At the fabric of ruins: the creative pathway of Douglas Machado on Um Corpo Subterrâneo

• Grant number: 09/13253-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: March 01, 2010
• End date: December 31, 2011
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Cinema
• Principal Investigator: Josette Maria Alves de Souza Monzani
• Grantee: Patrícia Costa Vaz
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research proposes the study of the creative process of Douglas Machado, a filmmaker from Piauí, in the documentary Um Corpo Subterrâneo (2007), with the approach propose by Ceclilia Salles (1998) as basis, while congregating the many steps of the making of the film, with the director´s material that reveal the idealization and concretization of the film. With over twenty years of involvement in audiovisual, Douglas Machado takes a new challenge in working in Um Corpo Subtarraneo in the "search of audiovisual memory of the man from Piauí" , like he says himself. Without a previous study of the characters, Um Corpo Subterraneo takes form only in the moment of the filming. The director goes to graveyards in cities of Piauí (Cajueiro da Praia, Piripiri, Teresina, São Raimundo Nonato, Oeiras e Gilbués) to identify the graves of parents and relatives, rebuild the image of those people. The memory of those habits, behaviors and the image of the objects that surround becomes what Eclea Bosi (1983) calls the "will of revival", a force that solidifies in the present (or eternize) that which was only transitory. This way, the analysis will detain in identifying the process of creation that defines the narrative construction chosen by the author, which privileges the construction of the other trough memory and counts with chance as building block.