By WALNICE NOGUEIRA GALVÃO*
The battle of Maria Antonia Street in history, theater and cinema.
The episode finally gets a fictional film, titled The Battle of Maria Antonia Street. There was already an excellent documentary made by Renato Tapajós, the almost homonymous The Battle of Maria Antonia. We imagine that half a century is the minimum time possible to swallow the bitter event and produce art from it. The battle completed 60 years in 2024. The fact is that “Maria Antonia” and its destruction have become a thematic nucleus that already has ample artistic and essayistic production.
The white paper
The first to emerge after the attack on October 2nd and 3rd, 1968 was the White Paper, whose trajectory gives a good idea of the horrors this country has already experienced.
The Congregation of the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of USP immediately appointed a committee of professors to prepare the documentation, hearing witnesses and collecting statements. Antonio Candido was elected rapporteur – and how he carried out the task is what we will see below.
The battle of the Maria Antonia took place on October 2 and 3, 1968, and a little over a month later, on November 6, the report was written and presented. And the gravity of what had happened demanded it: how many times have we heard in Brazil of a respectable institution of higher education being bombed and set on fire? And within it were some of our greatest intellectuals.
However, afterwards the record becomes hazy. Everything was fast and efficient so far. But from then on… The rapporteur delivered the finished book to the Congregation that had commissioned it. Some time later, as the book did not appear, the news spread that the originals had disappeared. And nobody knew what had happened – such were the seizures at the time.
Soon after, the 800 delegates from all over Brazil to the UNE congress in Ibiúna were arrested, thus decapitating the student movement that had its headquarters in Maria Antonia. The armed forces also invaded Crusp, the USP residential complex, arresting and expelling the residents.
To top it all off, AI-5 came along, mutilating the University and expelling some of its most renowned professors. The Faculty itself was banished to the far reaches of São Paulo, where the future University City was then located – a mud pit with no pavement, no gutters, no lighting.
Fortunately, the rapporteur, who had a keen sense of history, had kept a copy, as well as all the supporting material. Thus, exactly 20 years later, when the dictatorship had gone and democracy had been reinstated, the book would finally be published, in 1988.
Maybe it fell into the void. The fact is that little has been heard of him.
In the meantime, when sociologist Irene Cardoso decided to dedicate herself to the field and complete her doctoral thesis, Antonio Candido gave her everything: copies of the originals and the supporting material. Including a tear gas canister, which remained in the professor's hands for a long time, in full view of everyone who came to his house.
It was a very serious matter, evidence of the intervention of the police-military apparatus in the battle of Maria Antonia, which was absolutely not what the authorities and the media labeled as a mere brawl between students on both sides of the street, the leftists of Maria Antonia and the rightists of Mackenzie.
Irene Cardoso, a former student of Social Sciences, became a great specialist: she wrote a thesis in sociology, entitled The University of the Paulista Communion (1982), and wrote well after For a critique of the present (2001). The two books are still of unparalleled importance today, with in-depth investigations into the occupation and the battle, the role of the University, and the progressive thinking of which the Faculty of Philosophy has always been a beacon. He had the courage to speak of pain, tragedy, terror and the prohibition of the past, focusing on the history of the University, but also that of the Generation of 68.
Another book, also of the greatest importance, had appeared in 1988: Maria Antonia, a street in the wrong direction, bringing together 31 essays by various authors organized by Maria Cecília Loschiavo dos Santos, a former Philosophy student. The latter celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the events.
The first fictional treatment, immediate as the White Paper, came in a play. Consuelo de Castro, a Social Sciences student and occupant of Maria Antonia, still an unpublished author, thus began her brilliant career on stage and television.
Fireproof was her debut play – but it did not premiere. Consuelo de Castro's theme was, precisely, the student movement and the occupation of the Faculty of Philosophy at USP. The title of the play alludes to the bombing and burning of the building on Maria Antonia Street by the forces of repression. The plot takes place inside the Faculty and its characters are the students, with their problems, their conflicts, their solidarity, living in a utopia.
