In Hollywood, documentaries about famous writers are on the rise. Just last year, John Le Carré and Tom Wolfe were profiled in The Pigeon Tunnel It is Radical Wolfe, respectively – projects praised by the literary community. In addition to them, there are the examples of veteran Fran Lebowitz, investigated in the miniseries Pretend that NY is a city (2021), from Netflix, and the famous film critic Roger Ebert, target of Life Itself (2014).
Brazil now also follows this trend, with an authorial look at who is Luis Fernando Verissimowriter and former columnist for Estadão.
Very true avoids the chronological biographical style and is more interested in the subtleties of the daily life of a man about to turn 80 than in scrutinizing the work of one of the most brilliant Brazilian minds, crystallized in classics such as The Bagé Analyst, Ed Mort and Other Storiesbetween others.
The new documentary work, which premiered at the É Tudo Verdade festival, the largest festival dedicated to the genre in Latin America, hits theaters this Thursday, 2nd.
Documentary ‘Verissimo’ shown at the É Tudo Verdade Festival. Photograph: It’s All True Festival/ Disclosure
“The proposal was to capture the unspeakable, the unheard, what is in small gestures. And just like Verissimo’s work, trying to create a kind of apotheosis of the small”, explains director Angelo Defanti to Estadão.
There is practically no script in the 90-minute chronicle film that follows the author’s daily life, filmed during 15 days, about to turn 80 – he is 87 years old today, and lives in seclusion.
With several cameras spread throughout the Verissimo family home, we follow the title character’s not-so-extraordinary routine: daily physical exercises, medical exams, hobbies with his grandchildren, games of Patience on the computer, interviews that he is unable to refuse and complaints about the bad football at Internacional – his favorite club.
Asked if he fears boring viewers with this bold choice, Defanti appears confident. “To bore? No, anyway. I don’t think the documentary runs that risk,” he says.
The film ends up being not exactly about a writer, it’s about a man and the passage of time. The person does not need to know Verissimo’s work. Fans will not be deprived because there is no Verissimo text, because Verissimo’s work is also very accessible. This, perhaps, even opens up room to comment on my agreement with Luis Fernando himself and his family, that I wanted to make a film that wasn’t on Google or Wikipedia.
Defendi, director of the documentary
Angelo Defanti (director), Verissimo and Barbara Defanti (producer) Photograph: Sinny Advisory/Disclosure
The filmmaker from Rio has already directed two short films based on Verissimo’s stories – Complete Feijoada (2012) and Husbands, Lovers and Steppers (2008); in addition to his first fiction feature film, The Angels Club (2022), with Matheus Nachtergaele, Marco Ricca and Paulo Miklos, based on the novel of the same name by the gaucho chronicler.
“Verissimo is a very inventive piece of literature. Each short chronicle of his really has a new proposed universe. It was a little calcified in the audiovisual with The Comedy of Private Life [série da TV Globo, produzida entre 1995 e 1998], which I think is a great adaptation. So, I would also like people to try to transmute it in other ways”, says the director.
Today Verissimo is away from writing due to a stroke suffered in 2021, which ended a collaboration with Estadão started in 1988.
Tags: Documentary examines Luis Fernando Verissimos subtleties Capturing unspeakable small gestures
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