Farewell to a master
One of the most influential names in national film criticism, Jean-Claude Bernardet, died on Saturday (7/12), at the age of 88. The information was confirmed by filmmaker Eugênio Puppo, a close collaborator in projects that explored the relationship between cinema and journalism. Friends reported that Bernardet suffered a stroke and was hospitalized at the Samaritano Hospital in São Paulo.
The Belgian-born Brazilian intellectual, HIV-positive, was living with weakened health due to recurring prostate cancer not treated with chemotherapy, and vision problems caused by eye degeneration. The wake is scheduled for Sunday (13th), at the Cinemateca Brasileira, in São Paulo, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. According to Eugênio Puppo, the critic’s daughter, Lígia Bernardet, is traveling from the United States for the funeral.
A life marked by cinema
Born in Belgium in 1936 and raised in Paris, Bernardet arrived in Brazil at the age of 13. His career included acting, directing, screenwriting, teaching, and publications, influencing generations in Brazilian cinema.
The journey began as a cinephile, teacher, and critic. During the 1950s, Bernardet worked at the Brazilian Cinemateca and was part of the Centro Dom Vital cineclub, where he started writing reviews—initially about international filmmakers, later turning his attention to national production and engaging with names from the Cinema Novo movement. His influential texts also supported the vigorous São Paulo cinema, represented by “São Paulo S/A,” by Luis Sergio Person. The reviews led Person to invite him to write “O Caso dos Irmãos Naves,” his debut in the film industry in 1967, based on a real case of torture during the Estado Novo.
Meanwhile, he published “Brasil em Tempo de Cinema” (1967), considered a milestone in the critique of Cinema Novo, and helped create the film course at UnB. The military dictatorship banned him from teaching, so he became an actor, appearing in dozens of films starting with “Anuska, Manequim e Mulher” (1968) and even acting alongside Zé do Caixão in “O Profeta da Fome” (1969). In 1970, he joined filmmaker João Batista de Andrade to start his career as a director, co-authoring three consecutive documentaries – “Paulicéia Fantástica” (1970), “Eterna Esperança” (1971) and “Vera Cruz” (1972). In 1974, he also wrote “A Noite do Espantalho,” by Sergio Ricardo, and then dedicated himself to books.
The career after the end of the dictatorship
A Amnesty of 1980 returned him to classes at USP and fueled his literary production. In total, Bernadet published 25 books, including critiques, historiography and fiction, with titles such as “Piranha in the Sea of Roses” (1982), “Cinematographers and Images of the People” (1985), “Flight of Angels: a study on the Creation Process in the Work of Bressane and Sganzerla” (1990), “The Author in Cinema” (1994), “Classical Historiography of Brazilian Cinema” (1995), “The Illness, an Experience” (1996) and “Kiarostami’s Paths” (2004).
Cinematic writing also continued in films by Tata Amaral, such as “A Sky of Stars” (1996), “Through the Window” (2000), and “Today” (2011). She also wrote and starred in “FilmFobia” (2008) and “Periscope” (2013), by Kiko Goifman, “Hunger” (2015), by Cristiano Burlan, and “A Night Is Nothing” (2019), by Alain Fresnot. She also returned to directing with the short film “São Paulo – Symphony and Dissonance” (1994), which gathered fragments from 100 films shot in the capital, and the feature film “#eagoraoque” (2020), made in partnership with Rubens Rewald. She was awarded four times at the Brasília Film Festival, three of them as Screenwriter (“The Case of the Naves Brothers,” “A Sky of Stars,” and “Today”) and the fourth as an actor (“FilmFobia”).
Fight against diseases and last works
In recent decades, however, Bernardet has faced persistent struggles with his health. He was diagnosed with HIV in the 1990s and also suffered from recurring prostate cancer, choosing not to undergo chemotherapy because he considered the side effects “aggressive.” To make matters worse, his eyesight deteriorated due to a retinal degeneration that seriously impaired his vision. In his book “O Corpo Crítico” (2021), Bernardet criticized the medical system that prioritizes profit over patients’ quality of life. He described his condition with harsh words: “I live in a climate of death, I breathe death. […] Oppression suffocates me.”
Until the end, he remained intellectually active. In August 2024, he received an exclusive retrospective at CCBB in São Paulo, Brasília and Rio de Janeiro, highlighting the films in which he participated as director, screenwriter or actor. In the same year, he co-directed the short film “A Última Valsa” (2024) with Fábio Rogério and acted in “Ulisses”, by Cristiano Burlan, his last work on screen.
How did Brazilian cinema react to the loss of Bernardet?
The Brazilian Film Library, where Bernardet worked and whose collection preserves documents of the critic, expressed its sorrow in a statement: “a central and unavoidable figure in the thought and cultural production in Brazil, in the national film historiography.” The Jean-Claude Bernardet Archive, donated in 1988, received new contributions from the author himself in the following years. “A name of unmatched importance in film studies in Brazil, he had an exceptional ability for comprehensive analysis, believing in the dialogue between criticism and film production.”
A Abraccine recalled the book “Bernardet 80: Impact and Influence on Brazilian Cinema” (2017), edited by Ivonete Pinto and Orlando Margarido. “At the time of the launch, Ivonete Pinto highlighted Bernardet as ‘the most productive intellectual in action; the most controversial, the most inventive, and who has the most varied interests within cinema.’ Orlando Margarido emphasized Bernardet as ‘a thinker constantly seeking to redefine himself.'”
Anna Muylaert, director of “Where Is She Going?”, wrote on social media: “Jean Claude, a national treasure, left this world, and with him, some of the beauty of the restless and profound world that he taught us to see. Thank you, master, for being so much and so many things. Forever in our hearts and minds.”
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