The Performative Force of Bodies: Affective Realism in Contemporary Brazilian Cinema

Autores

  • Alessandra Brandão Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
  • Ramayana Lira de Sousa Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2015v68n3p161

Resumo

This paper traces the emergence of a younger generation of Brazilian filmmakers whose works bypass traditional themes in Brazilian cinema such as urban violence and historical revisionism to engage in post-identity politics avoiding narratives of nation, class and gender. One of the most prominent features in these recent works is a questioning of the status of the image, which vacillates between fiction and documentary without a point of resolution. This vacillation can be understood in terms of the performative nature of films like The Monsters, The Residents, The Earth Giveth, The Earth Taketh and Avenida Brasilia Formosa. Such films are centered around improvisations that open up the image to the real. Therefore, these films produce a space between fiction and documentary, between reality and artifice that is productive and politically charged. This proposal aims at discussing this “Brand New” Brazilian Cinema (Novísssimo Cinema Brasileiro) and the performative force of bodies in its affective realism. No longer a referent for a sociological truth about Brazilian society, realism is taken as something that the image does, i. e., as an affect that challenges the viewer's response-ability. 

Biografia do Autor

Alessandra Brandão, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina

Alessandra Brandão was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Leeds (2012-2013) and is Professor of Film Studies and Literary Theory at the Graduate Program in Language Sciences at Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina. She co-edited Políticas dos Cinemas Latino-Americanos Contemporâneos (2012), and Cinema, Globalização, Transculturalidade (2013) and A Sobrevivência das Imagens (2015); published in Brazil, Argentina and the U.S. about Latin American and Brazilian Cinemas, Gender, and the politics of film.

Ramayana Lira de Sousa, Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina

Ramayana Lira de Sousa is Professor of Film and Literary Studies at Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina. She conducted post-doctoral research at University of Leeds and was a Fulbright grantee in the U.S. She has published articles, chapters and reviews on Latin American and Brazilian cinemas, gender and film and the politics of films in Brazil, Argentina, Romania, Portugal and the U.S. She also co-edited three books, A Sobrevivência das Imagens (with Alessandra Brandão), Cinema, Transculturalidade, Gloabalização (with Alessandra Brandão and Anelise Corseuil), and Políticas dos Cinemas Latino-Americanos (with Alessandra Brandão and Dilma Juliano). 

Publicado

2015-10-01