Identities in movement: thinking the national culture by means of the cinema

Abstract

The question of the formation of identities is very important for the so-called cultural studies. In particular national identities, linked automatically to the varied manifestations of popular and mediaculture, have gained increasing space in various research fields. An identity is no longer understood as Cartesian, closed and univocal, but as something plural that embodies paradoxes and oppositions. This study is based on contemporary authors including Stuart Hall, Nestor Canclini, Naomi K. Bhabha and Tzvetan Todorov. The article discurses some contemporary concepts of identity and the formation of a sense of cultural identity. Cinema is used as the basis of the analysis of the identities in transition that are present in the complex Brazilian society, which is reflected in its various problematics in many current films.