Hour of the Star

This article is about the film. For the book, see The Hour of the Star.
Hour of the Star
Directed by Suzana Amaral
Produced by Assunção Hernandes
Written by Suzana Amaral
Clarice Lispector
Starring Marcélia Cartaxo
Cinematography Edgar Moura
Edited by Idê Lacreta
Release dates
  • February 1985 (1985-02)
Running time
 96 minutes
Country Brazil
Language Portuguese

Hour of the Star (Portuguese: A Hora da Estrela) is a Brazilian film directed by Suzana Amaral and released in 1985. The film is an adaptation of a book by Clarice Lispector with the same name. In 1986, the actress Marcélia Cartaxo won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 36th Berlin International Film Festival, for her role as Macabea.[1] It was selected as the Brazilian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 59th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.[2]

"Macabea is an example of the mental underdevelopment of the poor people of the world", the director, Amaral, has written. "Facing the solitude of the big city, she possesses the emptiness of someone who does not have the means to be cultured." But surely her case is even more extreme than that. Macabea doesn't even possess the culture of poverty; she is simply an emptiness.

The film is reviewed in Pauline Kael's ninth collection of movie reviews, Hooked, where she praises it, and particularly the performance of Marcelia Cartaxo. The film gets to you, " and the image of Marcelia Cartaxo's Macabea is what does it - the terrible aloneness of this mass woman, this nothing of a woman whom you wouldn't notice on the street. Umberto D stood for all the proud, angry old people who couldn't live on their pensions, but he was himself too - his own ornery old man. Macabea is most herself in her moments of contentment: she smiles serenely as she celebrates her Sunday by taking a ride in the subway. It's the director's triumph that this girl gets away from her. Numbed as she is, she's as alive as Amaral or you or I, and more mysteriously so."

Cast

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Berlinale: 1986 Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
  2. ↑ Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

External links

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