“Art Must Stay Away from Politics”: Wagner Moura on Directing, History and Citizenship

- Recently you tried yourself in the director’s chair - you made a film about Carlus Marigella, the Brazilian revolutionary of the 60s. And you are very defending his position. Why?

- First, I need to say a few words about the history of Brazil - about the history of Brazil that we were taught at school. I was born during the dictatorship in 1976. So: at school we were told that the 1964 revolution saved our country from communism. This is what we were taught. And this is exactly what Bolsonar is seeking today: to change the content of textbooks, to change our perception of history.

At some point, I realized that the history of Brazil was presented to us in a distorted form. This realization happened, probably, when I was already twenty years old. And most of all, these distortions concerned popular uprisings, of which there were a lot in Brazil.

In fact, my generation has a small age difference with those who fought with the military dictatorship then. Indeed, despite the fact that Marigella was 55, he managed to gather supporters around him, who were both 20 and 19, 18 years old. And I knew almost nothing about them. And the little that he knew was perverted beyond recognition: these people were called criminals, terrorists, and so on. I was always interested to learn more about those who opposed and refused to obey the power of the oppressors.

• Frame from the film "Elite Squad"
• © imdb.com

Among these people, Carlus Marigella has a special position. In general, he is my countryman, we are both from the city of San Salvador da Bahia. And his name always lived in the memory of the people, despite the fact that they tried to erase him from the pages of the history of Brazil. He believed in the power of popular uprising and believed that the duty of the people was to protect the country from dictatorship.

- By the way, your film was banned for showing in Brazil ...

- It’s true, censorship didn’t let him in.

“ But this is already a good reason to watch it!”

“But you're right: the Bolsonaru phenomenon is something familiar to us.” This man didn’t come to us from Mars, he is part of our country, part of its history. We ourselves are Bolsonaru, in a sense.

- Interesting.

- Of course, Brazil is a conservative country. Brazil is a country where the elite rule everything, which has destroyed everything we could. Brazil is the last country in the world to abolish slavery! And this is a historical fact, slavery radically affected the system of social relations in our country. After all, speaking of Brazil, the topic of structural racism cannot be ignored.

For example, Marigella was a black man. And this fact of his biography also delights me. After all, the hero of our Brazilian history was a mestizo: his mother was a slave from Sudan, and his father was Italian. And when Mario Magagliais, a well-known Brazilian journalist, published a biography of Marigella in 2013, of course, I immediately wanted to act as a producer of her film adaptation, so that people could see everything for themselves.

- Unfortunately, democracies in our countries are “plasticine”: they have only one name, it all comes down to going to the polls every four years. And because of all this, we have gained power that has dominated us for 200 years, and which is extremely difficult to overcome. And first of all, I'm talking about the power of the media. You are a journalist by training. And I think it's time to think about journalism. Indeed, without good media, democracy is impossible. And bad media, by contrast, is killing democracy.

- We need a democratization of the press.

- And we need media that want to convey information to people, enlighten them, and not those that are not trying to manipulate us .

- But while the media are subordinate to those in the hands of economic power, nothing will change. It is important that there are more votes, that the media are democratic, and that we can hear everyone.

- Do you believe in political journalism?

- Yes I believe you. But first of all, I am for objective journalism. She is possible. Good journalists are everywhere.

- As there are good editorial writers with their opinions. But even in a democracy, any opinion needs to be justified so that there is always room for discussion.

- Yes. But I do not believe in the media, which is completely controlled by the state. I think just that the state itself should contribute to the creation of free media.

- What about the cultural sphere? Do you think that cultural figures should have an active civic position, belong to a certain ideological trend?

- No, I think that art should remain aloof from politics so that everyone can do what they consider necessary. I wrote an article for the newspaper Folha de São Paulo , where I asked the question: Who is afraid of people of art? The fact is that the "right" in Brazil constantly challenge the opinion of artists when they speak, for example, about politics, because they know how many people listen to the words of cultural representatives.

- If the “right” are against what the artists say, then they speak in favor of the left.

- Yes, because almost all of them are supporters of progressive views. The best of them. But, I think, and it is very important that they are much more frightened by what we do than what we say. The fact is that art is such a thing ...

• Shot from the film Elysium: Paradise Not on Earth
• © imdb.com

Having come to power, Bolsonar, first of all, tried to destroy the sphere of art in Brazil. Why? Not only because a significant part of Brazilian cultural figures adhere to progressive views and oppose Bolsonaro. This is also true, but that’s not all.

The fact is that one of the features of fascism is that it tries to do away with everything that can make people think critically, which can give them thought. And this is the main function that art performs.

It is not necessary that art reflect a particular trend of political thought. Art should be for the sake of art, for the sake of high artistic skill. This is enough to ensure that the country has a mirror in which it can see its reflection, there is a culture.

For example, these people (“right” - RT ) talk about education from a pragmatic point of view: children should go to school, learn mathematics ... But education should include philosophy, sociology, should teach people to think and strive for something more, than just finding a good job.

For example, despite the fact that I do not agree with much that is happening in Cuba, I am fascinated by their approach to education. When we shot in Cuba, I lived in a hotel, and every day I went down the street to talk with the garbage collector. This man every day taught me a lesson in history, and the history of Brazil! He told me many things about which I had no idea.

