The Devil in the Details
It recently occurred to David Poulshock that his first close encounter with an authentic filmmaker was meeting Glauber Rocha in Rio de Janeiro, 1968. Memories are vague, truth elusive, but that meeting resulted in a private screening of the great director’s masterpiece, Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol. Poulshock screened the film for his fellow college students at the US Consulate theater in Rio as part of his overseas studies thesis. But when he returned the film, he found himself venomously accused by Rocha of being a CIA operative – an accusation that no doubt had something to do with the venue. 1968 was, of course, the height of the Vietnam War. Rocha was an avowed socialist filmmaker living under the thumb of a semi-fascist military junta. And Poulshock was an American hippie – whose long hair did nothing to dissuade the leftist Brazilian from his opinion.
