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INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR OF SEÑORA
DEL DESTINO
Secrets of a successful soap opera
• Master of a mysterious
capacity to enchant millions, Aguinaldo Ferreira da
Silva reveals some of the keys to the success of his
soap opera Señora del Destino, which after
having attracted more than 60 million viewers in
Brazil, is now captivating Cuba and various other
countries in Latin America
BY LEONEL NODAL —Special for Granma International
AN
autobiographical novel, as he himself admits, with
which he pays tribute to his mother María do Carmo
Ferreira da Silva – the same name as the protagonist
in the central plot – the dramatist who was born on
June 7, 1944 in Carpina, Pernambuco, also extols the
lives of the thousands of emigrants from the
impoverished northeastern region of Brazil in a era
that was open to the military coup of 1964.
Also
author of television versions of Tienda de los
Milagros, Tieta and Puerto de los
Milagros, all works by Jorge Amado, he reached
new levels of popularity with original titles such
as
Roque Santeiro
(1985), Te odio mi amor (1992) and Suave
Veneno (1999), amongst others.
His
literary career commenced in an extraordinary way.
Son of a poor couple, which made it impossible for
him to study, at 14 years of age he began work as a
typist in a notary’s office. At the age of 15, he
wrote his first novel entitled Redención de Jó,
published the following year by Editora del Autor,
directed by the famous Vinicius de Moraes, Ruben
Braga, Paulo Mendes Campos and Fernando Sabino.
However, between 1962 and 1978, he became a police
reporter for newspapers in Recife and Río de
Janeiro, which provided him with experiences and
forged the way, in terms of daily life, for the
attentive investigator and methodical writer, with a
working class mentality, as he likes to say.
The
baby stolen from the poor northeastern emigrant, for
example, is based on a real event: that of Osvaldo
Borges who was kidnapped from a maternity home in
Brasilia in 1986 by businesswoman Vilma Martins
Costa and discovered in 2002, and which was reported
in detail by the press as the Pedrinho Case.
The
epic journey towards triumph in the life of
northeastern María do Carmo is a simile, albeit
concealed, of the struggle of his compatriot Luis
Inacio Lula da Silva, who one day, aged seven,
arrived in Sao Paulo hand in hand with his mother,
and where he later established his career from trade
unionist to president.
Aguinaldo Silva’s social concerns threw him into
political activism during the difficult era of the
military dictatorship and one of the most risky
episodes was his 70-day spell in prison, for having
written the preface for “The Diaries of Che
Guevara”.
These few biographical details allow us to introduce
the writer of this soap opera that boasts the record
in terms of viewing figures over the last 10 years
in Brazil and who, with the courtesy of Baron
Bonsucesso or Gioavanni Improtta, afforded the
following exclusive interview by e-mail.
I’d
like to know your opinion on the soap opera genre at
the present time. What value and significance does
it have within literary creation in general and what
is its social function?
I
always say that the social function of soap operas
are to entertain viewers; arousing in them emotions
that lead them to devote themselves to their own
sense of humanity. But the soap opera is also the
fruit of the author’s thinking, for this reason it
always transmits the ideology of the person who
wrote it.
For
me the soap opera is not a work of art, because it
is not the fruit of an individual creation, but a
collective one. Even so, it is the only form of
artistic manifestation to which a large number of
people have access. This is where its significance
lies: making people laugh and at the same time,
making them think and transmitting the author’s
personal way of ordering his world.
To
what do you attribute the capacity for success of a
cultural product that was initially conceived for a
Brazilian public in places as far-flung and diverse
as Cuba, the United States, Canada, etc.?
The
fact that it is so Brazilian. Unlike soap operas
from other countries, Brazilians always demonstrate
an image that is quite faithful to the country (and
people) where they were produced. The paradox is in
the fact that they are such national products they
end up being universal.
Señora del Destino
may well be the most Brazilian of all the soap
operas produced over the last 10 years, and I’m
certain that that is the major reason why it is so
successful throughout the world. Its faithfulness to
the people portrayed is its secret weapon. At no
time does it pretend to be “modern” or
“cosmopolitan”. It’s a national production and, for
that reason, it also becomes universal.
In
the credits, the names of several co-authors appear.
Could you explain to us how this joint or collective
work was carried out?
The
novel is, as I’ve already said, a collective
creation. But there is a leader, a “head”, who is
the author, the only one who knows what the future
of the plot is. As soap operas in Brazil have become
such an immense a task, it is impossible for authors
to write them alone, so there is a need for
collaborators or co-authors.
They
do what the author tells them to, and he still has
to adapt their scripts to his style so that the soap
opera doesn’t transform itself into a kind of
“seven-headed monster”. It is a meticulous and
precise task that is like walking on a knife’s edge.
A soap opera, with 200 or so chapters, is always on
the verge of derailment. It’s up to the author to
prevent that from happening and, for this reason,
the secret weapon is stay united with the team
you’re working with.
At
times, soap operas are accused of having a soporific
effect, manipulating reality, creating an ideal
world for viewers. In what way can intellectual
creation, fiction, enrich real events, giving them
another dimension, contributing concepts or values
that operate as elements for the transformation of
social conduct?
All
artistic creation is manipulative. It always creates
an ideal world that, because it is ideal, ends up
becoming a reduction, for good or worse, of reality.
Sincerity in soap operas is based on the daily
events that you’re talking about, the day-to-day
lives of their characters, by striving that they
move steadily closer to the viewers, until they are
mixed with them.
Fiction enriches real events when it gives them
order. It comes from another dimension, and also the
values and concepts are different. Not always, but
sometimes, soap operas transmit to the viewer the
idea that “what is certain is not certain” and that
things “are not always what they seem”. This is the
way they function as a transforming element in
social behavior.
What
would be your advice or recommendations to young
dramatists who would like to become involved in the
genre with the idea of making it go beyond just an
entertaining product?
That
they live their lives. And try and experience as
many situations as possible. Hand themselves over to
the knowledge of other people. Don’t get your hopes
up. A writer is always the product of everything
that he has experienced. For that reason, try to
live without fear. And always take it into account
that viewers are not rag dolls in your hands. They
are human beings capable of walking on their own two
feet. Never think of taking them for stupid. They’ll
realize this and reject it. Always be sincere when
writing your stories and in that way, perhaps,
you’ll go beyond just pure entertainment.
As
you know, the first radio dramas – the direct
precedent of the television soap opera – in the
region began in Cuba, with the famous work El
derecho de nacer, by Félix B. Caignet. Do you know
anything about Cuban telenovelas, their subjects and
writers? Have you felt any interest in exchanging
experiences with other Latin American writers on the
subject of soap operas and literary creation in
general?
I
was, in my younger days, a faithful and fanatical
radio listener to Cuban series transmitted here in
Brazil by “The Grand Theater of Colgate-Palmolive.”
I learnt a lot through them. But I never imagined
that many years later, I would become a writer.
In
terms of current Cuban soap operas, their themes and
writers, I don’t know any. But, of course, I would
be very interested in exchanges experiences with
authors. I’m doing just that with Portuguese writers
at the moment and the method we’re using is very
direct: we get together, from six to 10 writers, and
for a very intensive period we try to produce the
synopsis of the first five chapters of a soap opera.
It is a task based purely on
practice, and for this reason it always works. In
the case of the Portuguese writers, we have the
advantage that we speak the same language. But I
think that the method could also be adopted for use
in another language.
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