And speaking of culture, art or education, I do not mean the production of cultural content, but the culture of the country, which makes it what it is. The culture of the Native American population of Ecuador, the culture of the black population of Brazil, the culture of the Maroons (runaway black slaves. - RT ) , even the culture of the LGBT community, which also has its own culture. The country is developing due to the diversity of cultures that make up it. This is especially true of Brazil. And this is what they want to destroy.

“ Shouldn't people of all professions rebel against injustice?” If one of the goals of culture is to express beauty, express truth, should not protests against situations of extreme injustice?

- Yes. And there are artists who are committed to this goal. And there are those who are not committed to her, and this is normal. They should not be forced to be something that they are not. They do their art, and if they do it well, that’s a big deal.

For example, I like politics and therefore what I do, what I work on, is inevitable ...

- But I do not like politics, and especially politics ... (laughs. - RT ). I like to serve people.

- I like politics and therefore what I do ... for example, Marigella is a political film. Therefore, if we are talking about a film, we are talking about Brazil, about Bolsonar, about fascism. But I like politics, so what I create as an artist is inevitably one way or another connected with politics.

- During the reign of the Workers' Party, 30 to 32 million Brazilians got out of poverty. Where were these people and why didn’t they support Dilma when the coup d'etat happened?

- And we again return to the topic of the media, because the media every day spent merciless criticism ...

- This is a new strategy ...

- The newspapers wrote that Lula was a thief, insulted Dilma. They do exactly the same with cultural figures. For example, I have a lot of lawsuits with journalists. I sue them. They say that I use the law on the promotion of culture, because I have leftist views and support leftist ideology. And I file lawsuits against these media. But what happened to Lula and Dilma is a real mess.

“ And I think it’s right to hold them accountable.” Some disagree. I don’t know, maybe there is some unwritten rule that prohibits the prosecution of journalists as if they were above the criteria of good and evil. But in any civilized society, conflicts are resolved precisely through the justice system.

- I just bring them to justice.

- And if they did nothing wrong, then the investigation will be stopped. And if so, then they should be responsible for their actions.

“That's right ... If they call me a thief ...”

- It seems that in our Constitution there is an article that no one has ever seen, according to which journalists are higher than the concepts of good and evil, as if the law were not written to them. And I think this is a big mistake.

“And it really bothers me ... After all, when we talk about manipulation, we mean traditional media, but there are also social networks.” Bolsonaru won thanks to robots that spread false information every day.

The robots, or Internet bots that were associated with Cambridge Analytica, all these people who chose Trump, they were then in Brazil. And they very skillfully do this, get access to all mobile devices, computers, and people believe in it.

- Look, democracy can be defined as follows: this is public opinion, which is usually expressed through elections, within the framework of established rules, in order to avoid the dictatorship of the majority. The rule of law is based on these rules. But by depriving us of information, they robbed us of democracy!

- What they did in Brazil is beyond description ... They thought up as if the Workers' Party were distributing baby bottles with nipples in the form of a penis. And although this seems like complete madness, many people in Brazil believed it! I think that fake news will play a key role in the upcoming elections.

- What awaits our dear Brazil?

- I don’t know, my dear friend ... I can sadly note that this is the most difficult moment that we have experienced since dictatorship. And I would say that even during the dictatorship there was no such project of large-scale destruction of the country as it is now. After all, some of the military were nationalists, and tried for the good of their country.

• Shot from the movie "Narco"
• © imdb.com

On the contrary, Bolsonaru does not deal with ecology, culture, labor law, social security, or public safety ... For example, the governor of Rio de Janeiro, who is currently in a quarrel with Bolsonaru, claims that in order to eradicate violence, you need to go to the favelas and literally shoot people ... That is, everything is so sad that even during the military dictatorship such things did not happen.

It was as if they set out to hand everything over to the United States: for example, they allowed the Americans to use the military base of Alcantara to deploy their aircraft ... Or the same Presal ... "For God's sake, take it away!"

It seems to me that nothing like this has ever happened in Brazil. Therefore, I think it will take a lot of time to recover from the damage done. Although, of course, this is possible. After all, you need to continue to fight. But the current government has done tremendous damage to the country. And this is very sad.

“I would like to end the conversation with the same question that we started, dear Wagner.” This is the role of culture for the development of our America, for the unification of our America, for its future.

- The most important, most important role of culture ... And I think that at some point we were very close to this goal ... When I starred in the TV series Narco, something amazing happened to me. As I told you at the beginning of the conversation, we are very isolated ...

Culturally, because we speak Portuguese and we have enough of our own culture ... We speak of Brazil as if it were not part of Latin America. We don’t learn Spanish in our schools, and I think it’s very strange.

And when I went to Colombia to shoot Narco, I had a chance to work there with actors from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela ... Unfortunately, I don’t remember a single Ecuadorian actor on the set. But there were a lot of people from different countries. We lived in Colombia and discussed the problem of drug trafficking, which equally concerns all of us.

And then I first experienced firsthand how wonderful it is to be part of something more than just Brazil. There, when I lived with all these people in Medellin, in Bogotá, I felt a part of this common culture, which contains much more than the Brazilian culture.

And it opened my eyes, I realized that we are all brothers, and what a pity that we miss so many opportunities to unite, to create a political union. Let us finally create an economic alliance, a cultural alliance, an alliance that defends our interests. Let's work together, as Europeans do, for example.

And I believe that in this context, culture plays a key role, because culture is just what allows us to feel our belonging to something more. And he who feels this belonging gives himself completely to the common cause.

See the full version of the interview on the RTD website.