Babenco, Hector (Eduardo) 1946-

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BABENCO, Hector (Eduardo) 1946-

PERSONAL:

Born February 7, 1946 (some sources say 1948), in Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina; immigrated to Brazil, 1969, later became citizen; married Xuxa Lopes (an actress).

ADDRESSES:

Agent—International Creative Management, 8942 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90211-1934. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. Director of films, including (and executive producer) O fabuloso Fittipaldi (also known as The Fabulous Fittipaldi), 1975; (and producer) O rei da noite (also known as King of the Night), 1975; Lúcio Flávio, o passageiro da agnoia (also known as Lucio Flavio, Passenger of Agony), 1977; Pixote: A lei do mais fraco (also known as Pixote, the Law of the Weakest and The Survival of the Weakest), Unifilms, 1981; A terra é redonda como uma laranja, 1984; Kiss of the Spider Woman (also known as O beijo da mulher aranha), Island Alive, 1985; Ironweed, Columbia TriStar, 1987; At Play in the Fields of the Lord, Universal, 1991; (and producer) Corazón iluminado (also known as Foolish Heart), 1996; and Carandiru, 2003. Producer of film Besame mucho, 1987. Actor in films, including (as Danilo Danuzzi; also additional director) The Venice Project, 1999; and (as Virgilio Piñera) Before Night Falls, Fine Line, 2000.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Best foreign film citations from New York Critics Association and Los Angeles Critics Association, first prize from Biarritz Festival, Leopardo de Prata prize, Locarno Festival, and grand prize, XIX San Sebastian Festival, all 1981, all for Pixote; Academy Award nominations for best director and best film, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, both 1984, both for Kiss of the Spider Woman.

WRITINGS:

SCREENPLAYS

(With Roberto Farias) O fabuloso Fittipaldi (also known as The Fabulous Fittipaldi), 1973.

(With Orlando Senna) O rei da noite (also known as King of the Night), 1975.

(With Jorge Durán and José Louzeiro) Lúcio Flávio, o passageiro da agnoia (also known as Lucio Flavio, Passenger of Agony), 1977.

(With Jorge Durán) Pixote: A lei do mais fraco (also known as The Survival of the Weakest; based on the book A infancia dos mortos by José Louzeiro), Unifilms, 1981.

(With Jean-Claude Carrière) At Play in the Fields of the Lord (based on the novel by Peter Matthiessen), 1991.

(With Ricardo Piglia) Corazón iluminado (also known as Foolish Heart), 1996.

SIDELIGHTS:

Although best known as a film director, Hector Babenco has also written the screenplays for several of his films. Born in into a Polish-Jewish family in Argentina, Babenco dropped out of high school and worked at odd jobs in Argentina and for five years in Europe before settling in Brazil in the early 1970s. His first work in theater came during his years in Europe, when he appeared as an extra in the "spaghetti" Western films then being shot in Italy. Soon after he settled in Brazil, Babenco began writing and directing his own films. Brazilian cinema at that time was focused on intellectual projects, full of allegories and deeper meanings, but as Babenco told Mac Margolis of Newsweek International, "People were tired of allegory." So instead, Babenco made realistic films about life in Brazil.

The first film that Babenco wrote and directed that became a hit was Pixote: A lei do mais fraco. This film, about a group of children in São Paolo, Brazil who escape from a sadistic reform school to an even more brutal life on the streets, has "blunt power" and "briskly intense drama," Tim Purtell wrote in Entertainment Weekly. The film won Babenco an award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. In Los Angeles for the awards dinner, he shared a table with American actor Burt Lancaster, who helped the director get his next directorial project, an adaptation of Manuel Puig's novel Kiss of the Spider Woman, off the ground.

Like Pixote, Kiss of the Spider Woman is set among society's outcasts, in this case in a jail cell containing a transvestite and a political prisoner. Babenco has continued these theme in his more recent films, learning English at age of forty and working with American actors and production companies. He directed Iron-weed, based on the first novel he read in English; the film starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep as down-and-outs in Depression-era upstate New York. After that, he wrote and directed At Play in the Fields of the Lord, a film about compromised missionaries in the Amazonian rainforest.

