Brino Jigino de Mello is a Brazilian black footballer, athlete and actor. His only known role was in the 1959 film Black Orpheus.
Biography
Breno Mello was born on September 7, 1931 in the city of Porto Allegri, in the capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil. His family was very poor and barely made ends meet. Little Brino helped his mother sell chickens. Due to poverty, the boy was only able to graduate from primary school.
From his youth, Brino was fond of football. Brino began his football career at the Gremio Esportivo Renner club in his hometown of Porto Allegri. With this team he won the 1954 Gaucho Championship.
In 1957 he moved to Rio de Janeiro and became a professional footballer for the Fluminense club. In addition to them, he often played in the Santos FS club, where he met the famous football player Pele.
Once Brino was walking through the streets of Rio de Janeiro and unexpectedly met the director Marcel Camus. The director stopped the footballer and asked if he would like to participate in the filming as an actor?
Career
After receiving approval, Camus took Mello for the lead role in his classic 1959 film Black Orpheus (originally titled Orpheus Negro), in which Mello played a character named Orpheus. The director was fascinated by the physical constitution of Brino, which, by the way, perfectly matched the character of the protagonist. According to legend, Brino, who could not speak a word in French, and could hardly write in Brazilian due to his physical attractiveness, was able to win the competition from more than 300 applicants for the main role.
Black Orpheus or Orfeu Negro was a 1959 romantic tragedy filmed in Brazil by French filmmaker Marcel Camus. In addition to Brenno de Mello, American actress Marpessa Dawn starred. The film is based on Vicinius de Moray's play Orfeu da Consensau, which itself was an adaptation of the ancient Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice in the modern context of the slums and carnival of Rio de Janeiro. The film is an international collaboration between production companies from Brazil, Italy and France. Most of the episodes of the film were filmed in Moro da Babilonia, in the Lemme area of Rio de Janeiro.
The plot of the film reinterprets the myth about Orpheus in the light of poverty and misery of the Brazilian working class, which is clearly manifested against the background of the world famous Brazilian carnival. A young black tram driver named Orpheus meets a cute foreign girl Eurydice while driving along the route. After their shift ends, they meet and spend a crazy night at the Brazilian carnival. However, the love of a young couple ends in tragedy.
Bossa nova music was chosen as the soundtrack for the film. The songs sounded in the film are known in our time. Among them are A Felicidade, Samba de Orpheus and Manha de Carnaval, written by Brazilian composers Antonio Carlos Hobima and Luis Bonfa. The latter composition is also known as "A Day in the Life of a Fool" and was performed by the character Orpheus. In the original version of the film, the song was performed by Brino Mello himself, but later his voice was re-voiced by the singer Agostinho dos Santos.
Orpheus became the only successful role in the entire acting career of Brino. Critics' reviews of his performance, however, were very mixed. For example, reporter Bosley Crowther wrote an article in the New York Times in 1959 after watching a movie, in which he criticized Mello as an actor to smithereens. In particular, he wrote that Brino plays his role more as a dancer than as an actor playing the role of a man in love.
From the point of view of other critics, Mello's performance was described as natural, revealing his true acting talent. For example, Hollis Alpert, in an article for Saturday Review, calls Brino's performance admirable. In the end, critics agreed that Mello in the role of Orpheus did not look so negative. That the actor got "a handsome and courageous Orpheus, who shone when he was covered in sweat."
Filmed in the style of neo-realism, the film was a huge international success with critics and audiences. The film won several world awards, including the Palme d'Or at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, the 1960 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and was nominated (but did not win) for the 1960 Oscar. of the year in the category "Best Foreign Language Film".
However, Mello was not in the cast for the awards. Only more than 40 years later, in 2005, Brino Mello, at the expense of the Brazilian government, was able to attend the Cannes Film Festival at the invitation of the producers of the 2005 documentary "In Search of Black Orpheus" (Em Busca do Orfeu negro / A la recherché d'Orfeu) of a joint French- Brazilian production. At the awards ceremony, Mello was not alone, but in company with his friend Pele and the then Minister of Culture of Brazil, Gilberto Gil. All three became honorary citizens of one of the French cities.
Mello shared his fee received for the film "Black Orpheus" with his friend - footballer Pele.
Subsequent creativity
After "Black Orpheus", Brino Mello starred in several more little-known films:
- San Rata de Puerto (1963);
- Os Vencidos (1963);
- "About Santo Modico" (1964);
- Negrino do Pastoreio (1973) as a Negro;
- The Prisoner of Rio (1988) is a crime film by Ronald Biggs, starring Mello as Silencio.
However, Mello was never able to become a professional film actor and was forced to earn his living as a football player. At the time, the Brazilian film industry had no funding and many actors could not feed themselves solely from filming fees. Many people had to earn money somewhere. That is why only a few have a successful acting career. Melo, in particular, had to continue playing professional football.
In 2004, two French filmmakers, Bernard Tournois and Rene Letzgus, decided to shoot a documentary about the impact of Black Orpheus on the world of Brazilian music, in particular on the bossa nova music movement. For the filming of the film, which was called "In Search of Black Orpheus" (2005), the filmmakers had to find Brino de Mello and ensure his participation in the shooting in the lead role.
Personal life
Brino has lived most of his life in Florianopolis, Santa Catarina state, Brazil.
Mello has been married twice and has five children. He lived with his first wife for a short time in Novo-Hamburg. She bore him four children, after which they divorced.
His second wife, Amelia Santos-Correa, better known as Manna, gave birth to his fifth child - a daughter, who was named Leticia. Mello divorced her too.
After the end of his football career, Mello became addicted to gambling and lived in poverty until the end of his life, although he earned good money as an actor in television advertisements and as a football coach. In the last years of his life, he had to work as a driver, a worker and even a newspaper seller.
After reaching retirement age, the state gave him a minimum pension (equivalent to 150 euros per month) and he had to return to the slums in his hometown of Porto Allegri.
Brino Mello died on 11 July 2008 at the age of 76 in the slums of his native Brazilian city of Porto Allegri from a heart attack. By that time, he had long been lonely and impoverished. His body was found by neighbors a few days after his death. Shortly before his death, Mello worked on writing his autobiography. His body was buried in the Juan XXIII cemetery.
His co-star in the Black Orpheus movie, American film actress Marpessa Don, survived Mello by only 42 days. She died in Paris, France of a heart attack at the age of 74.
As of 2008, another documentary on the life story of Brino de Mello, Descoberta de Orfeu, directed by Rene Goya Filho and Alexander Derlam, was in preparation. They have collected over 10 hours of videos about the actor's personal life. The first teaser of the film was shown in 2008 at the Gramado Film Festival.