The fate of Consuelo de Castro's play is exemplary. It was, of course, immediately banned by the censors in 1969, when it was already being rehearsed at the Teatro Oficina, under the direction of José Celso Martinez Correia. Despite this and while it remained banned, it won the award for best play in the country, awarded by the National Theater Service, an official award, in 1974. It would only be released and staged a quarter of a century after the events, in 1993, premiering at the Grêmio of the Faculty of Philosophy on Maria Antonia Street, where the plot takes place.
And it was, to say the least, a curious experience, difficult to fit into aesthetic theories: a play staged in the very place where the events it describes took place, watched by an audience that was part of the plot – the author of these lines, by the way. Something of Fireproof is evident in the film currently being examined.
Two reissues
Many years later, the Faculty of Philosophy itself, now of Letters and Human Sciences, amputated from all Sciences, promoted the joint re-edition of White Paper quality Maria Antonia – a street in the wrong direction.
The latter, as we have seen, is a compilation of texts of great interest, written by people who reflected both on their participation and on the Maria Antonia “phenomenon”. One of them, often republished, is Antonio Candido’s “The World Covered with Young Men”.
Always lucid, the professor realized that a paradigm shift had taken place around the world, according to which young people in rebellion wanted to take the vanguard of the historical process. Under the sign of anti-authoritarianism at any level – family, work, school, knowledge – it was in the planetary trenches of 68 that the discretionary power of the adult-white-heterosexual man was contested for the first time. Such contestation would only grow over time, the flag of the Other being wielded by young people, by women, by non-whites in general (blacks, Asians, Arabs, indigenous peoples) and by homosexuals.
These two reissues are essential documents of the perpetual struggle against obscurantism in the country, which never fades.
At the movies
In cinema, the contribution of Renato Tapajós, a former student of Social Sciences, stands out. Arrested and tortured, he wrote in slow motion (1977), denouncing torture. For this reason, he would be arrested again and his book banned. He would become a prominent political documentarian and one of the main cameramen to film the rise of the metalworkers of São Bernardo and their strikes, which foreshadowed the end of the dictatorship (Factory floor e assembly line, between others).
Always in the fight, almost half a century later he would make the documentary The Battle of Maria Antonia (2014). The director shows the hostilities between the students of Maria Antonia and those of Mackenzie, the focus of the infamous Communist Hunting Command (CCC), located across the street. The events escalated and resulted in the invasion, bombing and burning of Maria Antonia, with the approval and support of the Armed Forces. What was not lacking was the official approval of the Mackenzie rectorate.
In the offensive against public education that the dictatorship led, it is worth remembering that Maria Antonia was the headquarters of the Campaign in Defense of Public Education, through which our most eminent teachers went on conference tours throughout the country. The leadership role of Florestan Fernandes is worth highlighting in the campaign. This offensive included the dismantling that same year in São Paulo (not to mention the catastrophes in the rest of the country) of the best secondary schools, with an experimental and cutting-edge design, which were the Vocational Gymnasiums, under the command of Maria Nilde Mascelani, and the Colégio de Aplicação da USP.
Brooklyn Vocational High School already has an excellent documentary by a former student filmmaker, Toni Venturi: Vocational – A human adventure (2011). Toni Venturi stood out in political cinema, to which he devoted himself throughout his life.
More books
Representative of the new crop in essays is the book by Adélia Bezerra de Menezes: Cultural activism: Maria Antonia in the 60s (2014) – Brings reminiscences and reflections of someone who lived intensely the period in which she was a student of Literature, evoking films, songs, plays, and above all the extraordinary experience of dedicating herself to teaching adults to read and write using the Paulo Freire method in a workers' village in Osasco, part of the immense network that covered the entire Brazilian territory, in which students from all over the country dedicated themselves to this civic mission.
