What happened to the director of this movie?
Why did he fail to make another good movie after this?
shareHave you never seen The Constant Gardener?
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MovieChat Forums > Cidade de Deus (2004) Discussion > What happened to the director of this mo...
because he's a *beep* director. even in this movie, his direction is medriocre at best. too pseudo-modern, pretentious and (brazilian) tv like. what's really great about city of god is the genious screenplay and the acting, and this meirelles will never have again.
shareHe used to be a cameraman for a video production called "Olho Magico" (Magic Eye), along with the more talented Marcelo Tas (who became a TV personality and occasional actor). He then moved to short films, and then this.
In Brazil, movies are not generally directed by a single person (like the studio system in Hollywood), and are more of a collaborative process. If you hear the original portuguese-language DVD commentary tracks you'll realize he was just one among several acting directors, photography directors, etc. He was some sort of a producer that could have creative input.
His subsequent film like "The Constant Gardener" and "Blindness" were not that great. While Mexico produces talented directors constantly, Brazil has a high deficiency in artistic competence, and film production is pretty much lousy TV production padded to the movie screens. There are no film making schools (none at all), and media production is borderline amateurish, specially today (with the media production craftsmanship improving everywhere else except Brazil).
He is directing the 2016 Olympic Games "opening ceremony", which is guaranteed to be a cringe inducing s**tfest of favela, crime worshiping and Rio de Janeiro stereotypes being sold as "Brazil" (Rio de Janeiro is as close to the south part of Brazil as Turkey as close to Germany - it's a completely different culture).
"You keep him in here, and make sure HE doesn't leave!"
Interesting input, Ricardo. Thank you for sharing.
Pity that Mereilles gets most of the directorial credit for COG.... based on what you said, he should have shared the recognition with others.
I thought the Rio Opening Ceremony was very pretentious. It was suspiciously similar to the London Olympics Opening ceremony by yet another overrated director Danny Boyle, though he definitely has a better output of good films than Mereilles.
Agreed, Not only are the current line of Mexican directors true artists, but they are also highly trained and have studied the technical and artistic aspects of filmmaking very deeply. Mereilles' technical and artistic skills are probably nowhere near Inarritu, del Toro, Cuaron, etc.
you said it all. i agree completely.
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