seus registros de alistamento, drogas, protestos nas universidades, e jovens
prontos para lutar. Era um momento em que era necessário quebrar
convenções e efetuar um determinado rompimento. Assim, Fome de amor é
o filme mais livre que eu já fiz.
O que eu tinha de fazer todo dia era escrever para os atores. Eu não tinha um
roteiro para o filme inteiro. Eu tinha de construir a história enquanto estava
sendo filmada. [Alexandre] Astruc
234
disse que a câmera é como uma pena.
Escrever com a câmera é o que fiz em Fome de amor. Havia várias
condições que eu tinha que respeitar, entre elas, os atores – Leila [Diniz],
Arduíno [Colasanti], Irene Stefânia, Paulo Porto – que já estavam
contratados – e também a locação – Angra dos Reis, o mar, as ilhas. Eu tinha
de combinar não importa o que viesse à minha imaginação com esses
elementos fixos. As variáveis vieram de minha imaginação; as constantes
eram os atores.
235
.
Nelson inicia o seu longo depoimento definindo em percentuais igualitários, meio a
meio, os ingredientes da receita de seus filmes, destinando: cinqüenta por cento para
elaboração e a outra metade para o improviso. Essa precisão aritmética, de princípio
salomônico, é logo abandonada e, ainda no primeiro parágrafo, admite a mescla que acata o
improviso, mesmo nas experiências mais rigorosas em que utiliza práticas narrativas
234
O romancista e cineasta Alexandre Astruc preparou o terreno para a concepção de autor no cinema, com o seu
ensaio Birth of a new avant-garde: The camara-pen, originalmente publicado em Écran Français, n.144, 1948,
incluído posteriormente em Peter GRAHAM (Org.). The new wave. Londres: Secker and Warburg, 1969, p.17-
23. Nesse ensaio, sustentou que o cinema estava se transformando em um novo meio de expressão análogo à
pintura ou o romance. O cineasta, afirmava Astruc, deveria ser capaz de dizer “eu” como o romancista ou o
poeta. A fórmula da camera stylo (“camera-caneta”) valorizava o ato de filmar. O diretor não era mais um mero
serviçal de um texto preexistente (romance, peça), mas um artista criativo de pleno direito. Cf. Robert STAM.
Introdução à teoria do cinema. Campinas, SP: Papirus, 2003, p.103.
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“All my films are about 50 percent a script which I came up with, wrote, imagined, scripeted, etc., and the
other 50 percent The Road of Life is improvisation. I think that improvisation always happens in my films, ever
since the first one that had a very rigorous script, where everything was very well defined, like René Clair iron
script. Even with that script, I still managed to improvise. Improvisation is present in my work because of my
education; this includes the documentaries, where one must invent a lot as well. The documentary didn`t have a
script so I had a lot of liberty, and it also a lot of spontaneity in the placement of the camera. This was the
training that: I got from the documentary and from Rio, 100 Degrees, my first film, wich had a strong
documentary aspect to it and which was basically filmed on location, with a few exceptions. Many times the
filming demands rapid solutions because of the light, so I was always obliged to improvise.
Hunger for Love (Fome de Amor, 1967) is an example of total improvisation, the exaggeration of improvisation.
Really, there was no script. When I began the first day of shooting, I didn`t know what I was going to shoot. I
shot a take with a piano on top of a ferry in the middle of the ocean. I couldn`t not shoot this image. During
Hunger of Love, I made my first trip of the united States and I came in contact with underground production. The
year was 1966. Everything was in the great turmoil-the war in Vietnam, young people burning their draft cards,
drugs, protests at the universities, and the young people ready for a fight. It was a moment in which it was
necessary to break with convention and to bring about a definite break. So Hunger of Love is the freest film I
ever made.
What I would do every day was write for the actors. I didn´t have a script for the whole film. I would make up a
story as it was filmed.(Alexandre) Astruc said that camera is like a pen. To write with the camera is what I did
with Hunger of Love. There were several conditions I had to respect, among them, the actors – Leila (Diniz),
Arduíno (Colasanti), Irene Stefânia, Paulo Porto-who were already under contract-and also the location-Angra
dos Reis, the sea, the islands. I had to combine whatever came into my imagination with these fixed elements.
The variables came from my imagination; the constants were actors”. Cf. Interview Gerald O’GRADY. Op.
Cit., p.124-125.