Years later, the book organized by Benjamin Abdala Jr. (who reuses Antonio Candido's title) appeared, A world covered in young people (2016). We have there a collection of different authors, which Benjamin Abdala Jr., a former student of Literature and activist, requested from a select group. The great editor that he has always been confirms: the volume is of the utmost importance, because it was planned to fill deficiencies.
Among these, the most notable are those about the still experimental cinema of the future filmmaker Renato Tapajós, who was then studying Social Sciences, written by himself. Or about the student theater, Tusp. Another text talks about the extraordinary experience of living in Crusp, a rumination that comes from the hand of a former history student who, from the depths of the backlands, arrived in the city after nine days of truck transportation. Crusp would be raided by troops, who occupied it and arrested all the residents. Or about the Cursinho do Grêmio, which marked an era.
And more about some academic centers that were under Maria Antonia's umbrella. Among them, there is talk of “the boys from Glete”, as the Geology students were affectionately called, who lived in a large house on Alameda Glete, under a historic fig tree, and which was a focus of radicalization. Information about the newspaper is added Review and about the magazine Tomorrow, alternative student combat media.
Variations around a film
In 21 numbered sequence shots, starting with 21 and going up to 1, chronologically approaching the day of the battle, the film builds up and explains its background. The 21 shots do not reflect the gratuitousness, but they organize and give structure to the film. They give a good idea of the confined environment and behind closed doors that was in force then – that was the world…And it was the world for many people, during an interregnum, in a suspension of time in which the veil of Maia was torn, revealing another possible world.
Amidst so much material, it would be impossible not to construct an alternative film. From the order of correction to the present film: no one said “Centro Acadêmico”, we said “o Grêmio”. And at the time, no teacher wore long pants, which was inevitable after the move to the University City, which was a jungle.
This alternative film would feature reminiscences that were left out, some of them essential, such as the Golden Apple episode, which was widely covered by the newspapers – so it cannot be said that it went unnoticed or that it is not documented. What happened: a girl was unmasked as an undercover police agent. She was even dating Dirceu, the undisputed leader, and was an occupant of Maria Antonia. Once discovered, she was tried publicly, at the school headquarters, and in the presence of her father, who was summoned as a witness to the fairness of the process, and the media. It was a great occasion.
Another girl stood in the entrance hall, asking everyone for identification, even the most distinguished. She was dressed as a guerrilla fighter and wore a Guevara beret with a little star. Meanwhile, the Internationale came out of the loudspeaker, playing non-stop.
In another move, an unavoidable figure would appear, Oswaldo Moneo, concessionaire of the Grêmio bar and barber shop, a great friend of the students, to whom he would sling bills and from whom they would steal cigarettes one by one. His bar was the scene of endless and heated political meetings. Antonio Candido did not forget to get his statement, just check it out at White Paper. Oswaldo does not say, but it is known that he ruined himself by providing the empty bottles in his warehouse, and there were many, for the making of Molotov cocktails.
At one of the meetings that most resembled rallies, this one in the main hall, Antonio Candido was going to speak and was being introduced by a Philosophy student who, as she had instituted popular sovereignty, called everyone “colleague.” She looked at him, that distinguished gentleman in a suit and tie, who returned her gaze, and said, interspersed with a pause and a stammer, “I present here my colleague… my colleague, the professor!”
One of the students would repeat his speech with the exclamation “pô!”, to the point that he became known as “the Põ”, as a form of his first name. When later a cartoonist (Henfil? Claudius? Angeli?) created the character Pô de Souza, we were not surprised.
Meanwhile, large cauldrons were bubbling in the inner courtyard, since it was necessary to feed all those people. Volunteers were cooking, usually the mothers of occupants. This was the case of Consuelo de Castro's mother. Sergio Buarque de Holanda, who was always there, got in line and, when it was his turn, was stopped. Consuelo's mother was categorical: "You are not a student!" To which he replied: "But I am Chico's father..." (at that moment, occupying the FAU). She retorted: "And I am Consuelo's mother!" and refused the plate of food to the great man.
