Who knew Eurydice was born in Pittsburgh?Certainly I didn't, when I first saw "Black Orpheus" in the 60's. Here's more information and lots of links.
At the time, true cinephiles (and self-important student movie fanatics) dismissed the film, preferring Cocteau's "Orphée" (if you can sit through that one without falling asleep, let me know. Even the motorcycles woke me only briefly.) "Black Orpheus" won a prize at Cannes in 1959, and the music never went away - thanks in part to Vince Guaraldi's jazz version. In a later capsule review, Pauline Kael called the film "greatly admired in its time," but concluded that Marpessa Dawn was worth a trip to Hell.
A couple of years ago, I went with two 30-something film fans to see a refurbished print of the movie at the Seattle International Film Festival. From the first scene, a crowd of samba-playing carnival goers departing a ferry in Rio (why can't Seattle ferry trips be more like that?) the audience was caught up. At the end, one of my companions said, "You could live in that movie."
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