A bout with a cancer first diagnosed in the mid-1980s forced Babenco to give up filmmaking for several years while recovering from a bone marrow transplant. His physician, Drauzio Varella, was at that time also doing AIDS research within Brazil's most notorious prison, Carandiru, the site of a 1992 riot that ended with the massacre of 111 inmates. Babenco, so weak that he could barely move, cherished the calls from Varella in which he would tell Babenco stories about the prison's inmates. Babenco finally convinced Varella to write these stories into a book, which became a best seller and which was adapted into the film, Carandiru, which Babenco directed when his health returned. This film set box-office records in Brazil and relaunched Babenco's temporarily interrupted career.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

International Directory of Films and Filmmakers, Volume 2: Directors, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1996.

PERIODICALS

America, March 12, 1988, Richard A. Blake, review of Ironweed, pp. 273-274.

American Film, October, 1984, Judy Stone, "On the Edge: The Outcasts of Society—Thieves, Prostitutes, Street Urchins, Political Prisoners—Are the Heroes of Hector Babenco's Work," pp. 68-73.

Chatelaine, October, 1985, Gina Mallet, review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, p. 6.

Chicago, January, 1982, Gale Kappe, review of Pixote: A lei do mais fraco, p. 58.

Christian Century, August 28, 1985, James M. Wall, review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, p. 774.

Christian Science Monitor, December 20, 1991, David Sterritt, review of At Play in the Fields of the Lord, p. 12.

Cineaste, winter, 1992, Neil Okrent, interview with Babenco, p. 44.

CoEvolution Quarterly, winter, 1981, Sheila Benson, review of Pixote, p. 122.

Cosmopolitan, August, 1985, Guy Flatley, review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, p. 22; March, 1988, Guy Flatley, review of Ironweed, p. 58.

Entertainment Weekly, January 16, 1998, Tim Purtell, review of Pixote, p. 75.

Film Comment, May-June, 1981, Tom Allen, review of Pixote, p. 73; May-June, 1984, Dan Yakir, "Braziliant," pp. 56-58.

Film Quarterly, fall, 1982, George Csicsery, interview with Babenco, pp. 2-15; spring, 1986, Mauricio Viano, review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, pp. 41-46.

Hispanic, May, 1991, Tonya E. Wolford, review of At Play in the Fields of the Lord, p. 60.

Interview, December, 1991, Jessica Cohen, review of At Play in the Fields of the Lord, p. 72.

Los Angeles Times, January 3, 1983, Kenneth Freed, "Fame Slips away for Star of Pixote," p. 4; August 23, 1985, Sheila Benson, review of Kiss of theSpider Woman, p. 1; May 19, 1998, Jack Matthews, interview with Babenco, p. 6; July 19, 2001, review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, section F, p. 2.

Maclean's, February 15, 1988, Lawrence O'Toole, review of Ironweed, p. 57.

Nation, October 26, 1985, Andrew Kopkind, review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, pp. 419-421.

National Catholic Reporter, December 20, 1991, Joseph Cunneen, review of At Play in the Fields of the Lord, p. 20.

National Review, September 6, 1985, John Simon, review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, pp. 56-57.

New Republic, January 25, 1988, Stanley Kauffmann, review of Ironweed, pp. 28-29.

New Statesman, April 8, 1983, John Coleman, review of Pixote, p. 27; January 17, 1986, John Coleman, review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, p. 34.

Newsweek, September 28, 1981, David Ansen, review of Pixote, section A, pp. 88-89; August 5, 1985, David Ansen, review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, p. 64; December 21, 1987, David Ansen, review of Ironweed, p. 68; December 16, 1991, David Ansen, review of At Play in the Fields of the Lord, p. 77.

Newsweek International, November 19, 2001, interview with Babenco, p. 64; May 12, 2003, Mac Margolis, profile of Babenco, p. 52, review of Carandiru, p. 55.

New West, November, 1981, Kenneth Turan, review of Pixote, pp. 144-145.

New York, August 5, 1985, David Denby, review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, pp. 60-61; January 4, 1988, David Denby, review of Ironweed, p. 44; December 9, 1991, John Powers, review of At Play in the Fields of the Lord, pp. 76-77.