Professor Maria Isaura Pereira de Queiroz stood out in an episode in which the director shouted that it was his responsibility to protect “the State’s own property” and that he would order the College to be closed as soon as the march left. If that happened, the crowd would have nowhere to shelter and would be at the mercy of attacks, including from the police. A group of teachers tried to dissuade the director.
In the impasse, Maria Isaura loudly and clearly declared that she would personally guarantee the safety of the building, pulled up a chair, placed it right on the threshold and sat down. She would remain there until hours later, when the march returned, armed only with the umbrella with a carved wooden handle that her grandmother had given her.
There are few mentions of “chemical bombs”. From a window on the upper floor of Mackenzie, they would throw plastic bags filled with acid, which the Chemistry lab would provide. The target was the people below. When they hit, they burned everything, clothes and skin, which would change color. An improvised infirmary was set up in the large bathroom on the ground floor, and several people lay on the floor while others helped them, cutting off their burned clothes or applying ointments and creams to the exposed parts. When the bomb fell on the head, it would hit the eyes, which would cause them to lose their vision, hopefully only temporarily. In the covered parts, the acid would penetrate the clothes and burn the skin underneath.
These are some of the reflections that the film evokes in the viewer, without detracting from its many merits, as attested by the awards it has received.
Maria Antonia in the polis
We have already seen how the living presence of all specialties coexisted internally, the contagion of everyone by everyone, the non-compartmentalization of knowledge. According to philosophy professor João Cruz Costa, we learned more in the hallways than in the classroom. Add to that the immersion in the cultural melting pot that was the Center of São Paulo, where students left classes and walked to bookstores, libraries, cinemas, theaters, operas, concerts, museums, art galleries, exhibitions, bars and everything else that the Center offered exclusively.
And we will have, between the internal communicating vessels that exposed him to all knowledge, on the one hand, and the culture of the city, on the other, a very special student, who was a citizen of the polis.
The city of São Paulo, at that time, had an urban center where everything, absolutely everything, happened: it constituted a polis.[I]
In terms of the arts, the previous decade, that is, the 1950s, saw admirable initiatives such as Vera Cruz and Teatro Brasileiro de Comédia. The first was a film company, with Hollywood-like studios and ambition, which for some time produced films of the greatest relevance, taking Brazilian cinema away from the random and amateurish. The Teatro Brasileiro de Comédia, or TBC, raised art to a level of professionalism and expanded repertoire, which would lay the foundations of modern theater in our lands.
Everything converged to a hub where the Faculty of Philosophy, the Faculty of Architecture and the Faculty of Economics, all of USP, were located, as well as the School of Sociology and Politics, plus Mackenzie's secondary and university educational system, added by Colégio Rio Branco and by the Escola Normal Caetano de Campos. Nearby, sophisticated bookstores such as Pioneira, Duas Cidades, Jaraguá, Partenon, and Francesa. The set formed a complex of metropolitan urbanism.
Only after 1968 would this harmony be detonated, scattering its fragments throughout the rest of the city, if not annihilating them. The dictatorship would not allow the student riots of that year to be repeated and moved the schools far away, in an old tactic also used in other latitudes. When I went to teach a course at the University of Paris VIII shortly after, I found it strange that it was called “Vincennes to St-Denis”, given that Vincennes and St.-Denis are two neighborhoods very far from each other, Vincennes to the east and St.-Denis on the northern outskirts.
Then they explained to me that, following the famous riots and occupations of May 68, the authorities had closed Vincennes, where Michel Foucault, very active in 68 and persistent at Maria Antonia, had been pontificating, where he had taught the course that would become Words and things (The words and things)[ii]. Vincennes was one of the three centers of the rebellion, along with the Sorbonne and Nanterre, and so it had been transferred to a new school in St.-Denis. And my French colleagues added: “We are here as punishment”… Exactly what they did to us. And Uferj, the largest university in Rio de Janeiro, was subjected to the same process, which tore it from the Center and grafted it onto Ilha do Fundão (the good name).
