Joaquim Pedro de Andrade and Brazilian Modernism

• Grant number: 17/11788-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Effective date (Start): February 05, 2018
• Effective date (End): June 04, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Brazilian Literature
• Principal Investigator: Ivan Francisco Marques
• Grantee: Ivan Francisco Marques
• Host Investigator: John Randal Johnson
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Research place: University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), United States

Abstract

This research project proposes an investigation of the links between Cinema Novo and Modernism - avant-garde movements that happened in Brazil at different times and in different art forms, but marked by similar impasses, typical of peripheral contexts. Decisive for the formation of modern Brazilian cinema, the resumption of the modernist legacy in the 1960s and 1970s took place in many fronts: formal experimentation, linked to the common desire for modernization; the adoption of a nationalist and anti-colonialist ideology; the involvement of artists in political struggle and popular culture; the critical views, of both writers and filmmakers, about the country, the conservative modernization, and the dramas rooted in Brazilian history. The proposal focuses on the study of the work of Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, covering films of different phases and genres. Throughout his work, the director showed his taste for aesthetic research and an obsessive interest in Brazil, traits that led him to a continuous exploration of characters, environment, ideas and preoccupations of Modernism. Thus the proposal is to investigate the contribution of Modernism to the debates about Cinema Novo through the study and the interpretation of the critical, irreverent eye of Joaquim Pedro de Andrade over this movement. The project proposes a four-month pos-doctoral research (from February to May 2018) at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), under the supervision of Professor Randal Johnson, one of the greatest experts in Cinema Novo in the world, who has been engaged in the study of Brazilian literature and cinema since the 1970s. In addition to the research in collections and the interchange with researchers at UCLA, my plan is to seek dialogue with brazilianists from other American universities.