New Yorker, November 9, 1981, Pauline Kael, review of Pixote, pp. 170-174; January 11, 1988, Pauline Kael, review of Ironweed, p. 78; December 16, 1991, Terrence Rafferty, review of At Play in the Fields of the Lord, pp. 118-119.

New York Times, May 5, 1981, Vincent Canby, review of Pixote, section C, p. 6; September 6, 1981, Annette Insdorf, interview with Babenco, section D, p. 13; February 26, 1984, Dan Yakir, "American Stars Team up on Brazilian Movie," section H, p. 17; May 11, 1985, "At Cannes, a Bad Day for Godard," section A, p. 13; July 21, 1985, Helen Dudar, "For Director and Stars, Kiss of the Spider Woman Became Almost Obsessive Labor of Love," section H, p. 1; July 26, 1985, Janet Maslin, review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, section C, p. 5; October 27, 1985, Leslie Bennetts, "Babenco and Kennedy Prepare to Film Ironweed," pp. 39, 71; December 29, 1985, Vincent Canby, review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, section H, p. 19; June 29, 1986, Janet Maslin, review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, section H, p. 26; July 19, 1987, Nina Darnton, review of Ironweed, section H, p. 18; December 13, 1987, Thomas O'Connor, "Hector Babenco Harvests Ironweed," section H, p. 31; December 18, 1987, Janet Maslin, review of Ironweed, section C, p. 24; February 28, 1988, Janet Maslin, "From Hits to Misses, but Why?," section H, p. H23; August 19, 1990, James Brooke, interview with Babenco, section H, p. H11; December 6, 1991, Vincent Canby, review of At Play in the Fields of the Lord, section C, p. 8; December 19, 1997, review of Pixote, section B, p. 29; August 4, 2002, Larry Rohter, review of Carandiru, p. 13.

People, August 19, 1985, Ralph Novak, review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, p. 10; January 11, 1988, Peter Travers, review of Ironweed, pp. 12-13; December 16, 1991, Leah Rozen, review of At Play in the Fields of the Lord, pp. 28-29.

Premiere, December, 1991, Malcolm MacPherson, "At Work in the Fields of the Lord," pp. 94-99.

Publishers Weekly, October 28, 1983, Paul S. Nathan, "Now, Brazilian-U.S. Movies," p. 32.

Rolling Stone, November 26, 1981, Michael Sragow, review of Pixote, pp. 49-50.

Sight and Sound, April, 1992, Jonathan Romney, review of At Play in the Fields of the Lord, pp. 44-47.

Texas Monthly, September, 1985, review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, pp. 210-213.

Time, August 5, 1985, Richard Schickel, review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, p. 71; December 21, 1987, Richard Corliss, review of Ironweed, p. 74; December 30, 1991, Richard Schickel, review of At Play in the Fields of the Lord, pp. 71-72.

Times Literary Supplement, May 27, 1988, John Clute, review of Ironweed, p. 584.

Us, January, 1992, Lawrence Frascella, review of At Play in the Fields of the Lord, p. 89.

Variety, May 16, 1981, review of Pixote, p. 21; October 21, 1981, review of Lúcio Flávio: o passageiro da agnoia, p. 16; May 15, 1985, review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, p. 14; December 16, 1987, review of Ironweed, p. 10; December 9, 1991, Amy Dawes, review of At Play in the Fields of the Lord, p. 74.

Wall Street Journal, July 25, 1985, Julie Salamon, review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, pp. 16, 18; December 17, 1987, Julie Salamon, review of Ironweed, pp. 26, 28; January 9, 1992, Julie Salamon, review of At Play in the Fields of the Lord, section A, pp. 9-10.

Washingtonian, December, 1981, Dan Rottenberg, review of Pixote, p. 58; August, 1985, Pat Dowell, review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, pp. 61-65.

Washington Post, August 11, 1985, Stephen Watson, "Web of the Spider Woman: Hector Babenco's Obsession," section H, p. 1.

Wilson Library Bulletin, March, 1989, Judith Trojan, review of Ironweed, p. 93.