No one had thought that the soul of the polis was the students. Once they were removed, from that time on São Paulo became polycentric – with small partial centers distributed throughout the neighborhoods – and without a Center. The center itself fell into disrepair, was emptied of its inhabitants and became marginalized, a common fate for the inner city in the Americas. After some time of abandonment, it still resists the efforts to revitalize it, in all the magnificence of its architecture.
The urban fabric of the region was made up of a high concentration of culture per square meter. There stood, and still stand, the Municipal Theater, the Artistic Culture Theater and the Mário de Andrade Municipal Library, visited daily, especially by the “statue worshippers” who gathered at the foot of the statue. The reading in the lobby. In no more than a dozen blocks were the Artists and Friends of Art Club, affectionately called Clubinho, the Children's Library, the Leopoldo Fróis Theater and the French Alliance.
And, apart from the Museum of Modern Art on 7 de Abril, with its bar and a very active Filmoteca, as the future Cinemateca was then called, the Center offered a constellation of majestic movie theaters, none with a capacity of less than a thousand seats. They were the Art Palácio, with more than 3 thousand, built by a renowned architect of the time, Rino Lévi; and the Marabá, the Ipiranga, the Normandie, the República, the Metro, among others.[iii]
An art room, Cine Bijou, with sophisticated and refined programming, was right there, at Praça Roosevelt. A few years later, it would be the turn of Cine Belas Artes, on the corner of Avenida Paulista, which had the additional advantage of being opposite the Riviera bar,[iv] a must-see for Maria Antonia's gang. This bar was dominated by an unforgettable figure, the waiter Juvenal, who took care of everyone (he would say: “Don't come in now, she's with someone else…”), received correspondence, warned if there were anyone suspected of spying for the dictatorship, etc.
He would eventually become the protagonist of a comic strip, written by the artist Angeli, in the series of strips “Rê Bordosa”, always as an invaluable waiter and with his own name. The protagonist Rê Bordosa was on the cover of the first issue of this cartoonist's magazine, Gum with banana, which sold 100 copies. Angeli and Laerte were also regulars at the Riviera, of course, as were the Caruso brothers, all frontline political humorists in resistance to the dictatorship.[v]
Worthy of mention is the broad reparations movement, which is now spreading throughout the country, to award diplomas to students killed by the military dictatorship. The hardest hit in the entire country was the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of USP, with 15 students killed, with an emphasis on the Social Sciences course, the origin of so many illustrious figures in the arts, letters, sciences and politics. In total, USP has counted 39 deaths across all of its faculties, including 6 professors and 2 employees.
The source is the Truth Commission Report (in 10 volumes), prepared over ten years by the in-house historians, and our Faculty of Philosophy, such was the repression that raged against it, received an entire volume, number 7.[vi] Well, this school has just awarded diplomas to all of its murdered students, arguing that it was the murder that cut short their careers. The movement is spreading to other schools as well. And they are considering granting doctorates. Honorary to those who had already graduated and were teachers.
Today, as a symbolic reparation, a votive plaque commemorates those who fell in defense of democracy, right at the entrance to the rescued building at Maria Antonia 294.
*Walnice Nogueira Galvão Professor Emeritus at FFLCH at USP. She is the author, among other books, of Reading and rereading (Sesc\Ouro over Blue). [amzn.to/3ZboOZj]
Notes
[I] Marilena Chauí, “A place called Maria Antonia”, in Maria Antonia: a street against the grain, Nobel Prize, 1988.
[ii] : Ricardo Parro and Anderson Lima da Silva, “Michel Foucault at the University of São Paulo”, Speech, v. 47, n. 1 (2017.]
[iii] Inimá Simões, Movie theaters in São Paulo. saneo Paulo: Municipal Secretariat of Culture/State Secretariat of Culture, 1999.
[iv] Founded in 1949, it lasted until 2006; it would remain closed until 2015, when it reopened for old fans and patrons.
[v] In Rio de Janeiro, the class of The Quibbler.
[vi] Check online.
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