cemitério, mais a peça teatral Destinos. São Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2007.a).

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